Doctors wrongly said I was too young to have endometriosis at 13
A 14-year-old girl shares her struggle with endometriosis, highlighting the medical community's frequent dismissal of her symptoms due to her age. She describes the severe pain and the frustration of being misdiagnosed and ignored by specialists.
Why it matters
It highlights systemic issues in pediatric healthcare and the urgent need for better recognition of chronic conditions in adolescents.
Share Save Add as preferred on Google Vicki Loader Health Producer BBC Grace struggled with severe period pain before she was diagnosed with endometriosis Every month, at about the time of her period, Grace has to be taken to hospital.
She is often in so much pain her parents have to carry her to the car. She can wait hours to be seen in A&E, only to be sent home in tears with more strong painkillers.
For a long time, Grace - who's now 14 and is from Yorkshire - felt doctors were dismissive of her pain. "I feel like I was seen as a girl who didn't want to go to school and was being dramatic," she says.
She was given multiple possible reasons for her symptoms: irritable bowel syndrome, a cyst, anxiety and "just a bad period". But, she says, "I knew it was more than that."
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