Heavy periods, menstrual cramps, painful sex and abdominal pain simply sound like the regular burdens of being a woman. And for any female at any age, there are two things that happen when you’re struck down with period cramps – one, you either suck it up because you assume it’s the norm; or two, you open up to a close friend or family member and explain to them the pain you’re in, in which they will most likely hand you a Panadol and tell you to just shake it off.
But this is where we’re all wrong.
In fact, this is exactly what happened to co-founder of The Pelvic Expert, Heba Shaheed, who found out her period pain was something much more severe.
“My period pain was always painful and I thought it was normal because it was just like every other woman who was suffering from period pain,” Shaheed tells co-hosts Maz Compton and Dr Sam Hay in the latest episode of podcast Healthy-ish: What should be on our health agenda?
“But it got to a point where I was in severe chronic pain on a daily basis with pelvic pain, nerve pain, migraines all the time, so it just escalated.
“It wasn’t until I actually graduated from physiotherapy and met other women’s health physiotherapists that I got diagnosed with endometriosis.”
After 11 years of suffering with the medical condition, Heba ended up having surgery to remove her endometriosis. But her own story is something she doesn’t want any woman to ever go through, and has become a women’s health specialist and strong advocate for sharing information on how to tell the difference between normal period pain and endometriosis.
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