This is the story I shared when I started the endo diaries.
I am almost 28 years old and my story with women’s health issues started when I was thirteen and began menstruating. Not long after that journey into womanhood began that I had troublesome problems. I suffered severe stomach pain, cramping and nausea.
It wasn’t until I was older that my symptoms became crippling. When I had my period, I became immobile. I experience excruciating pain in my abdomen, heavy bleeding, and massive blood clots. I remember having to crouch down under my desk at work, hide in the dark and lay in the fetal position. There have been times I can remember blacking out on the toilet from the pain, others where I lost myself in the haze of agony. If I am menstruating, a typical day means changing my super plus tampon every hour, finding roughly ten golf balls of blood clots each day, and not being able to walk my dog without either soaking through my clothes, or constantly fearing the latter.
I was put on the birth control pill at 14 years old and have been on it ever since. My journey with endometriosis is not a boring one, I have had two laparoscopic surgeries to remove endo, a bilateral uterus correction, and ovarian cyst removal, vulvodynia and other complications from endometriosis including dietary issues and serious mental health complications.
I have seen several doctors ranging from a GP, gynaecologist, countless emergency doctors, and three endometriosis specialists. The misinformation that has been fed to me includes that pregnancy, hysterectomy and hormone therapy can cure endo – all of which were suggested to me and have been disproved.
My journey – and I call it a journey cause it truly has been, has been long but I have learned more about endo and the plethora of ways it affects you from this community than I have the 14 years I’ve struggled with it.
So I want to pay it forward.
I’m here for anything you may need always. 🤍