Endometriosis is a chronic condition that affects people with periods

I’m sure anyone has either experienced or knows someone who’s had a poor experience with the healthcare system for one reason: they happen to be a woman.

And when it comes to something related to gynaecological health, like endometriosis, the healthcare system has failed time and time again.

For fitness instructor Sophie King, it took over 10 years to get diagnosed with endometriosis. Sophie recently went viral after she spoke out about living with endometriosis on TikTok.

@sophiekingfitness @HSE Ireland how is this acceptable treatment to the women of Ireland? Being told we cannot receive surgery unless we agree to pump hormones into our bodies? #endometriosis #endo #endometriosisawareness #adenomyosis #ireland #endoireland #endometriosisassociationireland #awareness ♬ original sound - Sophie king fitness

Sophie was diagnosed at age 23 with endometriosis and adenomyosis, but her first interaction with the healthcare system happened when she was 12.

“When I got my first period when I was 12 years old, I ended up in A&E, thinking that my appendix was bursting.”

“My mam called an ambulance. I was screaming, like on the floor screaming, in pain, crying, vomiting, like you name it, it was happening.”

After being seen in the hospital, she was just told she was being “dramatic” and it was just her period.

“At first, it was ‘Oh, she's a teenager, she's just like a dramatic teenager, to adulthood being told that, like you're just seeking medication, and that like your symptoms aren't real, that it’s in your head.”

Sophie said women are “made [to] believe that you are crazy by the health care system in Ireland.”

In an interview with Her.ie, fitness influencer Sophie King opened up about her experience and the desperate changes that need to be made in Ireland

At 19, Sophie was then misdiagnosed with PCOS when she went to the hospital after a cyst on her ovary burst. She stayed on the pill until she was 21. Though still in pain, she was finally diagnosed with endometriosis and adenomyosis at 23.

Doctors found extensive endometriosis covering her right ovary and the back of her womb during her laparoscopy surgery.  During surgery, they used ablation (burning the tissue via a laser), which removed most of her endometriosis and adenomyosis. 

But what stuck with King was that she was previously told they would use excision surgery (cutting out the tissue).

“It kind of feels like that was done without my consent.” 

“I would say I will never trust an Irish doctor to go near me again in terms of surgery. I fear what I would wake up to.”

King was discharged after surgery, and had not heard from doctors for a check-up for a year, despite the tissue still inside her, and still in a lot of pain. Looking at gender bias in the medical industry, King compared her experience with that of her father, who beat cancer.

“They dealt with him like within a matter of weeks, and he was given everything he needed.”

Though different conditions, King’s father sees how differently they are treated, despite both being in pain.

“He's like, ‘whether it's cancer or something else, it's still a disease growing inside you that's destroying your insides, and you're being given 10-12 years before you're sorted, and I'm sorted in a few weeks?”

King believes that if she were a man, then she would’ve been treated many years ago

“I just don't think we [women] are taken seriously in this country at all.”

King also states that the skills to treat endometriosis in Ireland just aren’t good enough:

“Our doctors haven't been given enough training. And like, if it's so simple to bring a doctor from another country here, or send their doctors away, to be shown how to diagnose endometriosis through a pelvic MRI,” she said.

“They would be able to help so many women in Ireland, but the government does not want to pump money into doing that.”

King added: “There is a doctor in the UK, a specialist, who has offered to come here and train our doctors, and our government said no.”

It doesn’t make sense why those with endometriosis, like Sophie, have to stay in pain every month, and wait over 10 years with doctors invalidating their pain and their medical rights.

Sophie King said she won’t stop fighting for better endometriosis care in Ireland.

“The only way you are going to get a diagnosis is if you go in there with your notepad and an attitude. The more you sit back, stay quiet [...] they're just going to keep putting a bandaid on a cracked wall.”

“And it's going to be 10 years down the line, and it's going to be so far spread through your body that you're going to need a hysterectomy or you're going to end up with severe complications. 

“If you have any idea or any indication that you may have endometriosis, fight and fight and fight until you get the diagnosis you need.”

According to the HSE, endometriosis is a long-term condition where “tissue similar to the lining of the womb starts to grow in other places.”