Dr Linda Ayade, Cross Rivers State 1st lady was among Southern Governors Wife who attended the 2017 Southern Governors Wife Forum in Ogun state. The Forum had their 2017 meeting in Abeokuta the Ogun State Capital and part of their task was for each of the first ladies to speak on a particular topic that will help women generally , Dr Linda Ayade spoke briefly on Commom Female Health Issues And How to Avoid Them.
In her lecture she said “There are quite a few of them , but i will narrow it down to the ones that are actually creating a lot of problems in the society today , we all know that cancer is a monster that us taking a lot of lives in our society today , we all know a lot of women are dying, leaving their children orphaned and their husband widowered, due to what we call cancer, and as a woman God created us in a peculiar way and we have some organs in our body that are also prone to cancer , that is one of the reason i decided to narrow it down to cancer and talk briefly on sexual transmitted diseases .
I will like to call your attention to the prevailing statistics of cancer today in Nigeria. Every year , at least a hundred thousand of new cases are diagnosed with cancer. Although cancer affects everyone but we are talking about women cancer, and out of this hundred thousand cases 70percent dont survive it ,which means seven out of ten cancer patient dies , so you see how serious it is , so we must talk about cancer and educate ourselves on how we can prevent it.
The cancers that affect women most are breast cancer , cancer of the cervix, which is at the mouth of the womb and the cancer of the womb itself, medically called endometrial cancer , those are the very three common cancer in women, we also have cancer of the thyroid, but am talking genealogy today , in respect to women.
So cancer of the breat , the best approach to the survival of cancer is the prevention and early detection, and how do we prevent it , because it comes so violently, so we need to watch out for the signs , so that immediately we are able to do something, because once they detect it early , the chances that you will survive it are higher, so our aim is to be able to detect it early , in that case , as a woman you have to be vigilant, be watchful of yourself and your body , always try , if you have privileges to go for a screening, always take advantage of it , most of my sister’s here organised free screening for women , and once you know that it is going on , take advantage of the opportunity, there is a lot you can do for yourself, as long as you are still breathing, if you have the funds to go for screening on your own at clinics, just make it a routine.
The only way you can know that something is wrong is checking yourself, a lot of women dont know how to but i will just run through it, in the privacy of your room , take off you top and stand in front of a mirror , your hands at akimbo and your shoulder straight, then check the size of your breast , the symetry, i.e., are they looking the same , then check for the colour of your skin around your breast , is there any change in colour, is there anything looking different , if you are satisfied, you proceed, the second stage is palpation, because cancer normally is a growth, an abnormal cell growing and invading into the good cells , and as they are growing you begin to feel it , the lump on the breast , how do you check for it ? While standing, raise your hands up and begin to palpate , make sure you gather all your breast, you could start from the nipple area , we palpate to check for the surface tissues and be sure that you have touched everywhere , start from the nipple, go round everywhere until you reach the end , come towards your armpit because breast tissue extends to the armpit, so make sure you palpate that armpit area too.
Then you do a deeper palpation, use the whole of your fingers to do this , so you press firmly this time , so that you can feel the deeper tissues of your breast , and you go all the way round again , touch your nipple area a bit firmer and if you feel anything like a lump you need to visit your doctor for a propet check, to confirm that the lump is not cancerous then if it is cancerous, there will be major steps to take to save your life , do the palpation for both breast while you are standing, so people prefer to do this in the shower because when the skin is watery and slippery they find it easier to palpate , so if you think it is easier for you to do it in the shower, feel free to do that .
The second stage is for you to lie down , you lie down and put one hand over your head and do the same thing as when standing, that is how to check your breast and you do this once every month , and it is best to do it after your period, for those who mensturate , and once you find any lumps like I have said before plz dont jeep it to youraelf , so they can do futher test to confirm .
So I will talk briefly on cervical cancer, cervical cancer is always at the entrance of the womb , its the opening at the entrance of the womb , it ia very common in women who are thirty five years and above , and there also screening you can do to check for cervical cancer, all you need to is go to a medical centre to check yourself and also speak with a medical doctor that is how you check for a cervical cancer, but how do you know if there is a problem coming up , for cervical cancer , the only thing that shows once you have it is bleeding , we call it contact bleeding , which occurs during or shortly after sex , it also depends on the stage that it gets to , you begin bleed abnormal, you will know that this ia not a period, you are bleeding in between periods , or you have reached menopause and you see yourself bleeding , then it is a red flag for you to go have your cervix checked to be sure that nothing bad or sinister is happening there .
There is a virus that is implicated in cervical cancer, we call it human papilloma virus , it is only sexually transmitted, 99.7percent of cases of cervical cancer, you find out these women have been exposed to this virus in the past , it is very much implicated and it is sexually transmitted , however there are some other things that will pre dispose you to cervical cancer is when you are having too many sexual partners is your life, this already pre dispose you to the virus called Human Papilloma Virus HPV, since you are active sexually with too many sexual partners, and also if you have too many pregnancies and children, because its always exposing the cervix to manipulation, or too many abortions too, anyone who falls into all these categories should know that they are more pre diapose to catching the virus, therefore make sure you go for check up, prevention we say is better than cure , and in this case prevention is the key.
The cancer of the womb, called Endometrial cancer, can happen to any woman , but it is more rampant in women from 45 to 74years , that is where we have it more commonly , but there is no screening for endometrial cancer, therefore you only watch out for the signs, and also the pre disposes factors , one of the factors is if you are over weight, you stand a higher chance of developing endometrial cancer , if you have diabetes, if you have so many pregnancies, or start having children at a very early age.
The signs of endometrial cancer are , bleeding, but not contact bleeding, is bleeding after menopause, then such woman have to go for check up, for women who are still menstruating , if you are bleeding heavily in between your period , or lasting for more days than usual , you should go to the hospital because there are special ways of getting in checked at the hospital , also if you have been taking contraceptive for a very long time , like for over ten years , then you are liable to endometrial cancer, therefore you have to watch out for any of these signs and once you have any of these signs, please quickly go for check up. Other signs are when the cancer have advanced , you begin to have pelvic pain , abdominal pain , lower back pain , abnormal virginal discharge, for the women who have passed menopause there is not suppose to be any discharge at all , so once u start having virginal discharge after menopause please go and have yourself checked .
For those who are still menstruating, if your discharge is more profuse, or has changed colour, or you are perceiving some uncomfortable odour please go and get yourself checked.
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