'We wait too long for endometriosis diagnoses'

After seven years of doctors discounting my symptoms, Ellie Tutt joined the end of a fifty-five-week-long waiting list to find out whether she had endometriosis.

About 1.5 million women in the UK, external are thought to have the condition, which causes pain and extreme tiredness as a result of tissue similar to the womb lining growing elsewhere in the body. But for many of these women, it is taking a long time to get a diagnosis.

Endometriosis can cause chronic pain, heavy bleeding and, if untreated, organ damage, external and infertility.

Despite this, Dr Kate Dyerson, a GP from Berkshire, said it was taking some women four or five trips to their doctor before they were taken seriously.

She said: "I think there's a degree of ignorance among the medical profession as to how many women are affected."

Women's medical problems had long been dismissed, she said, adding many doctors would assume a teenager was just adjusting to period pains.

"I don't think it's sexist so much, I think it's that inbuilt sense that women have periods, periods are unpleasant, we don't want to talk about them, and if they hurt, well, take your pain elsewhere."

Dr Dyerson said it took an average of eight years for women to get a diagnosis and felt GPs needed to get better at making referrals.

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Source: BBC News, 16 April 2025