Periods in Pain, lovingly called pip, came to be out of personal experience with chronic illness and the rollercoaster that comes with diagnosis.

Flash back to January 2022…

Picture it: a desperate visit to Urgent Care with weeks-long cyst and uterine pain that had spread to virtually every part of the body.

Pelvic and low abdominal pain that felt like a hot, burning knife cutting me open from the insides.

Low back pain that radiated up my spine and down my legs.

Uterine swelling that was so tender, the loosest sweatpants hurt.

Pain in my rectum so bad I couldn’t sit or wear underwear.

Waves of nausea and dry heaving.

The inability to feel my toes.

Keep in mind that I had endured this pain for over a week by the time I finally took myself to Urgent Care. And no, it’s not because the pain was bearable, or I thought it would go away. It was because, for the last 3 years, I had visited Emergency rooms and Urgent Care clinics constantly with the same issues, each time dismissed after blood work and an ultrasound showed an ovarian cyst the size of a clementine or golf ball, nothing offered to me other than “take Advil if the pain persists”. So I had unwittingly become used to the signs, symptoms, and pain of ovarian cysts, refusing to seek out medical attention for fear of being dismissed just like every other time.

So why did I go to Urgent Care this time around? Because, unlike every other time I had an ovarian cyst (which by this point was virtually every single month for 3 straight years), this time, I was getting worse with each passing day, with no end of the tunnel in sight. Usually, the pain lasted 3 to 4 days and would subside for a few weeks become coming back. The symptoms I would have would differ each time, a new combination of swelling, sharp or dull pain, back pain, or dry heaving. Never had it lasted this long, and had every symptom together (and new ones added in).

I was diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) at 17, and while the odd nurse or doctor at my visits would dismiss my 3 cm ovarian cyst as “just being a PCOS flare” (which is not a thing), we all knew that these cysts were very much different than my PCOS. For one, they were large cysts outside of my ovary, while PCOS are small, pearl-like cysts inside the ovary. They also hurt, a lot, all the time.

So on that cold January day, I was diagnosed with bi-lateral 3cm ovarian endometriomas: large, blood-filled cysts, indicating stage 3 or 4 endometriosis.

For the rest of that year, I was in doctor’s offices, seeing specialists, and getting tests and ultrasounds done left-right-and-centre. It was a whirlwind, to say the least. For the first few months of navigating this diagnosis, I felt like I was operating on autopilot. I was in a daze. As I came too, I started to come to grips with what endometriosis meant, how it fit into my life story, and what I would do with such a reality.

Did this explain my irregular periods? The excessive clotting and erratic flow? My chronic migraines? My IBS and food sensitivities? The constant bloating and low back pain? Why the time between my first and second ever periods were over a year apart? I could keep going… But despite the clarity I started to get at why I had so many issues in my body from a young age, a lot still made no sense, such as why me?

There were times I felt absolutely helpless and as if I were at the bottom of a deep, dark pit. There were times I felt in denial, wondering how I could go 27 years without a diagnosis, so it must be wrong. There were even times I felt like if only I hadn’t gone on birth control at 17 for my PCOS that maybe I wouldn’t be here, 10 years later, with this endo diagnosis.

I know now, over a year out, that there was nothing, is nothing, I could have ever done in my life to cause endometriosis. And while I still have the odd fleeting moment where I forget, I also know that my chronic illness does not define me.

I am more than my endo.

I am more than my PCOS.

I am more than my chronic migraines and IBS flares.

So, after a year of navigating being diagnosed – and a whole lifetime of living with it – I decided to create pip as an ode to the periods in my life I live with pain, be that during an actual period, ovulation (which for me has always resulted in the worst pain), or a random Tuesday afternoon where the pain is sudden, debilitating, and not connected whatsoever with my cycle. I wanted to use my own experience to make a change in the societal and medical misconceptions around period pain, cycle irregularity, the interconnectedness of symptoms, and the gas-lighting we all have to go through just because we have a uterus.

So welcome to pip – I hope you join me in advocating for women’s health, destigmatizing menstrual cycles, and bringing awareness to the chronic illness affecting so many of us. I’m glad you’re here.

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