"Menstrual health, fatphobia and not being taken seriously"

I have been suffering with extreme menstrual pain for the past 15 years, when I was younger the adults in my life said I would "grow out of it" so I took that to heart and just coped, taking the highest dose of pain killers I could 4 times a day religiously for around 5 days every month.

I suffered through education and university and was so busy moving from place to place for 5 years I didn't think to get it checked out, just had to remember to buy 4 packs of painkillers every month so I could at least function.

When I was around 25 I realised I had in fact never grown out of the pain and was finally settled and stable enough to go to my GP about my pain to get it looked into, I wasn't interested in more pain killers, I wanted to get to the root of the issue and get it fixed.

When talking to a GP on the phone, I had also given my GP my weight for an issue unrelated to menstrual health I was getting seen for. At first they were very sympathetic about the pain I was in, but when they asked me where the pain was and I said it was to do with my menstruation, their sympathy immediately vanished and they just said some pain is normal. For reference, when I forget to take pain killers in time I spend the day doubled over in pain unable to function, everyone in my life has said they have never seen anyone in so much constant menstrual pain every month, I had at this point used up all my sick days at work and couldn't afford to have more time off because of it.

After dismissing my menstrual pain, they then saw my weight and immediately put all of my pain down to me being overweight, which was a symptom of this other issue I'd been going to the GP about. After this they instead offered me referrals to a weight loss program to fix my menstrual pain even though I'd been experiencing the pain for 15 years and only gotten overweight in the last 5 years.

After declining help with the weight loss, as I have many issues around disordered eating and similar programs in the past had made my eating habits worse, I pushed to get seen by a consultant for my menstrual pain. They reluctantly referred me to the nearby hospital where I sat on a waiting list for 15 months.

The specialist gynecologist I saw was the only person who took my pain seriously (also the only man I saw as part of this process). I went in there with my boyfriend armed with a detailed record of my pain, specific dates and times detailing how often and the severity of it and my boyfriend had come with my in case I wasn't taken seriously so he could back me up. This was not needed, I briefly explained the pain I was in to the gynecologist and he immediately thought it was endometriosis (something my GP had not mentioned but I had thought it was for a while) and referred me for an operation to see if it was that. I was so happy as I had researched and found information about this operation and that is was what I had wanted so left the gynecologist very pleased that he had taken me seriously and I was about to get some answers.

Around a year later I was scheduled to have the operation. For the actual procedure the nurses and staff there were brilliant, and the nurses for my pre op examination were some of the kindest healthcare professionals I've dealt with, I absolutely could not fault them, they were brilliant.

For this operation the gynecologist had offered me the option to have the coil fitted, I had waited until the day to decide and I decided to have it fitted, as I had friends who had it and after research saw that it would lessen my pain substantially and my friends corroborated this.

I had the operation and all was well, it was key hole as endometriosis can only be diagnosed through sight (to my knowledge) so they were using a camera to see, they were also taking a sample to test for endometrial tissue and inserting the coil.

After the operation I was told they did not find any evidence of endometriosis but I would get an email regarding the findings from the sample they took, this was very disheartening but I understood.

A few weeks later they contacted me to let me know that they had found some endometrial cells in the sample they took so they wanted me to come in to talk to a someone about it.

I came in for this appointment, the person I saw said they hadn't found anything so I'd have to have the operation again. For the first operation I had to take 2 weeks off work and I couldn't afford to do it again. I enquired about the coil and if I could still have the operation and they had no knowledge from my file that the coil had been put in, they said they wouldn't be able to do the operation again because of this and that I should instead just lose weight as that was probably the issue, no mention of endometriosis.

At this point I am extremely fed up, the coil is working and I am in pain fairly regularly still but it'll be a couple times a day and just a 4/10-6/10 so much more manageable compared to the 8/10-10/10 pain I was in before.

I've decided to not look into this any further for the time being, and potentially wait to save up money to go privately in future in the hopes they take my pain more seriously.