First National Action Plan For Endometriosis Is A Game-Changer For Australian Women

The announcement of the first National Action Plan for Endometriosis is deeply personal to me. I’d been told “period pain is normal” my entire life, and after 11 years of suffering and invalidation, I finally received a diagnosis and treatment for endometriosis.  

The Action Plan is a crucial step to reducing the alarmingly delayed diagnosis averaging 7 to 10 years, and I can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that girls and women will finally be heard when they complain of period pain.

I believe that we need to implement up-to-date menstrual health education in schools, and we must screen for endometriosis in school-aged girls. This can help prevent and reduce the disastrous effects of ongoing inflammation and growth of endometriosis and subsequent chronic pelvic pain and infertility.

I remember vividly in my early teens, waking up in the middle of the night in such severe pain that I crawled my way out of my room and down the stairs, crying in agony, until I reached my parents’ bedroom. We rushed to the hospital, and I honestly felt like my uterus was going to explode. The hospital pumped me full of morphine, and sent me home the next day, with no mention of the possibility of endometriosis.

Read the rest of this feature at ModernAustralian.com