Endometriosis Awareness Month- Marcy's story

March is Endometriosis awareness month! At Indigo, we see a lot of women who are suffering with endometriosis, however we know sometimes it can feel like you are alone. That’s why we are excited to have our Acupuncturist Dr. Marcy Julius share her story. Look for more on her journey with fertility later in the month.

I am 1 in 10. As I sit here writing this, heating pad on my belly… I think of all the women that are suffering in silence. The women who’ve been told that their pain is just “normal” period pain. The women who are afraid to speak up and demand proper care because their concerns have been brushed off by their doctors time and time again. Is a bit of cramping with your menstrual cycle normal? Sure. However, pain that is SO severe that it interferes with your ability to function, is absolutely not normal. 

My story is unfortunately an all too common one. I had pretty bad periods and cysts when I was a teenager, and was put on the pill to keep them at bay. After going off the pill in my early 20’s, everything  progressively got worse. Over time I began to experience sharp pain when going to the bathroom, pain at random times throughout my cycle, and extreme pain in my upper abdomen during my period. It felt like someone was grabbing a hold of my stomach and intestines, and then squeezing and twisting as hard as they could. But that didn’t make sense to me! That was nowhere near my uterus. My doctors were no help, they just suggested I go back on the pill or take heavier pain killers (narcotics), neither of which I was interested in. I also ended up in the hospital on two separate occasions with attacks of abdominal pain so severe that I was worried something was seriously wrong. After endoscopies, colonoscopies, blood tests and more CT scans than I can count, the doctors still had no idea what was wrong with me and haphazardly labeled it IBS (a common misdiagnosis for women with endometriosis).

That is around the time I started getting into acupuncture and herbal medicine. I loved it so much that I realized it was my true calling and decided to go to acupuncture school (best decision I ever made!). A few years later, while deep in the study of reproductive medicine, we were learning about endometriosis and a lightbulb went off in my head. My symptoms all added up, and most importantly I learned that the only way to definitively diagnose endo, is by laparoscopic surgery. I eventually worked up the courage to go see a pelvic pain specialist. Like many women in my situation, I was nervous to undergo surgery for something we weren’t even sure I had, but after years of suffering I knew it was the right decision. When I woke up from the five-hour surgery, I was relieved to hear that I did in fact have endometriosis. I know it seems strange that this news gave me relief, however finally getting an answer as to why I had been in pain for so long did just that. Now that I had the diagnosis and partial excision surgery (they weren’t able to get it all) I could work towards managing it.