‘Worse than childbirth’: women with endometriosis call for better treatments

Lisa Hague, 38, was diagnosed with endometriosis at the age of 17 after being in such severe pain that she resorted to taking a powerful painkiller, dihydrocodeine, that had been prescribed to her partner for a sports injury. She had an allergic reaction to the codeine and was taken to hospital.

After speaking to a doctor about why she had taken such a risk, she was referred for a laparoscopy and diagnosed. “I’d never heard of endometriosis before and didn’t know anyone that had it,” she says. 

The diagnosis was a relief, but there were few treatment options available and she has had to manage intense pain and very heavy bleeding for a few days each month.

At times, she has resorted to sitting against hot radiators or taking scalding baths to “as a distraction from the internal pain”. “It is very dismissed still at the doctors,” she says.

Hague says there is a “desperate need” for better treatments so that her teenage daughter’s generation do not face the same struggle. “Things have got to have changed since I was 17,” she says.

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Source: The Guardian, 8 March 2023