Hythe mum Amy Simkins on her battle with endometriosis and fight to raise awareness of the condition
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00:00 I've found in my experience there's not enough knowledge or resources within the
00:07 NHS to support women with conditions like endometriosis, women's health as a
00:14 whole. There's times I've had to go into hospital because that flare-up is too
00:21 severe to be managed in the community and just due to lack of knowledge my
00:28 local hospital didn't know enough and they still don't know enough to support
00:34 me. They acknowledged it was a mistake, they mistakenly labelled me a drug
00:38 seeker, refused me treatment. There were times where even after my GP has sent me
00:45 in they've made that clinical decision to say she needs IV fluid, she's very
00:51 dehydrated, she's bleeding a lot, she's not keeping anything down orally. To them
00:58 to say no we're not going to treat that. So there were times I was left bleeding
01:03 through my clothes, you know, unable to keep even water down and I'm being
01:10 refused treatment because these professionals, these consultants in A&E
01:17 don't know enough about a condition. I think traumatic is the word, you know,
01:24 because I'm doing everything I'm being asked to do. I don't act, it's not
01:29 something any woman wants to do, to you know go to your GP and be told look you
01:35 need to go up there just so we can do X, Y, Z. Day to day it's hard to explain
01:43 because I can have a week, two weeks, I can you know have days where people would
01:52 look at me and say you're not sick because they can't see internally but I
01:58 can have flare-ups where I'm bleeding very heavily, my stomach is visibly
02:05 swollen, I can't keep food or drink down let alone pain relief down. Even with
02:13 anti-sickness medication if the flare-up is that aggressive that's the outcome
02:20 you know it's it's not a case of you don't look sick so you're not sick.