'We wait too long for endometriosis diagnoses'

Since I was a teenager, I have battled agony in my abdomen, which painkillers have not touched and the hottest of hot water bottles have not helped with.

After seven years of doctors discounting my symptoms, a GP helped me join the end of a fifty-five-week-long waiting list to find out whether I have endometriosis.

About 1.5 million women in the UK 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 like many of these women, it is taking a long time for me to get a diagnosis.

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

"Endometriosis is not bad period pain, it's a level up, and that's why it needs understanding," she said.

Maisie Scott from Ascot has been visiting doctor with abdominal pain since she was 16 years old.

As a teenager, she was told her pain was normal and was even told she was making it up to get out of her GCSE exams.

Now aged 24, she has had surgery to determine whether her pain was caused by endometriosis - a 45 minute operation which turned into three hours.

"My right ovary, my right kidney, my bladder on my right side, my womb, and cervix were all attached as one organ from the endometriosis," she said.

There is currently no cure for the condition, so Ms Scott underwent a laparoscopy - keyhole surgery to remove some of the tissue.

But since the operation, her pain has returned.

"They basically said I have to start from square one - I have to go back on the waitlist and wait to go back to gynaecology and wait to be treated," she said.

"It's been six months, they know I've had it, they know I've had the operation and they know I've been diagnosed for it I'm still just waiting."

Ms Scott said she wanted to start a family soon but was worried endometriosis would affect her fertility.

Sophie Maher, 24, from Ascot, was travelling in Australia when she sought medical help and was told she had endometriosis.

"I was passing out from the pain, most days I couldn't walk. It's indescribable," she said.

But when she returned to the UK and visited her GP, she said she was "shut down" and told she would "grow out of it".

"I eventually got put onto a waiting list for a gynaecology appointment, which took a year and a half to get to," she said.

"I turned up at the appointment and they said the appointment didn't exist, so I had to wait another two months."

Ms Maher is still waiting to hear her results and says she has not yet had an official diagnosis.

In March, a new endometriosis pill was approved on the NHS in England for patients who have had no success with medical treatments or surgery.

But a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said too many women were still facing "unacceptable waits" for gynaecology treatment.

"We know that more needs to be done to support women with endometriosis," they said.

"This government is overhauling women's healthcare to get women the support they need, when they need it."

An extra £26bn was being invested in the NHS, which will help reduce waiting times from 18 months to a maximum of 18 weeks, they added.

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