This month is endometriosis awareness month. Endometriosis is a disease that affects around 1.5 million women and those assigned female at birth in the UK.
It involves tissue similar to the lining of the uterus growing outside the uterus, causing serious pain.
Courtney Innes, 25, a tattoo artist from Liverpool suffers from endometriosis. She said: “It affects a lot of my life, I’ve missed out on a lot of work because of it. People don’t realize how much it does affect.
“Day to day just being able to get dressed and go out or do anything really. It ruins your social life because you are having to cancel plans all the time. Relationship wise it can be hard on because you’re relying on that other person a lot.”
Common symptoms of endometriosis include:
- Pain in your lower tummy or back that usually gets worse during your period.
- Period pain that stops you from doing your normal activities.
- Pain during or after sex.
- Pain when urinating or passing stools during your period.
- Feeling sick, constipation, diarrhoea, or blood in your urine or stool during your period.
- Difficulty getting pregnant.
The symptoms can fluctuate during one’s cycle and can be different for each individual.
Courtney said: “Up until my period I get all the symptoms and then it just hits out of nowhere to the point where I can’t walk, I can’t even put socks on, I’ve got to ask my boyfriend to help me put my socks and clothes on.
“There’s not really a way to manage the pain. It’s very severe and it’s a lot to deal with.”
This condition can affect a person from their first menstrual period and can last up until menopause.
Courtney explained: “It started like when I was 11. I’d be off school every time, I couldn’t even get up off the floor.
“When I was 14, they gave me the pill and said it was just a bad period.
“I was on all different types of contraception pills from when I was 14 until 20 and then I stopped taking them. When you come off the pill it just comes back with a vengeance, it was ten times worse.
“I kept going back and got blood tests, scans, everything like that and they just kept saying it’s just a bad period.”
The only way to cure endometriosis is through surgery. Courtney had surgery in November last year, after over a decade of dealing with the condition.
The surgery can take between one to eight hours, with hers taking five. After surgery, it can take up to four periods to see a difference, but it is something that will need consistent monitoring for the rest of her life.
Courtney said: “The doctors didn’t look at any of it when I was young, they just said it was a bad period.
“I’d never actually been told by a doctor that it could be endometriosis, I did my own research and kept going back to them saying I think its endometriosis. I kept having go back and asking them to do something about it.”
She felt as if she was consistently getting pushed to the side and felt she was wasting their time.
Courtney is a tattoo artist in Liverpool and considering it is endometriosis awareness month, she has decided to incorporate it into her art.
She expressed the importance of awareness of this condition, saying: “It’s a very taboo subject, just talking about periods in general is. Conditions to do with the reproductive system are just not spoken about enough.
“A lot of people don’t even know what endometriosis is, my family didn’t even know how to say it, never mind, knowing what it is. It’s just getting the word out that this is actually a condition that is very serious.”
Courtney urges anyone who thinks they may be suffering with this condition to try and get diagnosed expressing the importance being persistence to make sure you get the help needed.
Featured image (c) Amy Coulson
