'Endometriosis diagnosis came after years of agony'
Women can spend years in pain waiting for a diagnosis of endometriosis - the presence of uterus tissue in other parts of the body.
Wednesday 6 September 2017 02:51, UK
Lorna, 21, suffered for years with pain and was misdiagnosed several times before she was finally told she had endometriosis. Here she tells Sky News her story.
I first noticed there was something really wrong when I found myself bleeding a lot of the time.
As a young teenager, at first I just assumed this was normal - I'd always struggled with my periods.
How was I to know this wasn't just part of being a teenage girl?
But the bleeding kept happening between my periods. And it was bad.
I was experiencing pain like I'd never felt before and it was debilitating.
Again and again I went to the doctors, but they misdiagnosed me several times.
They told me I was pregnant and that I was experiencing a miscarriage.
They told me that I had an STI.
It wasn't until I was in college, and my symptoms were so bad that I was bleeding every day, that I finally got an answer.
I was then aged 18.
They sent me to a specialist, who diagnosed me with endometriosis following an operation.
But things were still the same after they operated.
The pain eased slightly, but prolonged bleeding and sharp pain all down my right side remained an everyday occurrence.
I bled constantly for four months after my operation and ended up in A&E.
A later scan revealed the cysts; one was six inches and they sat on my ovary.
The doctors suspected cancer so they decided to operate again and remove both cysts.
I only started noticing a real difference after my second operation.
While I still got constant pain, my periods regulated and were a lot lighter thanks to the hormonal coil they had inserted during my first operation.
Since then I've had a couple of trips to A&E for pain relief during particularly difficult times in my cycle, which are excruciating.
I'm still learning to live with the pain on a day-to-day basis.
As endometriosis is an incurable and lifelong illness, it's likely that I may be facing more surgeries and complications as I grow up.
But to help me cope, I've now joined several support groups for "endo" sufferers and I like to get involved with other people like me via social media.