The pain of endometriosis has plagued Carrie-Mae Macmillan for most of her life.<\/p>\n
She says she was in such acute pain she couldn’t walk, move or hold down a job.<\/p>\n
But Carrie-Mae says she struggled for six years to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n
Her doctor constantly told her what she was feeling was normal and dismissed her level of pain, she says.<\/p>\n
Endometriosis is the second most common gynaecological condition in the UK.<\/p>\n
Tissue that behaves like womb lining is found in other bits of the body, causing nasty symptoms.<\/p>\n
Carrie-Mae blames it for the breakdown of her marriage, a chain of painful miscarriages and the inability to work.<\/p>\n
She reached the stage at the age of 28 when she begged her surgeon to perform a hysterectomy.<\/p>\n
Carrie-Mae, from Old Kilpatrick in West Dunbartonshire, told the Kaye Adams Programme<\/a>: “I was seeing the surgeon more than I was seeing my own family.<\/p>\n
“I begged him for a hysterectomy but they wouldn’t do it.<\/p>\n
“I was told I was too young – it was too big an operation and my condition wasn’t life-threatening so they just wouldn’t do it on the NHS.”<\/p>\n
Over 10 years Carrie-Mae had more than 25 surgeries. <\/p>\n
She said: “My body got adhesions from the damage, adhesions sticking my fallopian tubes together. The pain was becoming so unbearable.”<\/p>\n
She underwent laparoscopies to remove adhesions on her womb and bladder, but the relief would last for shorter periods as time went on.<\/p>\n
Carrie-Mae ended up going private and paying for her own hysterectomy two years ago when she was 33.<\/p>\n
But because there was so much damage, she still has to have regular operations to remove the endometriosis.<\/p>\n
Endometriosis affects one in 10 women of reproductive age in the UK.<\/p>\n
Yet it is incredibly difficult for a woman to be diagnosed and treated early.<\/p>\n
Carrie-Mae knew early on she had an issue but felt she wasn’t taken seriously for many years.<\/p>\n
She said: “I was about 17 and with my friends.<\/p>\n
“But they were not complaining and didn’t seem to be in as much pain as me.<\/p>\n
“As the years were going on, I couldn’t get out of bed, I was missing school, really unwell, fainting and being taken into hospital. <\/p>\n
“Doctors dismissed it as “women’s problems” and kept thinking it was Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).”<\/p>\n
After getting married at the age of 21, Carrie-Mae’s symptoms increased.<\/p>\n
She said: “It was absolutely horrendous, like a vicious cycle. I had several miscarriages – another complication of endometriosis – and my third one destroyed me completely.<\/p>\n
“I almost felt ashamed. I’m a woman and I’m supposed to carry a child.”<\/p>\n
It took a locum doctor to eventually get Carrie-Mae the diagnosis she was looking for.<\/p>\n
This has led to constant surgeries, but at last she found comfort in being taken seriously by medical professionals.<\/p>\n
Carrie-Mae is now sharing her story on her own Facebook blog, Mylifewithendo:wombraider<\/a>.<\/p>\n
She wants to raise awareness and help get women diagnosed earlier.<\/p>\n
She said: “Because of everything I have been through, I don’t want it to be for nothing.<\/p>\n
“If me sharing my experience makes one young girl think to themselves, ‘I’m going to force the issue’, they might lead a completely different life to me.<\/p>\n
“I am sure if I’d been diagnosed sooner I wouldn’t have had half the complications I have had – I might even have had a family and things could have been different.”<\/p>\n
Carrie-Mae believes early diagnosis is key.<\/p>\n
So does Louise Peim, Support Network Manager for Endometriosis UK: “On average it takes seven-and-a-half years.<\/p>\n
“Women will go to the doctor several times, be told their pain is normal, their symptoms are likely IBS.<\/p>\n
“Some woman experience it longer than that and we don’t know how many are walking around, dealing with it by taking pain killers.”<\/p>\n
She added: “We need greater education and awareness for medical professionals and in women themselves.<\/p>\n
“If a woman is experiencing these symptoms and they are normalised by the health professional, it can have a, serious impact on their mental health.<\/p>\n
“We are working hard towards bringing down that diagnosis time.”<\/p>\n
\u20221 in 10 women of reproductive age in the UK suffer from endometriosis<\/p>\n
\u2022Endometriosis is the second most common gynaecological condition in the UK<\/p>\n
\u2022Endometriosis affects 1.5 million women, a similar number of women affected by diabetes<\/p>\n
\u202210% of women worldwide have endometriosis – that’s 176 million women<\/p>\n
\u2022The prevalence of endometriosis in women with infertility can be as high as to 30-50%<\/p>\n
\u2022On average it takes 7.5 years from onset of symptoms to get a diagnosis<\/p>\n
\u2022Endometriosis costs the UK economy \u00a38.2bn a year in treatment, loss of work and healthcare costs<\/p>\n
\u2022The cause of endometriosis is unknown and there is no definite cure<\/p>\n
Source: Endometriosis UK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The pain of endometriosis has plagued Carrie-Mae Macmillan for most of her life. She says she was in such acute pain she couldn’t walk, move or hold down a job. But Carrie-Mae says she struggled for six years to be taken seriously. Her doctor constantly told her what she was feeling was normal and dismissed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[310],"tags":[543],"class_list":["post-206419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}