.png)
My Journey With Endometriosis; Part 1. Plus a check list of what you should expect from a ‘normal period’ and what to look for if you have a hormone imbalance. 7 min read
Anyone who has female reproductive organs, or anyone who loves someone with them, please read this. I sincerely hope it will help other people spot the signs, of not just endometriosis but many other gynaecological issues earlier and reach out for help sooner.
I am unsure how many parts this will be, but there will be links to them all when they are done! I want to talk about my story, the signs I had and what I have done in order to make myself well.
This story forms the majority of my life. And I’m sure it will still go on.
I’ve been waiting for the right time to tell it. But there is no right time. As this illness is founded for me in hormonal imbalances and mindsets which, although I’ve generally got to the bottom of, will require awareness of and maintenance the whole of my life.
But until I start talking about it, I’m never going to be in a position to help other women who were in the same position as me at various points on my journey.
I’m going to make this into how ever many quick reads this takes. So please have a look through as I continue to go over the coming weeks. It’ll be partly my story, partly factual information and partly emotional information. Take from it what you need.
This story will start where all good stories do. At the beginning.
The beginning of this story is my period.
I got my periods at 12. I’d had acne for a couple of years at this point, and when my periods came they were heavy.
My mum never had heavy periods herself, I remember her telling me. And they didn’t start till she was 14. I think it was her way of saying that although she didn’t experience what I had physically, she did understand that it wasn’t nice for me. I would regularly bleed through onto my bed clothes. And she would always change them when I told her, all embarrassed.
She took me to the doctor, about something else, and sneaked in about my skin so that I couldn’t argue I was too embarrassed to go.
And that started me on various creams and pills to calm my skin. Some of the gels literally burned my skin I remember, which was the point of them. And my skin got intermittently better.
I remember Mum coming into school to collect me as one day my period was too painful to carry on. Which, if anyone knows me, was unusual. I must have been 14. And looking back now I’m sure the clincher on wanting to go home was my Head of Year storming into the nurses office and shouting at me and another girl who was there for the same thing. Balling at us that she was fed up of this type of thing. That it is just a period and women have them all the time and we should just used to putting up with it.
I’d been crying just as my mum turned up and I explained why. Despite my mum very nearly losing her temper and informing the school that this teacher had no right to speak to me like that, that maybe the teacher only got a streak in her knickers every month (love my mum!) and this woman had no idea what her child went through every month, what stuck with me wasn’t my mum’s words of defence, but what the teacher said.
Psychologically telling someone who doesn’t like complaining, not to complain isn’t clever. And regardless of my mental make-up, as one woman to another, as one female guider to a new generation of women, it was a poor seed to continue to sow. I can take many lessons out of that now, but at the time, that made a massive impact on my life which caused a lot of suffering. And, you don’t hear me saying this often; it was wrong of her.
Never assume that you understand what someone is going through or how they should respond to something. We are all different. We all experience the same things differently. And this is never truer than a period!!
That was a major point in my life where I then decided to just suffer. Blood running down my legs during PE. Hide it and continue to suffer. I used to ask to sit out of PE but teachers said it would make my cramps better. No it didn’t and the flow was far, far worse. But would I tell anyone? No. It was, of course, highly embarrassing enough to talk about it in detail, let alone show them the aftermath of what happened to me.
And that continued for the rest of my life. I mentioned the heavy periods to the doctor when he eventually prescribed the contraceptive pill at 17. But what I want to touch on here is that one woman’s heavy, is not another woman’s. Same with contractions and pain. Or clotting. Or length of cycle in some cases. I had no idea what most people’s periods are like. As does no girl when she gets her period. And let’s face it; we are simply girls at that age. So important point here; what is abnormal for a period and what is normal?
After a few years, your period should start to even out; to give you your normal. For me, outside of the following are an indicator that you may have a hormone imbalance and be prone to endometriosis, or another underlying medical condition.
Abnormal Periods
Length of period more or less than 2 to 5 days of flow (not post or pre spotting; spotting literally just being that. Not flow of blood; the odd bit when you wipe or a stained pantyliner at the end of the day)
Cycle of more of less than 25 to 35 days.
Blood loss going through more than a pad in 2 hours, bleeding through to your clothes or bedding. Having to use tampons and pads at the same time. Is all considered heavy,
Heavy flow more than 2 days of your period.
Clots of more than a 10p coin, or a regular groups of small clots. By regular I mean more than 2 or 3 a day and the group would be a closed fist full.
Clotting for more than the heaviest 2 days of your flow.
Pain which lasts more than the heaviest 2 days of your period and which normal over the counter pain killers can’t help with.
Pain in your bowel or when your poo or need to poo (not to be mixed up with lower back pain which is normal).
Pain when urinating or with a full bladder.
Spotting between periods; more than during the 3 days before or after your flow start and end.
Pain when you ovulate.
I have aired on the side of caution with all of these. If you have one of these symptoms regularly then I would suggest keeping an eye on yourself. A GP will not consider these a concern unless you have two or more symptoms together e.g. heavy flow plus clotting. Excess pain plus irregular period etc. Short period and short cycle. And if you have two or more of these symptoms, or are concerned about one, please go to your GP for further investigation. The earlier you get a diagnosis the easier it is to treat. Please don’t do what I did and suffer or be embarrassed. Please!
Bear in mind any contraceptive will effect this. So please read this as what your period would be when you are flying solo on this front.
If your GP cannot get to the bottom of it, please push for further investigation. If they cannot help and there is no underlying illness; understand that you are likely to have a hormone imbalance. As I go in the blog I will at some point, when it is relevant to my journey, talk further about hormone imbalance. It maybe that you do not discover this is an issue until you try to have children. But the following signs as show you may have an underlying hormone issues which will need addressing.
Hormone Imbalance
moderate to severe acne which over the counter medication cannot treat. Here is a link to an NHS site for the definitions.
Acne which last pasts your early twenties.
unusual hair growth on the face, chest, back or buttocks.
thinning hair
unexplained weight gain or loss, excessive bloating.
excessive sweating where you drip
difficulty sleeping
getting very hot or very cold, or swinging between the two
headaches
emotional issues and fatigue; depression, anxiety, irritability and anger.
reduced sex drive or no sex drive
Constipation, especially in the lead up to and during your period.
Especially when coupled with the above abnormal periods, these indicate hormone imbalance and again I would recommend that first of all you go to your doctor for diagnosis and treatment. But as we go through I will talk to you about a holistic approach to treating the symptoms of hormone imbalance, and how I restored my balance naturally. Not just artificially keeping your hormones at bay.
I had long, heavy, clotty periods. Heavy for 5 days and lasting about seven in total. Excessive pain and severe acne (albeit covered in makeup lol). My cycle was regularly 5-6 weeks, so 35-42 days. Headaches and heating up easily, plus sweating moderately. Constipation started in my late teens.
My honest belief is that if a GP had picked up on the collection of symptoms that I presented, and not looked at each thing separately, and had me as a warning flag for someone who would develop hormonal issues, or spoken to me about it at the time, I would have gone to the GP for the more serious symptoms that I developed sooner, or I may have been investigated sooner. As it was, I was happy with the pill treating my period and to a certain extent my acne when I was in my late teens. The rest of the symptoms I just put up with. Individually they were no cause for concern for a GP, and therefore not me, as they were not severe enough. But when presented together they painted a very different picture.
Emotionally I was not so great, Heavy periods, acne and a lot of stretch marks as my body literally popped over a couple of years really knocked my confidence in my body. I felt I was ugly, that no boy would ever want to be my boyfriend. Honestly I felt I was disgusting to look at. I was far curvier than other girls of my age. And I kinda rejected my body in some ways. Ive probably only started to realise I have slight body dismorphia issues, where I don’t see myself for what I am. And the fact was at that age, I was hot as f**k to be honest with you! Jesus; if only I’d realised a little more what a Goddess I was! Not enough to be arrogant, but enough to know that I deserved better. Better friends and better boyfriends. But because of my skewed view of myself I felt in many ways that I wasn’t good enough for that. Okay, this emotional part isn’t fundamental to my medical history. But it is a big part of my healing journey. And I hope it gives girls going through this perspective as to how they are looking at themselves, or those around girls in this position what could be going on in their head and what kind of emotional support they need to become emotionally well teens and adults sooner.
No one ever spoke to me about what a normal period is. And for me, that’s a really important conversation to have with any girl. And that is no-one’s fault. My mum’s personal experience was very different. In my dad’s family, the women had much the same experience as me. And although it wasn’t hidden, it was never pushed for me to have further investigation. I had been given the pill by the doctor and so I was being ‘treated’. And my mum was forward thinking for being as open as she was about periods. But it’s time to take this to a new level and talk openly about what is and isn’t normal. The information is there; we have to share it in an accessible way.
If I could tell you anything, it is that teaching your girls and teaching yourself the importance of your cycle, and how any abnormality is a reflection of your body’s health. It is your body talking to it. So learn how to listen.
In my next blog I will talk about the next part of my story which includes gall bladder issues, and how the liver is linked to the hormonal system.
Till next time!
Love as always!
Rachael x
Comments