Paper Illustration: Nica Patricio, Photo: Erik Putz
The year she turned 32, Ruth Aza Mcdonough didn?t know why it suddenly hurt so much to have sex with her husband. Or why her period had become so irregular and, when it did arrive, why it was suddenly so heavy and painful. Unfortunately, her doctor didn?t know either.
An ultrasound revealed nothing. A trip to the ER had doctors suspecting kidney stones. After almost a year of discomfort and worry, an internal ultrasound finally revealed a fibroid the size of a grapefruit on the back of her uterus. ?I didn?t even know what a fibroid was,? she says.
The elementary school teacher from Grimsby, Ont., went straight to the Internet. She was terrified the fibroid might prevent her from getting pregnant. Dr. Google confirmed what her doctor had already told her: Depending on the size and location of the fibroid, it could make getting pregnant more difficult and increase her risk of having a miscarriage if she was able to conceive. ?I cried and cried,? she says. Why (we think) women get fibroids

One in three women will develop uterine fibroids at some point in her life, but doctors still don?t really know why. The hormones estrogen and progesterone seem to stimulate fibroid growth, which may explain the reason they crop up in women of reproductive age and tend to shrink after menopause. There may be a genetic link (if your mother had fibroids, you?re more likely to get them), and black women are up to five times more likely to dev...