There are few things more damaging to a person’s mental health than being in pain and not being believed.
Yet this is what happens year after year to women with endometriosis. They go to their GP describing periods so agonising they end up curled up on the bathroom floor, and they’re sent away with painkillers and the distinct impression that they are making a fuss.
A report this year by the charity Endometriosis UK found that 82 per cent of women with the condition had been told by a healthcare professional they were making a big deal about nothing, or had the severity of their symptoms doubted.
The average time from seeing a GP to getting a diagnosis is nine years and four months, up from eight years in 2020. For women with ethnically diverse backgrounds, it is 11 years.
Endometriosis affects 1.5 million in the UK and occurs when tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows elsewhere, typically on the ovaries, fallopian tubes, bladder and bowel where it causes inflammation, scarring and pain. There is no cure.
Treatment usually starts with painkillers and hormonal treatments such as the contraceptive pill or a hormonal coil, which can dampen symptoms but don’t work for everyone. If those fail, women may be offered hormone injections that put the body into a temporary, artificial menopause, or keyhole surgery, called a laparoscopy, to cut or burn away patches of tissue.
Surgery can bring months or even years of relief but doesn’t remove the underlying tendency for the tissue to grow. Studies suggest symptoms return in up to half of women within five years, so many have operation after operation.
As a psychiatrist, I’m acutely aware of what this does to the mind. Chronic pain and depression feed off one another, each making the other worse, and when the BBC surveyed more than 13,500 women with endometriosis, half said they’d experienced suicidal thoughts.
Endometriosis affects 1.5million women in the UK and occurs when tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows elsewhere, typically on the ovaries, fallopian tubes, bladder and bowel where it causes inflammation, scarring and pain
Careers stall, relationships buckle under the strain and as a result of painful sex, and friendships wither because it’s easier to stay at home than explain, again, why you can’t come out.
But what I find most corrosive is the disbelief. When you’re repeatedly told nothing is wrong, you start to doubt your perceptions. Women begin to wonder if they’re weak or it’s all in their head. Some end up being treated for anxiety or depression while the physical cause goes unnoticed.
And when – or if – a diagnosis does finally come, the relief is often mixed with grief and anger for all the lost years.
Endometriosis is also a leading cause of fertility problems but the usual first treatment, hormonal contraception, can’t be used while trying for a baby.
Some women, worn down by years of pain, opt for a hysterectomy in their 30s, ending any chance of carrying a child. Many don’t realise that removing the womb doesn’t necessarily cure endometriosis because the disease can grow outside it.
All of this is why news is so welcome that prescriptions of two newer tablets, used for endometriosis and fibroids, have tripled. Relugolix combination therapy, sold as Ryeqo, and linzagolix, sold as Yselty, were recommended by watchdog NICE last year for women whose endometriosis has not responded to medical or surgical treatment.
These drugs block the signals from the brain that drive the body’s production of oestrogen, which fuels endometriosis.
Patients are given them alongside a low dose of hormones to protect against menopausal symptoms such as hot flushes and bone thinning. NICE says more than 12,000 in England were prescribed these drugs in the year to March, almost three times the 4,100 the year before.
One woman, who started the tablets while waiting for a hysterectomy, told NICE that, where the pain used to put her in bed, she can now go to work.
They aren’t a cure, can cause hot flushes and headaches, women will need bone density monitored, and they can’t be taken while trying to conceive. But their effect is reversible, so if you stop taking them it is possible to get pregnant. A woman in her 30s no longer has to choose between a lifetime of pain and giving up on a family.
So how do you get taken seriously? Before your appointment, keep a diary for two or three months. Record when the pain strikes, how bad it is, any bowel or bladder symptoms, pain during sex and days missed from work or plans cancelled.
A written record is far harder to dismiss than a vague account in a rushed appointment. Ask directly: ‘Could this be endometriosis?’ Mention if your mother has it, as it runs in families.
NICE says GPs should offer a transvaginal ultrasound to all with suspected endometriosis, even if a physical examination is normal, so ask for one. But remember a normal ultrasound doesn’t rule it out as smaller patches often don’t show up.
If painkillers and hormonal treatment haven’t helped, or your symptoms affect daily life, NICE says you should be referred to a gynaecology service. Ask for that referral and for it to be noted in your records. If you’ve tried other treatments or had surgery, ask the gynaecologist if relugolix combination therapy or linzagolix might be suitable, as these are usually first prescribed by specialists.
If you’re still not heard, ask to see a different GP. You know your body better than anyone and you deserve to be believed.
If diabetes runs in your family, it’s easy to fear you’ll get it too. But a study found people at high genetic risk who exercised for 150 minutes a week and ate fewer ultra-processed foods were 49 per cent less likely to develop it.
Kim Kardashian has revealed she needs surgery after doctors found ‘irregularities’ in her oesophagus
Kim Kardashian has revealed she needs surgery after doctors found ‘irregularities’ in her oesophagus, the same part of the body where the cancer developed that killed her father in 2003. Before making this public, she said she had told very few people because it hit so close to home, and I can well understand why.
When we’ve watched a parent die of an illness, a health scare in the same part of the body can feel like history repeating itself. Oesophagitis, the inflammation she was diagnosed with, is a different condition from cancer. If you’re in this position, ask your doctor to spell out what you have and how it differs from what your parent had.
Treatment may have moved on a great deal. And don’t carry it alone. Fears kept secret tend to grow, but saying them out loud to someone you trust can shrink them back down to size.
I won't be joining my fellow consultants when they walk out on strike later this month. Given the state of the economy and the NHS, I don’t think it’s fair to put patients through this. The health service has a limited pot of money, and every pound spent on a pay rise for consultants is a pound that isn’t spent on more staff, more beds or shorter waiting lists. Asking for yet another rise looks greedy at a time when hospitals are bracing themselves for winter and patients in pain are already waiting far too long.
![Keira Knightley and ‘Black Doves’ Creator Joe Barton Why Helen Should Have Been the One to Kill [SPOILER], That Oner and Hopes for Season 3](https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/BD_201_Unit_02372_RT3.jpg)
