When Women’s Pain Is Dismissed

As Mental Health Awareness Month shines a light on emotional wellbeing, Patricia Cullen from OvaScan explains why so many women living with pelvic pain and suspected endometriosis are still being treated for symptoms, not properly investigated for the cause.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and for many women living with chronic pelvic pain, painful periods, infertility, fatigue, bloating or suspected endometriosis, mental health cannot be separated from physical health.

Too often, women are told their symptoms are normal. They are told they are hormonal, anxious, stressed, or simply need to cope better. Many are prescribed painkillers for the pain and antidepressants for the emotional toll, yet the underlying cause of their symptoms is never fully investigated.

That is not real care. That is symptom management without answers.

In clinic, I meet women every week who have been living with significant pain for years. Many have been dismissed, minimised or made to feel that what they are experiencing is somehow exaggerated. Some have started to question themselves. Others feel completely defeated.

When pain affects your work, relationships, sleep, fertility, confidence and day-to-day life, of course it affects mental health. Anyone living with ongoing pain without support or answers will eventually feel the weight of that.

This is one of the most frustrating cycles in women’s health.

A woman presents with pelvic pain, heavy periods, bowel symptoms, pain with ovulation, pain during sex or unexplained fertility issues. She is given medication to help her cope, but not always offered the investigations needed to understand why those symptoms are happening in the first place.

The result is often a cycle of physical pain, emotional exhaustion and feeling unheard.

Endometriosis is one condition that can sit quietly in the background for years while a woman is treated only for the fallout. It can affect mental health not only because of the disease itself, but because of the delay in diagnosis, the medical dismissal and the loneliness that often comes with not being believed.

This has to change.

Women deserve proper investigation, better access to pelvic ultrasound, better endometriosis care and clinicians who are willing to listen. We need to stop plastering over pain, both physical and emotional, and start asking better questions.

What is causing these symptoms? Has endometriosis been considered? Has the pelvis been properly assessed? What is the root cause?

At OvaScan, this is exactly why we do what we do. Ultrasound for endometriosis and pelvic pain is one way to begin getting answers, and thankfully more services are beginning to offer this too. The important thing is that women know they can ask questions, seek second opinions and push for proper women’s health support.

Because being listened to matters. Being investigated matters. And getting to the root cause matters.

Contact Details

OvaScan
3 Leopardstown Gardens
Off Brewery Rd
Stillorgan
Dublin
A94 W8C3

Website: www.ovascan.ie
Tel: 083 3366747