Britt Julious remembers going to the nurse’s office in high school and joining the rows of girls lying on cots. They weren’t there because they had a cold or the flu. Like Julious, they were there because of their periods.
“It’s hard to be 15 or 16 years old and you’re trying to pay attention in algebra, and all you can think about is how you want to puke,” Julious, a 31-year-old writer in Chicago, told TODAY.
“I would come home from school because I couldn’t function. I couldn’t sit up in my chair.”
Julious was only 10 years old when she got her period. Soon after, intense cramps began and continued throughout her adolescence into adulthood, when she learned she had uterine fibroids.
Painful periods are a symptom of fibroids, or noncancerous growths in the uterus. But for many women, pain alone isn’t reason to see a doctor. In fact, numerous women told TODAY they were taught that pain is simply part of being a woman.
Now a new wave of doctors and organizations want to tell people that’s not true.
BUT FIRST, WHAT ARE FIBROIDS?
Fibroids are benign tumors in a woman’s uterus. They’re most common during a woman’s childbearing years, but can develop at any age. Fibroids can be as small as a seedling or bigger than a grapefruit, and women can have one, two, three or many.
Fibroids are common but doctors do not know why some women develop them. Genetics play a factor: Women with a family history of fibroids are more likely to develop them. And black women are especially at risk. Up to 80% of black women will develop fibroids before they turn 50, and up to 70% of white women will develop fibroids before they turn 50, according to research. For black women, fibroids are often more severe and occur earlier, according to Dr. Elizabeth Stewart, a fibroids specialist and professor of obstetrics and gynecology and surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
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