July is fibroid awareness month, a time dedicated to shedding light on the condition that affects millions of women. Today, actress Lupita Nyong’o opened up about her experience with uterine fibroids on Instagram.
“I’m speaking up about uterine fibroids. This is my story,” she captioned the carousel post. “This Fibroid Awareness Month and beyond, I hope my experience will resonate with anyone else who has ever felt dismissed, confused, or alone. And I hope to seek answers for the far too many women dealing with uterine fibroids (80% of Black women and 70% of white women by age 50!). We deserve better. It’s time to demand it. Silence serves no one!”
In a series of pictures, Nyong’o goes back to March 2014. Sharing a selfie of her herself moments after winning her first Oscar Award, the actress revealed that that same year she discovered she had 30 uterine fibroids.
“I had surgery to remove them,” she wrote. “[When] I asked my doctor if I could do anything to prevent them from recurring, she said: ‘You can’t. It’s only a matter of time until they grow again.’”
The office of Women’s Health describes uterine fibroids as benign (non-cancerous) muscular tumors that grow in and around the walls of the uterus. As Nyong’o explains in her post, these fibroids can range from the size of a pea to the size of a melon and can cause a variety of symptoms for women including: heavy, prolonged menstrual bleeding, pelvic pain, constipation, frequent urination, complications with pregnancy, and more.
“When we reach puberty, we’re taught that periods mean pain, and that pain is simply part of being a woman,” Nyong’o noted, explaining that it was only private conversations with women that made her realize how common this mentality is. For instance, earlier this month, tennis star Venus Williams revealed that doctors dismissed her painful fibroid symptoms for years. Despite continuously voicing her concerns, Williams recalls doctors downplaying the crippling pain until she did her own research and found NYU Langone Health Center for Fibroid Care.
“We’re struggling alone with something that affects most of us. We need to stop treating this massive issue like a series of unfortunate coincidences. We must reject the moralization of pain,” Nyong’o continued. “I envision a future with early education for teenagers, better screening protocols, robust prevention research and less invasive treatments for uterine fibroids.”
And the star is already working towards creating the change she hopes to see. Nyong’o joined Congresswomen Shontel Brown, Yvette D. Clarke, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Robin Kelly and Senators Angela Alsobrooks and Lisa Blunt Rochester in Washington D.C. to introduce a package of Congressional bills on uterine fibroids that “would expand research funding, increase early detection and interventions for uterine fibroids, study the causes of uterine cancer, and increase public awareness.”
Additionally, the “Us” actress has partnered with the Foundation for Women’s Health to launch the “FWH x Lupita Nyong’o Uterine Fibroid Research Grant” which will seek research proposals to develop minimally invasive or non-invasive treatments for uterine fibroids to reduce symptoms and improve quality of life for the 15 million patients suffering from this chronic condition in the U.S. alone,” she wrote encouraging her followers to learn more and get involved.
In a statement shared on FWH’s website, Nyong’o revealed that 10 years after her initial discovery, she is struggling with fibroids again.
“I am facing the same battle, this time with twice as many fibroids. But something has changed: I’m no longer willing to suffer in silence,” she shared. “I’m speaking up because silence serves no one. The presence of pain is a signal that something must change…We deserve better. It’s time to demand it.”
