Painkillers Complicated My Kidney – Ufoma McDermott

Nollywood actress, Ufoma McDermott has come out to open up on her battle with kidney disease.

She recently revealed that it stemmed from years of unknowingly abusing painkillers, and fans have been reacting.

According to her, she grew up with migraines, headaches and eyeaches, so she always ran to painkillers to take all of her pain away, until it led to serious health complications.

Ufoma added that she was lucky to be diagnosed of kidney disease early enough, and her brother died after finding out at stage 4.

Her words, “I really wish everyone would understand how important health is. My brother was diagnosed late on stage four and he had to go straight into dialysis and had complications. I was diagnosed a lot earlier so I’ve lived on medication for almost 12 years now.

When my brother passed away I ran to my cardiologist. I was scared and my parents were scared, is this genetic? We had to trace the kidney disease and we learned it was from drug abuse.

I’d always grown up with migraines, headaches and eyeaches, and I never wore my glasses because they made me look like a geek. I wouldn’t wear them and then I’d take painkillers for my migraine. I never took ordinary painkillers, I took strong painkillers because I wanted the pain to go away. At a point, I had painkillers in my wallet and I could give people.

The doctor told me I was exposed to certain behaviours and my brother was exposed to the same thing, doesn’t mean it’s genetics. I didn’t know I was abusing drugs and I was first I was diagnosed with high blood pressure was at 26, and I didn’t even know what that was.”

WOW.

Nollywood is a sobriquet that originally referred to the Nigerian film industry. The origin of the term dates back to the early 2000s, traced to an article in The New York Times. Due to the history of evolving meanings and contexts, there is no clear or agreed-upon definition for the term, which has made it a subject to several controversies.

The origin of the term “Nollywood” remains unclear; Jonathan Haynes traced the earliest usage of the word to a 2002 article by Matt Steinglass in the New York Times, where it was used to describe Nigerian cinema.

Charles Igwe noted that Norimitsu Onishi also used the name in a September 2002 article he wrote for the New York Times. The term continues to be used in the media to refer to the Nigerian film industry, with its definition later assumed to be a portmanteau of the words “Nigeria” and “Hollywood”, the American major film hub.

Film-making in Nigeria is divided largely along regional, and marginally ethnic and religious lines. Thus, there are distinct film industries – each seeking to portray the concern of the particular section and ethnicity it represents. However, there is the English-language film industry which is a melting pot for filmmaking and filmmakers from most of the regional industries.