A woman who contemplated quitting her life because of how much endometriosis was affecting her has called for menstrual leave policy to be introduced after she was "demonised" for calling sick.
Lola Hall, 30 and from Camden, London, has been grappling with "stabbing" period pains ever since she had her first menstrual cycle aged 11.
The pain "persisted and got worse through adulthood", with it becoming so extreme at about the age of 25 that Lola felt "like I didn't want to be around anymore...
"Not because I wasn’t a valuable person or I hated myself but because I was in so much pain and my life was so heavily disrupted by the endometriosis that it didn’t feel like a life worth living.”
Lola would at times have to ask her mother to help her while showering " because I couldn’t hold myself up long enough", while she would only have microwaved food as she didn't trust herself with the stove because of the strong painkillers she was on, such as dihyrocodeine.
"My pain levels were at about 9 and the only reason they weren’t 10 is because I wasn’t blacked out most of the time, but I was screaming in pain on a daily basis, I was writhing in pain, the painkillers wouldn’t touch it."
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Yet despite the "searing pain", Lola, who is part of the Endometriosis UK support group in London, has in the past felt like she had "no option" but to go to work for fear of being penalised.
Lola said her condition has in the past been perceived "as a negative aspect of me" or an "inconvenience", and that has in turn had an impact on her mental health and performance.
"It become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. They demonise you and then you become more stressed, more likely to make mistakes and you become sicker from the stress."
The 30-year-old was once also put under review, although she pointed out how her employers at the time weren't aware her absence was due to her period. Lola said she felt her condition wouldn't be seen "as a real sickness".
'Miles behind'
Despite the UK being one of the most advanced countries in the world, its employment law still falls short of stipulating that women with premenstrual syndrome (PMS) can take time off work.
A survey of 1,419 UK women aged 19-54 from London-based company Yoppie found 84 per cent would support menstrual leave becoming a legal workplace requirement, compared to just six percent who were strongly against it.
That while a total of 96 per cent said their workplace fell short of having any form of menstrual leave in place.
Daniella Peri, the founder of Yoppie , said the UK is still "miles behind" countries like Indonesia, Zambia, parts of China, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, where menstrual leave is already legally enforced.
"Some will argue that our general sick leave policies are sufficient to cover menstrual leave, but if a woman is having to take a day or two sick leave every month compared to the average of four or five sick days a year, employers may start to look unfavourably on them," Ms Peri said.
"It’s this stigma that causes many to refrain from taking time off work when PMS hits in fear that they won’t be treated equally against their male counterparts."
She added that if change can't happen via the government, they want to "empower" woman to campaign for the change in their own workplace so " we can start to make a change one company at a time.”
'I felt like an absolute corpse'
Lola had a laparoscopy two years ago and has now been put on a new medication which she calls a "lifeline".
But when her body was first adjusting to the treatment - an intake of hormones six times the typical dose - she felt like "an absolute corpse" and had to take three weeks of sick leave.
She is grateful to have supportive employers who allowed her to do that, but realises they are "the exception, not the rule".
Explaining the extent to which the endometriosis can affect you, she said it can in some ways be compared to cancer because of how the cells behave and similar symptoms.
A prostate chemotherapy drug which triggers a chemical menopause is also sometimes used to manage endometriosis, but the side effects are "horrible".
Backing calls for menstrual leave to be granted to employees affected by severe period-related symptoms, she said: “If you had a member of staff that had cancer or had diabetes - because diabetes affects the same amount of people that endometriosis does - they would be treated fairly at work.
“But for some reason as soon as periods are brought into it, vaginas are brought into it, uteruses are brought into it, suddenly it’s no longer medical, suddenly it’s an icky woman’s issue we don’t talk about”.
Endometriosis UK called on the government to "urgently" review how its policies on benefits and statutory sick pay are applied to those with endometriosis so they "are not discriminated against due to having a condition linked to the menstrual cycle.”
The charity, which supports 25,000 women across the country, told the Mirror: "Endometriosis is not ‘just a bad period’. Those with the disease may have severe, debilitating pain.
"We don’t need generic menstrual leave; we need employers, the Department of Work and Pensions and society to recognise endometriosis as a chronic condition and provide the support that they would to anyone with a chronic health condition."
