Lynsey was initially misdiagnosed and treated for Inflammatory Bowel Disease. She has tried a wide variety of medications and treatments to help with the pain, some having large negative impacts on her mental health and mood. She has also had ablation (where a surgeon removes a thin layer of tissue from the uterus by one of a number of methods including electric current, heating, or freezing), which she says helped for a while but the pain returned worse and with added symptoms just three months later. She has paid out of pocket for several possible treatments which aren’t available on the NHS.
Lynsey believes that if she didn’t work for her family’s company, she wouldn’t have a job because of the unpredictable nature of flare ups and the severity of her symptoms when they happen.
She strongly believes in advocating for yourself, persevering, and seeking other opinions when your pain or symptoms are dismissed.
“I wish I knew that “some women just get bad periods” is untrue, and that if your menstrual cycle is impacting your quality of life, there is something else going on! I’m optimistic that studying all this data and symptoms might then one day lead to a cure.”