Endometriosis: Had No Idea

By Madeline

Hi! I’m from the Dominican Republic and this is the story that I share with this horrible disease.

Ever since I was 15 yrs old and it was time to get my period, it was a time of suffering. It hurt a lot, I used to cry a lot and spend two days in bed because I couldn’t handle the pain. I started visiting the gynecologist and she used to tell me that it wasn’t normal to have that kind of pain every month.

Years passed and the pain grew higher, I couldn’t evacuate because of the pain I had, I couldn’t walk more than 3 hours without pain. I first thought that my problem belonged to a gastroenterologist ’cause I thought the problems where with the evacuations even if I didn’t have my period.

So when I was 18 (notice that I spent all those years from doctor to doctor with a lot of pain) I went visit the gastro and he indicated some lab test and abdominal and pelvic US. There it was, I had an ovarian cyst “probable endometriosis”, I had to visit my doctor again. She indicated an exploratory laparoscopy which I didn’t do because my father didn’t want to.

So I went under contraceptive pills for three months. Those were the worst months of my life, I couldn’t sleep, eat, walk. If I had my period, nausea, vomit, would appear as well. I passed out a couple of times and when I had the next pelvic US the endometriosis would grow more and more.

At the end, the gynecologist decided to operate and when they opened my belly the ovary exploded so they took it out to prevent future ectopic pregnancy. The right ovary had some endo so they just cleaned them out.

After the surgery I went on treatment with Lupron for 6 months, I was happy I had no pain anymore.

I’m 22 yrs old right now, I have no pain and no endo. I sometimes get a little bit of pain and it scares me to think it would be back or something so I just go periodically to do an US to make sure that if it happens again I have time to get rid of it. 🙂

Always think of endometriosis!! It’s not normal to have pain during your period!