life as much as other patients, do they value my voice as much as other patients. as you mentioned zerlina, uterine fibroids is another area where there is significant disparity in pregnancy and outside of pregnancy and a huge percentage of a woman s life where she may not be pregnant but the fibroids can persist, they are benign tumors that grow in the wall of the uterus and the leading cause of hysterectomy in the united states, and more than endometrial cancer and uterine cancer and we know black women are significantly higher risk of developing fibe roids and they have disproportionate experiences to determine how they re treated for their fibe roids and if they re treated for their fibroids. so one group of women may be told just have a hysterectomy for that, another group of women may be told, you know, have a,
the muscle around the uterus. 80% of women suffer from fibroids. black women are at higher risk of developing fibroids. there say general et uk component as to why fibroids do affect women of color disproportionately. unfortunately there is not enough research behind that to really identify those layers and really offense particular genes. when i would lay down, you kind of see this mountain, you know, like flat stomach, mountain and then i thought, huh, i wonder what this is? that little mountain was the fibroid. i finally got a name for it. now i can fix it. what was supposed to be 30 minutes was 6, 7 hours. when he went in, he said there was endemee tree oes is lesion efrz where. when he came out, his first comment to us was how did you bear there for so long? finally, somebody sees me and
that was the beginning of a 25-year journey before i got a diagnosis. i responded not like a doctor would. make sure she starts taking tylenol a few days before the period. i would increase the amount a couple times a day. after 30 years, it takes a toll. for someone to just dismiss you and say, yeah, i hear you re in pain but just do this, you start to think, well, i guess this is a me problem. fibroids are ab overgrowth of
like you would never understand unless you ve endured it. i have worn this dress only one time. this was the dress i had on when the doctors told me they couldn t find my little boy s heartbeat. when she said could you hold on a second, i m going go get the doctor, i just lost it. i m so sad. and i m so broken. i have not been able to will myself to wear it again. i just kind of hide it in had the closet somewhere. my name is ada. i stopped ivf after number eight. my diagnosis was stage four endometriosis, diffuse and multiple fibroids. we have been trying for ten
there are three areas that we are pursuing in terms of why this may be the case. the first is, is there an increase in genetic predisposition that gives black women a greater risk of having miscarriage? we know black women are more likely to have certain conditions like fibroids, a condition called sle diabetes and so on, and these can increase the risk of miscarriage. the second area we are pursuing is whether the cause could be the increase in risk and could be the increase in risk and could be the increase in risk and could be related to social and lifestyle factors such as diet and housing and so on. the third is, of course, access to health care. we know black and other ethnic minority women have difficulties in terms of accessing health care and that could compromise their chances of having good outcomes. so there are many avenues that need to be pursued, answers are not there yet, we need