- A women's health educator is opening up about her years-long struggle with uterine fibroids.
- Erica Chidi, 35, told "Good Morning America" that she underwent two procedures to have them removed.
- Black women have a higher risk of developing uterine fibroids, according to the National Library of Medicine.
A women's health educator and podcaster opened up about a years-long health challenge after doctors found 23 fibroids in her uterus — equivalent to the weight of a second-trimester pregnancy.
Erica Chidi, founder of women's health platform LOOM and co-host of the Goop podcast, talked about her experience with uterine fibroids in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" published Friday. Uterine fibroids are benign tumors that may grow in and around the uterus, according to a medically reviewed report by Insider's Carla Delgado.
These fibroids are most common in people with uteruses in their 30s to 40s and become less common after menopause, according to the Office on Women's Health. Factors like race, family history, and eating habits all affect a person's risk of developing fibroids.
Chidi, 35, who is also a doula, told GMA that she started experiencing persistent bloating, cramps, heavy menstrual bleeding, and exhaustion around six years ago. Although she went to the OB-GYN for yearly check-ups, Chidi said she had to get a transvaginal ultrasound after she showed her doctor a large, hard lump in her stomach.
The transvaginal ultrasound — which the National Cancer Institute describes as an imaging procedure used to look at the vagina, uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries, and the bladder — found 10 uterine fibroids. She told GMA the largest was the size of a grapefruit.
"I was really shocked by how many were found. My uterus was stretched to about 10 weeks of pregnancy ... which is why I was having so much bloating and also explaining the bleeding," Chidi told the outlet.
Chidi said she underwent several procedures to have the fibroids removed
Chidi said she found some relief after undergoing an endometrial ablation in 2019, a minimally invasive procedure that treats heavy menstrual bleeding, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
Unfortunately, Chidi's symptoms returned two years later. Doctors then found 23 uterine fibroids in her uterus, which GMA reports is the equivalent weight of a 6-month pregnancy. This time, she chose to do a myomectomy, which is a surgical procedure that removes uterine fibroids without removing the uterus, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Chidi's three-hour surgery in April left her feeling better than she had in years, even though a full recovery is expected to take six months. On May 27, she shared a before and after video of herself on Instagram, highlighting the change in her body's physical appearance.
In the caption, Chidi said that a key moment for her was acknowledging that she had body dysmorphia before her myomectomy.
"My surgery was life-affirming," she said. "It's given me the chance to befriend my body again and slowly work towards replacing feelings of harshness with gentleness."
Chidi did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Black women have a three-fold higher risk of developing uterine fibroids
According to the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health, "fibroids are more common in African Americans compared with women of other races and thus can present major health problems among African American women."
The reason for this is unclear, and more studies are needed to understand the correlation between race and the condition, as Insider previously reported.
Chidi told GMA she wanted to share her story after learning how common uterine fibroids are among Black women.
"The sooner that you can bring it to the table the better, in the sense that there are things that can be done sometimes to help fibroids when they are really small," she said. "By the time I found mine, they were really large and surgery was going to be the only intervention that could help."