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Luisa Morillo turns 40 this year and for as long as she can remember, her periods were always very painful.

In her early years, she lost plans and entire days by staying in bed until that fury in her belly subsided.

Her only explanation was none: the period hurts and this is what it means, they told her.

But she knew that not all women received those lashes.

Her friends lived a normal life, but she, more or less two days a month, was absent from almost everything: she couldn't go to class and was left with the company of the electric blanket and a few pills.

"The time of the race was horrible, the worst. I even vomited from the pain," he remembers.

He also reports a certain lack of understanding in those around him, because complaining about stomach pains seems to many to be little more than an excuse.

"Not only did my male friends not understand it, neither did they. And my mother insisted that periods have to hurt..."

This normalization of the pain did not take her to the doctor, so Luisa kept going, taking a break from her life every month.

When she was almost 30, she went to her first gynecological check-up and, already there, she took the opportunity to "comment on it," as if in passing.

She had an ultrasound and 'voilà': those devilish pains had a name and it was endometriosis.

"After so many years I knew that what was happening to me had an explanation!"

She was prescribed the birth control pill and she improved a little, she says.

She was like that for a couple of years.

Late diagnosis

Grijalbo

Yesterday was World Endometriosis Day, a disease that is defined by the presence of endometrium (mucous tissue that lines the inside of the uterus) outside the uterine cavity and muscles.

It affects 10% of women of reproductive age and causes, among others, menstrual pain, when defecating and during sexual relations, and

infertility

.

This abnormal location usually reaches areas such as the fallopian tubes and ovaries, although occasionally it can invade the intestine, bladder, stomach, lung, etc., according to the official document 'Guide to care for women with endometriosis in the System. National Health'.

The body reacts to this 'invasion' of the endometrium with chronic

inflammation

.

The cause of this disease is unknown, although a certain

genetic

predisposition has been proven .

The recommended treatment includes pain relievers, hormonal medications and contraceptives and, in certain cases, surgeries to cut or remove areas of endometrial tissue.

One of the workhorses of this disease is the delay in diagnosis, as Luisa's case reflects.

The aforementioned document explains that various symptoms and "the widespread awareness on the part of women that it is normal for menstruation to hurt" influence late diagnoses of endometriosis.

Dr. Francisco Carmona, gynecologist, author of '

Endometriosis: The guide to understanding what it is and how to take care of yourself'

(Grijalbo, 2021) and one of the greatest experts in this ailment, increases

the time it takes for Spanish women to

8.3 years

in giving a name to the symptoms they suffer.

Not always, he considers, this delay is due to a lack of complaints, but on average, women have visited three gynecologists before leaving the consultation with a diagnosis under their arm.

It is a silenced

disease

, more than silent, that in Spain affects two million women, of which a quarter, explains Dr. Carmona in his book, suffers from its most serious form.

Difficulties getting pregnant

Shutterstock

Luisa knew about the pain every month, but nothing more.

She got married and, since she always wanted to be a mother, she started looking for a pregnancy with her husband.

No one ever warned her that the endometriosis that she had suffered since she was a child was going to hinder her goal of starting a family, so she continued trying in natural ways, waiting

for the predictor's yes

.

"If I had known that it caused infertility, I would have made other decisions in my life and would have started treatment sooner. I was 31 years old and we 'lost' four years before going to an assisted reproduction clinic," she laments.

José María Rubio

, gynecologist and director of Clinical Quality at the Next Fertility Valencia clinic, explains that if the inflammation that causes endometriosis affects the uterus, the natural implantation of the embryos is complicated.

In these cases, hormonal treatments are necessary to block the growth of the endometrium before proceeding with artificial insemination or implanting the embryos obtained in the laboratory through in vitro fertilization.

If the fallopian tubes or ovaries are invaded (in which cysts can even form), it is fertilization itself that is hindered.

Needless to say, age, in many cases, is an aggravating factor, since after the

age of 35

a woman's fertility decreases significantly.

Luisa took a while to take the step and go to an assisted reproduction clinic because, apparently, there was no reason to go to the doctor.

"As she had stopped the contraceptive pill, every month she not only had tremendous pain, but she felt the pain of not having achieved pregnancy," she remembers.

Her endometriosis affected one of her tubes and the ovary on the same side, so a spontaneous pregnancy would hardly have occurred.

Luckily, when she started the 'in vitro' fertilization process at the age of 36, the embryo implanted without problems and the first time.

Today her daughter

is 2 years old

.

Her menstrual cramps eased up a little after she was born.

Some time later they repeated the procedure and in a couple of months she gave birth to her second baby.

This time, she "comes boy," she says happily.

With full knowledge of the facts, she assures: "The pains of the first contractions of labor are like those of my periods. They make a normal life impossible. Like this month after month. It's too much."

When she is born and recovers from the postpartum, Luisa plans to check her endometriosis in consultation: "If it hurts like before, I have surgery. With two small children, I don't want to have to stay in bed for two days with an ibuprofen. I don't want to go back to that," he says.