I used relaxers for years and now I have fibroids — is there a connection?

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Hair Relaxer Lawsuit — Free, Confidential Consultation

Fibroids after years of relaxers.

Straight answer first: fibroid claims are outside the federal trial track and have not been dismissed — they are worked up and monitored. That is the structure of the litigation, not a verdict on your case.

Active litigation — no settlement. MDL 3060 underway · 12,381 cases pending · filing deadlines vary by state and run from when you knew or should have known.

Did you get relaxers — perms, the white cream — every few weeks, for years?

That one question decides most of it. It seems like nobody ever told you the risk was anything worse than a scalp burn.

See where I standfree · confidential · 2 minutes · an honest answer either way
What the lawsuit is actually about →

No receipts needed · you don’t have to remember every brand · no fee unless there is a recovery. Court costs and litigation expenses are advanced by counsel and repaid from the recovery. You are not responsible for court costs or litigation expenses if there is no recovery, unless a court directs otherwise. The attorney’s fee is a percentage of the gross recovery, calculated before expenses are deducted.

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Marin & Murphy Law Firm

Every inquiry gets a personal review and a straight answer — including “not yet” or “no” — free and without obligation.

Claims are brought against the companies that made and sold chemical relaxers — not against your stylist, your salon, or the person who did your hair growing up. Conversations are confidential. Some matters may be referred to or handled with other law firms. No settlement has been announced and no trial has been held; every case depends on its own facts. This page does not diagnose anything. Attorney Advertising.

This page is about a lawsuit — it is legal information, not medical advice, and it does not diagnose anything. Questions about your health belong with your own doctor.

Lawsuits consolidated in federal court in Chicago (MDL 3060) allege that long-term use of chemical hair relaxers is associated with uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, and related conditions. As of October 2026 the cases are in pretrial proceedings; no trial has been held and no settlement has been announced. The allegations have not been proven, and each case depends on its own facts.

This page is legal information, not medical advice, and it does not diagnose anything. Questions about your health belong with your own doctor. Nothing here tells you what caused your fibroids, what treatment to consider, or what your diagnosis means, and nothing here should be read as a reason to change anything about your care. Those conversations belong to you and the person treating you. Everything below is about the research and about where these claims sit in court.

What the study actually found

The Black Women’s Health Study followed 23,580 premenopausal participants from 1997 to 2009 — nearly 200,000 person-years — and recorded 7,146 new cases of uterine fibroids, most confirmed by ultrasound.

Comparing ever-users with never-users, the researchers reported an incidence rate ratio of 1.17 (95% CI: 1.06, 1.30). Rates climbed with how often women used relaxers, how many years they used them, and — the finding most women recognize — with scalp burns.

Two details cut against common assumptions. Risk was not related to the age at first use, and not related to formula type, lye or no-lye.

Study findings and adverse-event reports describe associations; they are not verified causation.

What it does not tell you

A 17% difference across a large group is a real signal and a modest one. Fibroids are extremely common — most women who develop them never used a relaxer, and most women who used relaxers never develop them. No study can look at one woman’s fibroids and say where they came from.

There is also no brand-level finding anywhere in the research. Studies asked about product categories, not about which jar was on the shelf. Any page assigning a fibroid risk number to a brand made it up. The full ledger of what has and has not been studied is worth reading before trusting anyone’s summary of it.

“Did I do it wrong?”

It seems like this may be a quiet worry you have not said out loud to anyone: that you did it at the kitchen table instead of at a salon, left it on past the timer, or should have known better. A stylist described the same thing from the other side — at-home users are “not really following the instructions correctly ’cause you just lack the knowledge of it.”

The criterion the litigation turns on is how often and for how long, not technique. Nobody is asked to prove they applied a product correctly. And the claim runs against the companies that made and sold the product — not against your stylist, not against whoever did your hair growing up, and not against you.

The scalp-burn memory is its own thing. Many women were told the risk of relaxers was burns — that this was the downside, and it healed. Whether that was an adequate warning is one of the questions the litigation is about.

Where fibroid claims stand in the litigation

This is the part most pages about the hair relaxer lawsuit skip, and you should have it straight.

Fibroids, endometriosis and breast cancer claims are outside the federal MDL’s current trial track but have not been dismissed as a category. These claims are actively worked up — records obtained, eligibility evaluated, and status monitored — and are positioned for the paths that remain open, including individual filing and any broader resolution.

Two concrete facts sit behind that. The federal judge’s November 2024 order noted that a case asserting only fibroids or endometriosis “is clearly not limited to the three identified cancers” — standalone claims were preserved. And in October 2025 the Georgia Supreme Court revived a relaxer case brought by a woman diagnosed with uterine fibroids, holding that the state’s ten-year repose period runs per unit sold. Fibroid claims are not a dead letter; they are on a different track. The MDL 3060 tracker follows both.

Read that as a description of the court, not a description of you. It is the shape the litigation currently has — a trial track scoped to three cancers, with the rest preserved and worked up behind it — and it would say the same thing about every fibroid claim in the country this month. It is not a judgment about what you went through or whether it counts.

It sounds like you may also have been quoted a number for a fibroid case already, possibly more than one, possibly numbers that disagreed with each other. No hair relaxer settlement has been announced and no one has been paid. Any page that quotes a dollar figure is estimating. What actually decides where a claim goes is the diagnosis in the records, the years and the frequency of use, the deadline in your state, and which track the case sits on — none of which a table on a website knows about you.

What documents a fibroid history

These are the records that usually matter — requested with your written permission, never gathered behind your back:

• Ultrasound or MRI reports showing fibroids, and the date of the first one.
• Operative and pathology reports from a myomectomy, ablation, or hysterectomy.
• OB-GYN notes describing bleeding, pain, anemia or pressure symptoms over time.
• Anything placing your relaxer use in time: salon names, receipts, brands, photos, or your own account of the years.

The screen everyone is asked

The same four things are asked of everyone, cancer claim or not. It takes about two minutes to start, needs no receipts, no brand names and no letter from a doctor, and a person calls you back — usually within a business day, with an answer either way.

Whether you qualify is decided by a review of your own facts. The consultation is free and confidential, and there is no fee unless there is a recovery. Some matters may be referred to or handled with other law firms.

Frequently Asked Questions

Cases are handled on a contingent-fee basis: no fee unless there is a recovery. The attorney’s fee is a percentage of the gross recovery, calculated before case expenses are deducted. Case expenses are advanced by the firm and reimbursed to the firm out of the recovery only if there is a recovery. You have no liability for court costs or litigation expenses if there is no recovery, unless a court directs otherwise.