( ENSPIRE Health & Wellness ) Dr. Yan Katsnelson Brings Awareness to Women Who May Not Know About Uterine Fibroids and How to Get Treatment for Uterine Fibroids
ENSPIRE Contributor: Octavia Johnson
Philanthropist, entrepreneur, cardiac surgeon, and business owner, Dr. Yan Katsnelson created the Fibroids Fighters Foundation Dr. Yan did this to advance the cause of women’s health and the safe and effective treatment of uterine fibroids. According to womenshealth.gov, uterine fibroids are muscular tumors that grow in the wall of the uterus (womb). Dr. Katsnelson also founded other organizations that focus on the health of people like the USA Clinics Group–the parent company of USA Fibroid Centers, USA Vein Clinics, USA Vascular Centers, and USA Oncology Centers.
Dr. Katsnelson advocates for accessibility, affordability, and compassion in the delivery of healthcare services. Bringing more awareness to how fibroids can affect women throughout the world. His goal is to ensure every woman feels comfortable talking about fibroids and providing treatment that will reach millions who are suffering from fibroids. Please see ENSPIRE’s interview with Dr. Katsnelson below.
Can you talk about your mission a little bit and how you work to provide affordable and accessible healthcare services?
Our mission is to bring the most innovative, curative medical approaches to the patient who in need. So, we started with the arrangement 16 years ago, and transformed the treatment of venous insufficiency, to minimally invasive procedures like endovenous laser therapy and to treat patients that suffered from heaviness in the legs, big varicose veins, swelling, cramps, inability to walk wounds. We developed a nationwide system, in 18 states, with almost 100 locations that help patients to cure this disease, feel great, and be able to function. Six years ago, we started another amazing project treating patients with fibroid disease. What’s important here, it was transformational treatment because more than almost 14 million women suffer from fibroid disease. Most common by the age of 50, 80% of Black women and 70% of White women have a fibroid disease; that starts in the younger age between the ages of 18 to 30, 26% of Black women and 7% of White women; and by the age of 35 to 40, 60% of Black women and 30% White women. Having fibroids destroys lives, physically, emotionally, mentally, socially, and economically. We discovered the results of innovative minimum days of office-based treatment called Uterine Fibroid Embolization (UFE). Basically, with 98 to 99% results, after our 30 to a 40-minute procedure in the office, a patient goes home one hour, two hours later, you can completely cure the problem. Then that patient has wonderful health and happy lives.
Can you talk about your Fibroids Fighters Foundation?
We try to educate people and bring awareness and we can’t just do it alone. We need to get 40 million women and everyone around there, but how do we do that? So, let’s get help. Let’s bring together people that can help us, people who were already survivors of fibroids, and people that are genuinely interested in helping women with health issues. That’s what created Fibroid Fighters, not just the fight against disease, but the fight against lack of awareness; and maybe educating about great initiatives like a, you know, Fibroid Bill into Congress.
What was your inspiration behind founding the organization?
I think the inspiration was the realization that nobody knows. We have a secret that’s amazing, but nobody knows about it. When you start looking for a way to actually bring this awareness, and from what we learn, you know, creating a foundation and bringing other people to contribute to this awareness campaign, it is the best way to go about it. So we thought that it’s really bad that women don’t know about such a solution. It’s terrible when women suffer between either suffering or agreeing with the hysterectomy while not knowing that there is help right around the corner, one click or phone call away. So, that’s what we’re trying to do, you know, improve women’s health, make everyone happy and healthy.
What are your goals and what do you have planned with the organization for 2021?
So our goal, for this year, is to make sure that as many people as possible will learn about fibroid suffering and stop suffering in silence. That’s very, very important. That’s number one. The number two goal is to make sure that patients realize the opportunity, the options. What we don’t want is women to go to slaughter foot for hysterectomies, that’s terrible. That’s an irreversible loss of fertility, that leads to many other issues. We also want patients to know they have other options rather than suffering and not having any treatments. So, I think a clear understanding, like the number one goal, explains abnormalities, having prolonged menstrual periods, pain, inability to have a normal sex life, and absenteeism from work. Like, not going to work or college/school because of very painful menstrual periods and suffering. This is bad, common, not normal, so don’t suffer. Second, that there are options. I think if we accomplish those two things, a woman will make the right decision.
Can you speak about the Uterine fibroid awareness event with Bravo TV and the mission to bring awareness to women’s health?
We’ve planned many campaigns, but I think it’s important for everyone to understand what uterine fibroids are. What is fibroid disease? It affects the uterus by making the menstrual period heavy, painful, long, or bleeding in between the periods. So, excessively, that’s one group of symptoms that can lead them into anemia, weakness, or a very bad situation. The second group of symptoms because it’s tumors right there growing, it presses other organs, like a bladder. Girls sometimes run to the bathroom every 20 to 30 minutes. They call it a “small bladder,” but there’s nothing small about this bladder, just the pressure from outside from the uterus and bladder that makes them go to the bathroom, constipation, or bloating, which is bulging the bellow until looks like 20 or 30 weeks of pregnancy. The worst of all the symptoms, which are really terrible, is miscarriages. Infertility, inability to conceive, and miscarriages. Fibroids are the number one reason for spontaneous abortion miscarriages. So when we say that many people go for fertility treatment, it’s fibroid-related. So, we need to make sure we treat women right and we need to talk about the problems that are undercover. I think the time has come, especially because there’s a solution to bring it down and make it newsworthy.
Dr. Katsnelson worked to bring more people into pushing for more awareness about uterine fibroids. Women from all over have a chance to find treatment so that there are fewer complications and suffering from the fatal disease. For more information about the Fibroid Fighters Foundation, please visit fibroidfighters.org. For more information about uterine fibroids, please visit USAfibroidcenter.com.
