Michelle’s Adenomyosis Journey
Meet Michelle – a Marketing Executive and mom who had been living with undiagnosed adenomyosis for decades. “All my life I’ve been told, ‘This is what a woman’s life is, you just deal with it.’ People who don’t really get the symptoms that you get don’t get it. It’s just really hard, I suffered through a lot of pain in my life because of it.”
Among Michelle’s symptoms were:
- Severe Cramping
- Chronic Pelvic Pain
- Painful Periods
- Heavy Bleeding (that started getting worse as she got older)
”I had accidents all the time. Even at work, as an adult in my 30s, I had accidents. So much so that I couldn’t really use tampons because I would soak through a tampon in less than half an hour.”
Discovering Fibroids
Michelle was eventually diagnosed with a small fibroid. However, her Ob/Gyn at the time told her it was nothing to be alarmed about. “Nobody really took the time to find out why. I did have some doctors who tried and thought I had endometriosis, and that wasn’t it. I never prayed for a diagnosis in my life, but I was like maybe if that’s what it is, I can have hope.”
In 2020, Michelle discovered Viva Eve, where she encountered Dr. Gopal, Director of Ob/Gyn, who was concerned about her symptoms. “She said, ‘you’re dealing with a lot of pain, maybe it’s the fibroids, maybe it’s something else, let’s go check it out.’ I was really impressed by the level of urgency that she put behind it.”
Discovering Adenomyosis
After being sent to get an MRI, Michelle learned that she had adenomyosis – a gynecological condition that causes the tissue that lines the uterus to grow into the uterus’ muscular walls. It causes symptoms like heavy periods, pelvic pain, and bladder pressure. “I was like, well that makes all the sense in the world.”
Following her diagnosis, Michelle plans on undergoing the uterine fibroid embolization (UFE) procedure to treat her adenomyosis and fibroids. This procedure targets the affected areas of the uterus by cutting off the blood supply – leaving the uterus intact, but cutting the growths off of the oxygen and nutrients needed to sustain cellular activity.
“Dr. Gopal was was really good about asking me what I felt, how I felt. Those are things you should get when you go to a doctor. I’ve learned to advocate for myself, but what was interesting at Viva Eve was, I didn’t have to do that for myself. Because I felt like I was already being advocated for.”
