Symptoms of endometriosis

[Sunshine4677]

Hi... I'm starting to suspect I have endometriosis but just wondered what symptoms led to your diagnosis?

I have pelvic pain, heavy periods, pain if I move quickly or sneeze, secondary infertility, and flank pain and back pain - worse before and during my period. A recent ct scan has shown free fluid but no kidney issues so they want me to have an ultrasound. Am I right in thinking an ultrasound would not show endometriosis?

Thank you for reading

an ultrasound won't show endo unless it's caused really advanced damage, and even then it might not show. You need to be referred to a gynocologsit and given a laparoscopy. Your symptoms do sound like it could be endo, but could also be something like ovarian cysts, fibroids or just very painful periods (some women don't have anything 'medically' wrong but do suffer for most of the month with pains down there). Do you have pain during sex at all? And when you say your periods are heavy, how heavy are we talking? Flooding and passing big clots?

I have no pain during sex but yes to the heavy periods with flooding and clots x

Endo often causes pain during sex. You might have fibroids or cysts instead which can cause a lot of similar symptoms. A scan will find them if you do

I had symptoms for 10 years before anything was picked up.
I had severe period pain every month which often included the lower back. Sometimes to the point where I could not walk and would vomit. I'd also been trying to conceive for 2.5 years with no luck. For the last 5 years I've encountered pain during sex and often bleeding afterwards.
I never had heavy periods though.

Due to a separate medical problem I ended up having an ultrasound that picked up 2 ovarian cysts. It was only when I had a laparoscopy to remove them that I was finally diagnosed with endo. The endo wasn't removed during my surgery but the removal of cysts meant that I was pregnant one month later (I'm now 22 weeks).