Almost four years ago, my life changed. After a decade of invasive tests, hospital visits, and limited answers, I was diagnosed with endometriosis. As I navigated the medical system here in the U.K., I soon became frustrated at the multiple administrative hurdles and shockingly unsupportive doctors. After I vented my woes on my personal blog, a talented writer, also afflicted with endometriosis, contacted me. She told me she liked my writing. Her name was Serena Lawrence. From then on, I became a writer for Endometriosis News. Three years and seven months later, I am typing my last column. I ..read more

A lot can change in a year. Even more can change in four, which is almost how long I’ve been writing for Endometriosis News. And now, I’m writing to tell you that Endometriosis News is closing its doors for the time being. The site will still be available to access, but there will no longer be any new content, be it news, columns, or scientific updates. Because of this, I wanted to ensure that if you stumble across this site and are new to my work, I’ve left you with some kind of map to navigate your future with endometriosis. When I first started writing for Endometriosis News, I had alread ..read more

Endometriosis can turn a simple life into a slightly more complicated one. For some of us, wearing white is as scary as bungee jumping. For others, there’s the occasional run to the bathroom — hello, IBS. Chronic pain has us task-juggling while counting painkillers. Most frustrating of all, endometriosis sabotages career paths and limits incomes. A lack of understanding about this disease means that most employers are not receptive to our needs. Period leave is still more of a hot trend and less of a reality. Endometriosis patients can work, and quite successfully. Yet the professional lands ..read more

Sometimes, the smallest changes have the biggest impact. There’s a phenomenon within my coaching community. One small self-care act is revolutionizing how they feel: regular magnesium baths. Perhaps you already know that magnesium is helpful for cramps, but it does so much more than that. In fact, it plays a role in more than 300 enzyme processes that are essential to keeping our bodies alive and healthy. Magnesium is involved in reactions that produce energy, ensure good brain health, maintain balanced blood sugar, and support a healthy immune system. All necessary functions, especiall ..read more

“Let’s talk about sex, ba-by!” … And my lifelong dream of starting a column with a Salt-N-Pepa lyric has just been realized. Now that I’ve got your attention, how about we talk intimacy and endometriosis? One of the defining symptoms of this disease is painful intercourse. It is a life-altering, extremely emotional, and very upsetting side of endometriosis. The first time I felt pain during sex was around 2009. It felt like I was being stabbed. The pain took my breath away and wouldn’t relent, making me feel awful for hours. From then on, and until I had my excision surgery in 2017, it hurt ..read more

Inflammation. If you have endometriosis, chances are you’ve heard a lot about it, and rightly so. Endometriosis is an inflammatory disease that continuously upregulates inflammation in the body, sometimes until it reaches a chronically inflamed state. But the problem isn’t inflammation itself, which is essential for our survival. It’s a normal immune response that protects the body and aids healing in times of threat, injury, or illness. Inflammation is what you can see happening and can feel as a result of a wound. The area swells and turns red, and you may even feel pain as the inflammatio ..read more

Many of us living with endometriosis will experience irritable bowel syndrome-like symptoms, chronic bloating, and soaring pain levels after eating certain foods. This is why dietary changes can benefit us, and why the subject of eating for endometriosis is popular on patient forums and social media. An endometriosis diet, or “endo diet,” is anti-inflammatory. It involves eliminating foods like red meat, alcoholic drinks, and ingredients such as dairy, gluten, and refined sugar, among others. The idea is to lessen the amount of inflammation in our bodies, and in doing so, decrease levels of ..read more

When I was 17, I broke several bones, including my pubic rami, spine, hip, and pelvis. I was hospitalized and bedbound for several weeks, and had to have a catheter. That was the beginning of both my interstitial cystitis and endometriosis symptoms. Catheters often cause infections, which can become chronic if not treated properly. Of course, it’s likely that the trauma of my injuries upregulated my nervous system and created nerve sensitivity in the area as well. Over time, new problems layered themselves on top of the old ones. Chronic pain from endometriosis caused a tightening of my pelv ..read more

As an endometriosis patient, I am quite versed in the art of explaining my symptoms to friends and strangers. Talking about my disease on podcasts, or telling doctors about the embarrassing things my body does has become quite natural to me. I am also familiar with being at the receiving end of advice I never asked for. And there is one particular form of unwarranted council that irritates me above the rest: mansplaining. Mansplaining happens when a man explains something to a woman in a condescending, patronizing way. And you’d think that because endometriosis is generally suffered by those ..read more

There is so much more to endometriosis than one might think. You’ve heard me say this repeatedly, but I don’t believe all of our symptoms are caused only by endometriosis. And I believe this is particularly true when it comes to gut health. Unfortunately, because endometriosis is a chronic condition, we’re often led to believe that there’s nothing much we can do besides having repeated surgeries and resorting to hormone therapy and painkillers. But this prevents us from digging further into our symptoms, and we end up believing that they’re simply caused by endometriosis, so we’ll just have ..read more