My periods give me severe pain and make me look pregnant – doctors told me to have a baby aged 15 to get rid of the symptoms
A woman who suffers from extreme periods that cause ‘severe’ pain and make her appear ‘pregnant’ has revealed how doctors recommended childbirth to ease the symptoms.
Grace Almey, 21, from Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, has struggled with grueling periods since the age of nine and has endured a range of symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS), including back pain, gastrointestinal problems and hair loss.
Over the years, her condition has sent her back and forth to countless doctors and hospital visits, leaving professionals so baffled that she claims someone advised her to have a baby at age 15 to alleviate symptoms.
Grace, who works in HR, said she had no choice but to go private, spending ‘£5,000 to £6,000’ on surgery. She was eventually diagnosed with a little-known uterine condition called adenomyosis.
Adenomyosis is when the uterine lining – the endometrium – burrows deep into the muscular wall of the uterus. Although the displaced tissue continues to function normally during each menstrual cycle, it can cause an enlarged uterus and painful, heavy periods.
Grace Almey (pictured) says she suffers from extreme periods causing ‘severe’ pain and a ‘pregnant’ stomach
The 21-year-old from Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire has suffered from a range of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) symptoms since the age of nine, including back pain, gastrointestinal problems and hair loss (Grace pictured in hospital)
Grace says she was repeatedly dismissed by doctors and even said she was too “sensitive.”
‘From the start I had very heavy periods and they were very painful. Sometimes they lasted three weeks,” Grace said.
‘I often woke up with a very swollen stomach. It honestly looked like I was pregnant. If anyone saw me, they really thought I was pregnant.
‘I was just an emotional wreck, I was told ‘you’re just sensitive’.
‘I was about fifteen and they said there’s nothing we can do. Normally we would tell women to have a baby.
‘One said: ‘We know you’re young, but if you decide to have a baby it will help.’ It’s a bad story that having a baby will solve gynecological problems.”
She said the pain became so intense that her mother, Joanne, 56, had to drive her back and forth to doctor appointments.
She said doctors were so impressed with her condition that someone advised her to have a baby at age 15 to alleviate the symptoms.
Grace says she was repeatedly dismissed by doctors and even said she was too “sensitive.”
She was offered several birth control pills and an injection, as well as a hormone coil to help regulate her cycle, but claimed none of these relieved her symptoms.
Her ordeal worsened in January this year when she suffered back pain, found it difficult to keep food down and lost her hair. Still, doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong.
“My mother kept taking me to the doctors, but at that age they just said I would be fine,” she remembers.
‘I was going through it all the time [period] pads. My mother was constantly washing my sheets. Sometimes I would just sit on the toilet and bleed.’
At the age of 12, her periods began to interfere with her school – to the point where she had to take time off.
She added: ‘I started having really painful bowel movements, it made me feel sick and hot.
It is not known exactly why adenomyosis occurs. But the NHS notes that it is ‘likely’ that women with adenomyosis ‘have a predisposition due to their genes, immune system and hormones’
‘Every time you go to the doctor you are told there is not much we can do. You’re basically being told to get on with it. You get used to it.
‘I try everything they recommend, but nothing works. At 18, I more or less admitted defeat.”
Grace was eventually admitted for a scan which revealed a cyst on her ovary. She was told the cyst would go away on its own, but when the pain persisted she was referred back to hospital.
She was told she would need a colonoscopy – a medical procedure that examines the colon, rectum and anus – but with a 12-month wait, she sought private healthcare instead.
Despite this, she ended up back in hospital in May with ‘horrendous’ menstrual pain and even found an ultrasound ‘unbearable’.
Grace has now been diagnosed with adenomyosis. Adenomyosis is when the lining of the uterus – the endometrium – buries deep into the muscular wall of the uterus
‘It was clear. I was really deflated,” Grace said. “Between February and May I tried to live as best I could.”
She was told they wanted to take her for a laparoscopy because the doctors thought she had endometriosis.
Endometriosis occurs when the uterine lining grows outside the uterus itself and affects one in ten women in Britain, while a laparoscopy is an examination carried out using a camera to analyze the abdomen and pelvis.
Before this, she said she chose to go private again because of disturbing stories she said she heard on TikTok.
After undergoing a £5,000 to £6,000 operation in July, a doctor came to her with the results, but it was not what she expected to hear.
“He said, ‘We didn’t find endometriosis,’” Grace recalled. ‘I was absolutely heartbroken. I wanted validation for my pain’.
‘Then he said, ‘we think you have a condition called adenomyosis’.
In addition to the diagnosis, Grace was advised to try a progesterone-only pill and her only option to completely end the pain is a hysterectomy.
Grace added: ‘It’s localized to the uterus and uterus – you have it until you have a hysterectomy. It’s the only way to ‘cure’ it.
“It’s bittersweet to know there’s something out there that can help, but that’s not possible at a young age. I have to live with this until I’m ready to have a hysterectomy.’
Grace now tries to take each day as it comes and tries a holistic approach, such as avoiding alcohol and ultra-processed foods.
She has also been referred for pelvic floor physiotherapy to see if the cramping in her muscles is making her pain worse.
‘I try to live from day to day. It changes your whole life.”