As the father of a daughter about to undergo her fourth surgery to excise stage four endometriosis (the worst level) and, yet again, free her abdominal organs from its agonising grip, I wept to read your article (Revealed: toll of illness that may affect one in 10 women, 28 September). My tears were, of course, for the suffering my daughter has endured since she was 14 (she is now in her 30s) and for the many others similarly afflicted. But they were also for the failure of so many GPs to take this appalling and debilitating condition seriously for so many years, telling sufferers, as your article testifies, that pain and discomfort was part of a woman’s lot and had to be borne silently.
The growing number of female GPs over the past 20 years has helped to change attitudes, bringing greater understanding through personal experience. In my daughter’s case, several male doctors simply trotted out the old mantra of “the curse” for years, despite repeated visits asking for help. Eventually, she was referred to a brilliant female gynaecologist and surgeon, working with a skilled colorectal surgeon. With their help and her own sheer guts and determination, she continues a demanding professional career, often in the face of severe pain. Every couple of years, when the endometriosis has grown back unmanageably, as now, she needs further surgery and time off.
She is fortunate, if that word can ever be appropriate when speaking of illness, that we have the resources to fund some of the treatment privately and that her employer is endlessly understanding of the difficulties.
Your article should help publicise the pain, and the loss of life chances – such as the inability to bear children – that this condition often brings with it. Far too many women continue to suffer in silence and, with our NHS under constant pressure through cuts, one can only imagine that the government will want to ignore any calls to tackle this epidemic.
Name and address supplied
• Well said, Hilary Mantel (Endometriosis took my fertility, and part of my self, 28 September). As a chronic migraine sufferer, I have known most of my life that it is hard for even sensitive people to imagine the “daily botches and compromises that people in pain make to keep themselves going”. Having been brought up never to whinge or complain hasn’t helped. If we were all better at telling it how it is to our managers, colleagues and medical practitioners, maybe it would be harder for us to be so readily dismissed. I’m sure Ms Mantel’s article struck a chord for sufferers of many hidden diseases, including mental illnesses.
Shelagh Scott
Tynemouth
