Let’s talk about it. Period. Aitrend

Publisher’s note: In a five -part series, JAYME Doll plunges into certain deep causes behind the debilitating peripheral pain, why it takes so long to obtain a diagnosis and the efforts made to improve lives. Part 1 is in the video player above. The rest of the series will be added as it is broadcast during the week from March 10 to 14.

There is no shortage of labels and euphemisms for this. It is a natural reality and love-hate binding half of the world’s population.

For too long, many have been sitting in a silent paralyzing agony each month which far exceeds the limits of normal.

“You always have those who say:” Oh, it’s just bad cramps, oh it’s just a belly. “But I knew my body and I knew that something was wrong,” said Katie Leaf de Canmore.

“I feel so often that we are discredited, that we are well or that it is not much pain, ignored, transmitted.”

“It’s really frustrating, I feel the anger not to be listened to,” she said.

Katie’s pain began in adolescence, she never gave up defending herself. At 21, she received a diagnosis of endometriosis and polycystic ovarian syndrome.

“I landed in the hospital several times – the pain is blinding. You can’t move, you can’t think right, I can’t see it straight. “”

It took 23 years in Laura McDonald to obtain a diagnosis for her atrocious pain, also due to endometriosis.

“I was told that the pain was in my head that I sometimes imagined the pain,” she said. “I had health anxiety and I was referred to advice that I had to make cognitive behavioral therapy.

“I didn’t know what was wrong with me.”

Endometriosis has an impact on 1 in 10 reproductive age – cells normally found in the mucous membrane of the uterus spreads to other parts of the body causing debilitating pain, heavy bleeding and sometimes infertility.

Currently, the gold stallion for the diagnosis of endometriosis is by laparoscopic surgeryWhere surgeons often try to increase the endometrial tissue pushing outside the uterus and repair any damage.

But there is no guarantee that he does not resume. Katie and Laura, now in the thirties, have undergone surgery – Katie suffered it several times.

“I remember talking to the surgeon of my post-operation and he used the word” infertile “and as a 21-year-old woman, I always wanted to be a mom. It was really difficult to hear, ”said Katie.

The two women agree that the diagnosis has helped to validate their pain and finally opened more doors to help manage it, many are still waiting.

“I just can’t get out of bed, I can’t move, so it stopped me in many ways in life,” said Rose Plican d’Edmonton.

The debilitating periods of the 19 -year -old student forced him to break on several occasions several times.

“It’s a lot of men in my class and so you sit there, you die in class – and they say to themselves:” Are you fine? ” What’s going on with you?

“How am I supposed to explain to a bunch of guys who, like, I am on my period, I just need to go home?”

“It’s embarrassing,” she added.

Rose is on a two -year waiting list to see a gynecologist and waits for months for a pelvic scan.

“It is a diagnostic delay of 8.5 years worldwide, Canada is 5.3 years old, I think it’s extraordinary,” said Carolyn Plican, Rose’s mother, who is also a health care defender.

Carolyn has discovered new technology created in the United States and now used in the Middle East, the United Kingdom and a clinic in Canada.

This is a non -invasive diagnostic test for endometriosis called endorship that promises to take only 30 minutes.

Plican was so passionate about this and helping her daughter to have taken her certification to use technology.

“Suddenly, when you are diagnosed, you know that it is not in your head, so it gives you the permission to let you know that you need better strategies to manage the pain or that you must be on a waiting list for laparoscopy to have excised it, if it really affects you,” said Plican.

Over the past 10 years, there have been enormous progress in mini-invasive gynecological surgery, but health specialists have always faced barriers.

“We are independent by our patients and we find our voice, but unfortunately, we play catch -up in a health care system that has always assimilated gynecology to obstetrics and has not recognized the power of what we can offer surgically,” said Dr. Liane Belland.

Calgary’s surgeon has helped lead to the field of little invasive and complex gynecological surgery. Its clinic can have up to 700 new patients per year.

“The way our current surgical time allowance is, there is no priority on gynecological care, there has never been a priority on gynecological care,” said Belland.

“It is difficult to listen to people’s difficulties day after day – you want to help people and sometimes there are constraints, system constraints or waiting lists.”

“Ideally, you would like to bring everyone into the operating room, of course you want everyone to allow the medical management you want to offer them, but that is not reality,” said Belland.

The gynecologist like Dr. Belland admits that stigma can still be a barrier preventing patients from looking for help in the first place.

“Many people suffer in silence,” said Dr. Ari Sanders, a gynecological surgeon based in Calgary.

“When women are lacking in school because of pain, or when they lack work because of a bleeding that is not normal, that should not happen,” said Sanders.

The specialists said that social media and support groups were helping to bring legitimacy to debilitating periodic pain that has been criticized forever as normal – which women simply have to bear.

Laura McDonald launched a support group to do this exactly. They meet on Monday for tea and often invite health experts to answer questions. But hearing the personal stories of the other is therapeutic.

“Endo is very insulating, navigating in the medical system is isolated – so meeting with other women who live this makes you feel less alone and fairly sustained,” said Erin Ramsey, member of the group.

The fight to debilitate the debilitating periods of societal stigma increases steam.

Change.org has many petitions that make lobbying for days of paid illness and even support with products. Some believe that society as a whole has a role to play in understanding the gravity that some are confronted.

“I hope that the workplaces, schools like that will happen a little more to accept women are cyclical and we have to work with these cycles a little more to have optimal health,” said many Leblanc, a women’s health professional.

“Women should not have to build muscle and smile and support it,” said Dr. Belland.

Katie Leaf admits that she had to do it several times, but found power in her own vulnerability – listen to her body and know when it is normal to rest.

She wants others to know that they do not have to suffer alone in silence.