i have stage 3 endo.

In 2020, when the world was falling apart, so did my body. My period became so painful I was vomiting and blacking out for hours. My face became covered in boil-like acne. I developed chronic pain down the whole right side of my body.

Doctors told me it was normal. Maybe I should try antidepressants. Maybe I just needed to have a baby. And definitively, they said, I must go back on birth control.

I would not accept.

After a (brutal) year of research and many doctor visits with a similar tale, I self-diagnosed and found a surgeon who agreed to do surgery and confirmed Stage 3 Endometriosis. When I walked into his office for the post-op, ready for a treatment plan, he sighed and said my only options were birth control or medically induced menopause. I was 25.

My devastation sank in. You see, I'm not anti-birth control by any means — I love it for it's intended purpose, to prevent pregnancy. But I do know it's not a real treatment for endo, and that the disease progresses internally while the symptoms are suppressed. But, desperate to get my life back, I took the hormonal IUD and moved on.

Then I discovered the work of doctors, scientists, and practitioners who are transforming how we understand female biology. And something shifted. I do not accept that endo is just something I have to live with. I refuse the narrative that women are cursed with the harder biology, condemned to suffering. We have a biology optimized for flow and harmony, strength and resilience. It has simply been looked at through a lens that was never built for us.

I have set out to put my endo into remission. Not less pain. No pain. There are answers, and I am determined to bring them to everyone who needs them.