Women's health with Dr Rasheedah

Hope you're all well and this post finds you in the best of health. So this week I thought it will be useful to talk about fibroids as a follow up to last week's post on heavy periods  here .  First thing to say is fibroids are very common! They are non-cancerous growths that develop in or around the womb.Most women are unaware that they have fibroids but it is estimated that about 1 in 3 women with fibroids will go on to experience symptoms from it. Black women are 3-5 times more likely to develop fibroids and also typically present with multiple fibroids at an earlier age which are larger and present with more severe symptoms. Fibroids are more likely to present in women aged 30-50 and it is not completely understood what determines who gets fibroids. It is more common in obese women due to an increased level of oestrogen in this population and having children has been found to be a protective factor (women who have had children have a lower risk of developing fibro...

Hello ladies! Apologies for the hiatus, needed to reboot! So if it’s not already obvious from the title, this week I thought it’ll be good to discuss heavy periods- medical term ‘ Menorrhagia’ This is perhaps the most common gynaecology complaint across the world and I’ve been asked a few questions on the topic so let’s try to address it. Like I always say, this post is a guide and in no way replaces a face to face consultation with a qualified medical professional  https://drraghuramys.wordpress.com/tag/menorrhagia/ It's often very difficult to define exactly what a heavy period is because it varies from woman to woman. We are all unique in our different ways and a heavy period for one woman may be normal for another. Most women will lose less than 16 teaspoons of blood (80ml) during their period, with the average being around 6 to 8 teaspoons.  Heavy menstrual bleeding is defined as losing 80ml or more in each period or having periods that last longer than 7 ...

This next subject is quite the multi-tasker and someone I’ve admired for a while. She’s a mum, entrepreneur, designer and more recently  has started a skin and hair care line for kids. She’s understandably quite busy so we’ve done the interview through WhatsApp! Again I’ve left it largely unedited as I always like women to tell their stories in their own words. - Introduce yourself in your own words? I am maryam Adebola-Salami I am a business owner and entrepeneur. I am a mum of 2 and a freelance counsellor. -A bit about your background Im 28years old, Zoologist by books, HR professional and creative director at my fashion brand M’ADE. - Family background I’m gracefully married with 2 kids, coincedentally my marriage clocked 4yrs just few days ago. Both myself and husband are the first of both families so lies on us many responsibilities. -Situation surrounding your diagnosis? I have been diagnosed with possible endometriosis in the early years and chronic PID which i...

I thought this would be good time to do a question and response post. This post is a compilation of some questions I have been asked via e-mail or messages on social media accounts.  For ease, I thought it would be useful to split questions based on topics. Here it goes: Contraceptives and the Nigerian woman Question :I have had very heavy bleeding with the coil, recently I have been given injections to control bleeding as I bleed 26-27 days non stop but this doesn't seem to be helping. What will you reccommend? Reply: What IUD did you have was it a Copper coil or Mirena coil??   The Mirena coil is really good at controlling heavy bleeding so perhaps if what you had was a copper coil, you can try a mirena coil. My concern is the ongoing bleeding, have you had a formal examination or further tests such as an Ultrasound scan and smear tests to make sure that nothing else is going on. Whilst the symptoms might be due to contraception it is important that ongoing bleeding...

This post is not about the actual diagnosis of cervical cancer, it is about reducing our risk! Nigeria has a population of 50.33 million women ages 15 years and older who are at risk of developing cervical cancer. Current estimates indicate that every year 14089 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 8240 die from it. This is huge! Cervical cancer ranks as the 2nd most frequent cancer among women in Nigeria and the 2nd most frequent cancer among women between 15 and 44 years of age. About 3.5% of women in the general population are estimated to harbour cervical HPV-16/18 infection at a given time, and 66.9% of invasive cervical cancers are attributed to HPVs 16 or 18.(hpvcentre.net). Data from different studies in Nigeria show that many women do not view cervical cancer as a a common disease and a lot of women view pap smears as only for the elite. Cervical cancer is on the rise but the screening uptake remains suboptimal. This is sad given that it  is a highly ...