It started after 8th grade (13 years old or around there). My stomach was always hurting. My periods started in 2004 so not long after that I started getting all this pain and nausea. I went to my family Dr and she did some tests and thought it was a food allergy but no matter if I ate or didn’t eat I still had pain, so I was referred to a gastro Dr and I was put on sooo many pills and I have had as of today 3 endoscopies and 2 colonoscopies. I have also had a small bowel follow-through(they make you drink this white stuff and it highlights the bowels to see if there are any blockages or anything). They didn’t find anything with any of the first test set of tests. I’ve also had a ton of blood work done. I was almost diagnosed with Crohn’s disease but no matter what pills I went on it didn’t help, so a few or so years went by and I was still having pains so we (my mom and I) finally went to a ob/gyn and he had his ultrasound tech do an internal ultrasound and he did a pelvic … [Read more...]

I started my period when I was 9 years old. It was the scariest thing that had ever happened to me. Shortly after that, the pain and the bleeding was uncontrollable. My mom was concerned (she and her mother have endometriosis). She took me to the doctor and they just put me on birth control. After 10 years of suffering, my mom and I convinced my doctor that something needs to be done, so I had surgery. My mom was right, I had endometriosis. After surgery, they started me on Lupron Depot. That was an experience of its own! At this point I was 19. Everything then seemed to get back on track until a year later. Now, I am back to square one. They think that it has spread to my bladder, due to unable to feel it. This is so embarrassing. I am 21, and I’m wetting my pants! I am now back on the Lupron shot, hopefully this will hold me over for a while. The only thing I care about is one day being able to have children. I know they tell women all the time with the same thing I have that … [Read more...]

My name is Diana. I’m 23 and I was diagnosed with endometriosis on January 21st of 2011 which was when I had my lap procedure done.   I had always had painful periods growing up even though my period started at a normal time for a girl. It wasn’t until 2 years prior to my lap surgery that the painful cramping began. Then, things started changing. The one I noticed right away was that I was having problems with bowel movements as they became more and more painful. At that point, sex also started becoming more painful at times, but was more frequent the closer it came to my lap date. I also had more issues at work in terms of my pain, and even socially, as I’d be at work or out somewhere and I’d have to duck into a bathroom for a long period of time while the pain subsided enough to where I could go back in and work. The point that drove me to actually talk to my gyno about it was when I was at my boyfriend’s place and I dropped to my knees in pain and was bawling. When … [Read more...]

Hello ladies, I'm Annaliese. I’m 20 and I have been fighting the pain of endometriosis since the age of 14. I had my childhood doctor tell me there’s nothing wrong, that it's normal to miss periods. She also didn’t care about the pain. They put me on the 10-day pill to get my periods started again, which really hurt. At the age of 18, I finally got sick of getting no answers so I made an appointment with the ob/gyn.  That was in September. He told me that day that it was endometriosis. He had me in surgery that November.  I didn’t get answers from the surgery, however, because he couldn’t get the camera through because there was way too much scar tissue. So now I’m dealing with having no period for 15 months, serious pain, the pain of wanting to be a mother and knowing the only way that’s going to happen is getting help from my doctor. The great news is my tubes are open :) I just need a steady period now and not to live with this everyday pain :(.  But I fight … [Read more...]

Well, where to begin!! When I first got my period, it was extremely heavy and painful! I was put on birth control about a week after that to see if that would help. It definitely made a huge difference up until 2005 when it all began! I was at work one day and the pain brought me to my knees. They sent me home from work but that evening I just couldn’t take it anymore. Nothing was helping it. My mother then brought me to the ER to make sure it wasn’t my appendix. They hooked me to an IV until I was well enough to go home. I was having so many episodes like this that I was at the hospital a few times a month. They then started thinking that I was just there for the meds. I was admitted to the hospital and I thought ’THANK YOU!!!’ Little did I know she was giving me T3’s until I had to see a psychiatrist! I started refusing the pills as they weren’t helping me. The next day the doc came in to see me and said I couldn’t be discharged until I talked to a psychiatrist … [Read more...]

“Endometriosis”….. This word used to be so foreign to me. An unknown word, disease, condition. Hard to pronounce and I was finding it even harder to understand.  A disease that is so ‘hush-hush’ – very few know or understand. A disease that the iconic Marilyn Monroe had, Queen Victoria as well… From 100’s of years ago to even 50 years ago, there have been very few forward advances in education and research. Now in my heart, I want to strive to teach others this word, this condition that affects so many, this disease that can completely stop and topple a life that I worked almost a decade to accomplish. I’m currently ‘still’ picking up the pieces. Let me take you back and try to explain the journey. My name is Samantha. I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister. I was blessed to have two beautiful children, my mini me’s - both redheads like Mommy. I am married to a man I fell in love with the first time I touched him. He is my 1st love, my high school … [Read more...]

Where do I began? I started my period at the young age of eight. Now, as you can imagine, I was scared out of my mind. Right off the bat, my mother took me to the hospital because they assumed someone was sexually abusing me. That was the worst experience ever! From the first day of my period I would have unbearable pain. The pain was so horrible that I stayed out of school at least two to three days a week. When I went to my mother she would give me pain medication as she thought it was just cramps. This pain had become a part of my life that I coped the best I could with and I thought that it was normal. As I got older, I realized that none of my female friends were ever in as much pain every month as I was. After seeing that my life and pain was definitely not normal I started going to the doctors and asking them what in the world was wrong with me. Well, my success with doctors was not good. Every doctor I went to either gave me birth control pills or other remedies that did … [Read more...]

I am 18 years old and was diagnosed with endometriosis a little over three years ago. I have always had terrible menstrual cycles, hardly being able to get out of bed because the cramps were so bad. In November of 2008, out of nowhere, I got this terrible pain in my lower left side. It felt like whatever organ was there was going to burst. So my mom took me into the ER and they did all the typical tests and finally decided to admit me. I was in the hospital for two weeks feeling hopeless because they couldn’t figure out what was causing the pain. The nurses came in my room in the middle of the night to give me morphine just to stay on top of it. The doctors started saying in may be "psychosomatic" which is just a scientific term for telling me I'm crazy. Finally they decided to do exploratory surgery and found the endo. After they diagnosed me, they put me on the pill which did absolutely nothing. Then they switched to Depo Provera which helped for a few months then stopped. … [Read more...]