https://anchor.fm/niamey-thomas/embed/episodes/Enduring-Fibroids-e1gec42/a-a1bgp4f

Niamey:

What's up, everybody? It's your girl Niamey with Diggin in with Niamey. If this is your first time on the pod welcome, if you've been here before. Welcome back, family.

I'm really excited about today's episode because I am joined with this amazing woman named Phyllis.

She goes by the fibroid Queen on Instagram. She's a nurse, fitness trainer, and she coaches women on their nutritional health, hormonal weight loss, fibroids, and other things.

This episode is a really good episode. She shared a lot of information that I just wasn't aware of. Fibroids is yet another condition that affects women. And it's something that we don't really talk about. And it's something that is still hard to diagnose. And so this is a great conversation to have. One thing I got from this is a deep, deep understanding with one's body. It's important that we understand our body, that we know how it works, that we know what's normal to ourselves and to our bodies.

That's the best way we can advocate for ourselves when we are paying attention to ourselves. And so we talk about that a little bit. We talk about mental health. We talk about community a little bit. And then also we discuss advocating for oneself and being able to really just stand up and speak up when you know something in your body feels off and something isn't right. So as always, listen to this episode and also you can check out the show notes. And then Show Notes will be some links to information that she shared and where you can find Ms. Phyllis. So enjoy.

Phyllis: My name is Phyllis, founder of Fibroid Queen, and I am a nurse, fitness and yoga coach. I have my own personal story with uterine fibroids. I've been able to turn my pain into power and now helping other women around the world do the same. I was first diagnosed about twelve years ago, and that was in my first year of nursing school. Through just a routine, well woman's exam, I did explore to the doctor that I was having symptoms that are common when it comes to urine fibroids, like heavy bleeding, fatigue, pain, I mean, debilitating pain, and also dealing with just urinary frequency. So through being able to persist on an ultrasound, because I knew that there was something going on, just didn't know what exactly. But being able to persist with the doctor, even though she downplayed it, they were able to do an ultrasound to confirm there was fibroids going on my uterus. And for those that may be listening and this is new to you or you may be experiencing some similar symptoms, fibroids are pretty common. It's a silent pandemic.

And what it actually is, it's abnormal gross. I call it a hormonal challenge. Right. So it's abnormal gross that may appear in and or around your uterus. And it's crazy that up to 80% of women will get uterine fibroids at some point in their lifetime, and women of color make up a huge percentage of that. But guess what? Only about 20% experience the symptomatic fibroids. It's kind of crazy because we see more of that versus those that have it and are doing okay. And that's the thing. If you're not aware of these symptoms, you could be walking around here and not knowing that you're dealing with this. So there's quite a bit of women out here that may not realize they do have uterine fibroids growing on their uterus. So I would like to stop there, Niamey, and kind of just kind of give an overview of how fireboards looks like statistics wise and also what it is and kind of go from there. Yeah.

Niamey: I did a little information and research that I could and there are different types of fibroids. And based on the type of fibroids you would have would be on where the growth is developing in location according to the uterus, like where the location is, is there a specific type of fibroids you had?

Phyllis: Yeah. So for the main part, there's about four different types. And from ranging from in the muscle to out of the muscle on the uterus, inside the uterus outside of uterus. So I was dealing with pendeculated fibroids and what that is if you just imagine a tree stock growing from the ground. So your uterus is the ground and the fibroids are growing. So they can be growing outside of the uterus, which was the ones I was dealing with, or they can be growing inside the uterus. So location matters.

And I'm glad that you asked that because it does determine quite a few things when it comes to fertility, because a lot of women always ask, am I going to be compromised or am I going to be able to bear children? And you absolutely can. Fibroids themselves don't cause any infertility. It's the symptoms and the stress that it causes to the body as well as the location. That is the things that need to be considered. So pendeculated are the ones that I happen to be dealing with outside the uterus.

Niamey: Thank you for sharing that. And then so according to what I'm looking at, there needs to be in order to be diagnosed. The process is through ultrasound. Did you also do a pelvic MRI or did they confirm it through ultrasound? And that was all they need to do?

Phyllis: Yeah, that's a good question. So self awareness is key. That's something that we're not given for at least most women growing up. When you get your cycle, you're not told how to be a woman in this environment. Your hormones are going to change. You're not given any of that work up. So most of us are going through life really not knowing what's going on below our belly button have no idea. The more in tune you are, the more you can possibly catch this on your own. Right. So I had a little bit of that going, knowing that I was pretty in tune at an early age, but just downplayed it and also knowing that I was able to witness my mom go through this journey as well. She ended up getting a partial hysterectomy in her late 40s due to the work of uterine fibroid.

So having those two things, when I started experiencing those symptoms, I kind of already knew. But yes, for most women, you're going to want to go and get an ultrasound if you're experiencing not only that, it could be digestive issues like bloating, gas, constipation. I can't tell you countless amount of clients that I talked to who said that they went into the ER for whether it be any digestive issues, their gallbladder. Yes, gallbladder was inflamed or something like that. Not knowing that it was related to the fibroids. So knowing that an ultrasound is going to be the best. And then secondly, an MRI would also reflect a more specific picture of the uterus. Both of these images are not accurate. Right. But you just know that at least the MRI can give you a little bit more insight.

Niamey: Phyllis goes by Fibroid Queen on Instagram. And you have created a very large follow base and space where you can do consultations and spaces to help women through their journey with fibroids. Because of that, I looked through some of your things and I recent post that you posted said that you were also diagnosed with PCOS, but it was mixed diagnosed, from my understanding. Can you explain a little bit about that?

Phyllis: Oh, my I love that you bring this up because it's yet so downplay, but it's happening at an alarming rate. But I would say really knowing yourself and doing the research before even going to the doctor at this point, I feel like you have to be aware and go to the doctor for confirmation versus getting education. That's kind of unfortunately what's been set up. So I went for the doctor for a typical exam and knowing that I was previously diagnosed with uterine fibroids, she asked me some questions and just a couple of questions in regards to my cycle and then determine that I have PCOS based on that information. And you think about that and not getting the proper work up, not getting some more information, diving deep into my history as well as some labs and so on, just to confirm if I am growing any cyst, if I do indeed have PCOS, which is hard to diagnose because there's four different types, but at least the effort of that versus just saying, oh, just telling me and then writing down on her nurses, her doctor's notes that I had history of PCOS and I refused birth control. Yes, I refused birth control at the time. I didn't understand why I needed to be on birth control.

Knowing that I was having these issues, it didn't make sense to me even back then. So knowing that, I followed my intuition because she really wanted me to get on that drug, she really wanted me to get on birth control. And unfortunately, healthcare is a business. And at the end of the day, if you're not a doctor who's beyond just the money and really looking to help in taking that oath that you do as a doctor and really looking to help others beyond and have a passion for it, they're going to be stuck in that world of business.

And that business can really put others who are just following their lead at risk and doing things and getting on drugs that are not helping our situation but just going in circles. So being able to post that today, I've had so much feedback from other women around the world who said that happened to me. It just really confirms this is why I wake up every day. This is why my destiny is to pass this on and help millions of people around the world in regards to helping them activate their room space with healthy eating, recognizing their stress. Are you living asking themselves questions? Are you living the life you're supposed to be living and activating that space to activate the mind and really live the life that they need to live and rewrite their DNA to pass down to their offspring? So I say that because I feel a lot of us women are living in the mind of our ancestors and in this environment, that's just not going to work. We are out of alignment from a spiritual, mental, physical realm just out of alignment. And these five words are here to remind us of that. And that is why I feel that uterine fibroids is common in women of color for a reason.

And I also feel that fibroids just don't happen. And I'm sick and tired of hearing medical professionals, especially those who are not of color. Oh, it just happens. We don't know the specific. Yeah, we do. If there's no chronic inflammation, there's no opportunity for abnormal growth. We are living in a life filled with things that are setting our bodies off from the pads that we use to what we put on our skin to the hormones that are in the food that in a woman of color, our bodies are very vulnerable to those changes. So if we're not doing things beyond a workout or a diet, we are going to be at risk. We have to address our emotional health. We cannot be walking around with unresolved issues from things that happened ten years ago, 20 years ago, or you may have been born into something, right? Energy never destroys. It passes down from generation to generation. So these diseases that were passing down like uterine fibroid, the uterine fibroid challenge is just repeating itself until we wake up and change the game.