Fibroid is a major challenge among many African women. There are a lot of Nigerian women who suffer from it. It is a problem that has been with us for so many years and it keeps coming back. It is the most common of all pelvic tumours in women. It is composed essentially of muscle tissue although there is a variable amount of fibrous connective tissue as well.
The incidence of fibroid depends on Age and Race. It is quite high in Nigerian women with over 80% of those above 25 years of age, having fibroids if only of the size of a seedling. The vast majority of these fibroids are not symptomatic. Fibroids are more common in Blacks, 3–9 times more than in Whites. They occur after menarche i.e. after the first menstruation of a girl child and the majority would undergo atrophy at menopause.
The issue of fibroid is of great concern to many fertility experts as it is a major cause of infertility among women. This was the reason the City People team comprising of Publisher, SEYE KEHINDE, DAMILARE SALAMI and Videographer, OLAOLUWA OGUNTOYINBO recently quizzed popular Lagos based fertility expert, DR ABAYOMI AJAYI, the MD & Founder of Nordica Fertility Center who explained how Nigerian women will now begin to treat fibroids, without any surgery.
Below are excerpts from the interview, enjoy it.
Looking back sir at the 18 years of Nordica, how does it make you feel?
Yes, mixed feelings. I think we have done a little bit but we could have done a lot better if the environment had been a little bit more conducive. And we are still going to do more by God’s grace. You know we are going to open a fibroid center by next month. Not endoscopic surgery, without surgery at all. The equipment we are going to use for that is in the port now. We are trying to clear it. So, we’ve entered into a partnership with these Chinese people who are the manufacturers of the machine and they are going to be training our own guys for about three months. That also just fell in at the right time not because of anything I had done particularly, I just think that my life has been wonderful.
There’s a lot to talk about but I quickly want to dwell more on treating fibroids without surgery. Is it a new technology or development?
It’s a completely new development. It is called HIFU, High Intensity Focused Ultrasound. It is the first in Nigeria. Yea, it is a little bit on the new side but what I say sometimes is that Oyinbo people don’t have two heads. Whatever they can have we can also have here; we are just the ones that have cheated ourselves and that’s why I also believe that the future is with the private sector. Nobody invests his money and wants it to go away. It’s only the government that can afford to do that because it is nobody’s money. Look at you now, after 25 years, you are here conducting an interview. Imagine that it’s a government thing now, will you be here? No way, it can never happen. I believe that the government should just give us what the minimum standards are and set the tone for what they should do and if they don’t follow the standard, the government will come after you via the police. But when the government wants to run business, most times they are not able to do that.
The issue of fibroids, how come it’s very important to us in Nigeria?
Well, I think it’s a black man’s disease. Black disease means that it is not limited to only Nigeria. Blacks in the US also have it more than the whites. It’s supposed to be a genetic thing but we have not been able to identify the particular gene responsible for it. But we know that it runs in families because of the gene. There is a lot of works going on, on it.
How come we are beginning to hear more of it recently. Is it a recent disease?
It’s always been here, just that our consciousness of general healthcare has improved. You see women who are sixty now trying to look like they are thirty or forty except at seven pm when they are about to sleep, that’s when they bring out their real faces.
Why is it that fibroids keep coming back even after surgery? I have spoken to a few women who have it and that has been their experience.
Oh yes, because the stimulant is still in the system and that is one of the problems we have as Africans. We are blessed with very big fibroids and because we still don’t know what the stimulant is, it keeps coming back after treatment. There are two ways that that can happen, it is either the primary surgery left some things inside or it’s a new growth. Most of the time, it’s always difficult to differentiate between both. Those are the two ways that this happens.
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