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After over 10 years of heavy painful periods, Grace was diagnosed with fibroids by accident.
After over 10 years of heavy painful periods, I was diagnosed with fibroids by accident.
I received my diagnosis during an internal ultrasound in Spring 2025, when I was 25 years old and had been experiencing painful, heavy periods since my very first one at 13. After many years of investigations going nowhere, I concluded I was just unlucky. Painful, heavy periods were all I had ever known and I had nothing to compare them against, so maybe I was just being dramatic.
The ultrasound in question was one I’d requested for an ovarian cyst, which I thought might be causing me a twinging pain separate to my period cramps. Side note: this cyst had also been found by accident, in an abdominal scan investigating a separate health issue.
From walking in the room to leaving, the internal ultrasound appointment took about 5 minutes. These scans require a probe into the vagina – they’re not super painful (in my experience) but a bit uncomfortable. I’d had so many similar investigations over the years, I was fine when the hospital asked me if I was okay with a male tech.
He greeted me neutrally and told me vaguely to say something if it hurt. He waved at a young nurse who was in the room as a chaperone and then probed around in silence. After he had finished, I put my pants back on and emerged from the curtain to be told that the results would be with my doctor in a couple of weeks. I was stood up and remember hesitating in front of the chair at his desk. He had his back to me and was furiously typing – I felt he was signalling me to leave – but decided to sit down and ask if he had seen anything.
‘You have fibroids,’ he said.
I asked what that means. ‘They’re non-cancerous growths. I can’t tell you any more, as I’m just the ultrasound tech. The results will be with your GP in a few weeks.’ He did a motion of dusting off something from his hands. I walked out of the hospital in a daze, sat awkwardly on a verge of damp grass in the parking lot, and googled fibroids. Non-cancerous growths in the womb. Can affect fertility but can be successfully operated on at a certain size. Can lead to heavy, painful periods. The cause is unknown. I burst into tears.
It wasn’t the diagnosis, which could have been much worse. It was the scan, the ultrasound tech who had obviously endured trauma-informed training but couldn’t manage a smile, and the fact I had gone through over a decade of pain and ended up being diagnosed by accident.
This wasn’t a one-off.
The more I thought about it, the more I realised this wasn’t a one-off. As I mentioned, the ovarian cyst was also diagnosed by accident. Cysts are relatively common and aren’t usually an issue if they’re not huge or numerous, and I had certainly had them before – including one as a teenager, picked up by a GP who felt my belly. She told me I had an ovarian cyst, didn’t explain it, and I cried on the bus home. I wasn’t crying about having a cyst, but about this feeling of being told something about my own body without being helped to understand it.
And now, ten years later, I felt something similar with this scan. While I didn’t find it painful, the emotional toll of having an invasive procedure done by a stranger is often heavy, but having the practitioner acknowledge that, with warmth, reassurance, and patience, makes a huge difference.
The treatment I received in this scan felt part of a larger medical attitude towards the female body: things are mentioned in passing, half-explained, or treated as something that just happens to you, rather than something you’re invited to understand. Pain is normalised to the point that it isn’t properly investigated, and not knowing becomes part of the experience of having a womb.
The thing that saddened me most was that I had been going to the doctors for over 10 years about my heavy, painful periods, and no one had ever suggested an ultrasound for fibroids.
I hadn’t considered fibroids because I hadn’t heard of them.
In fact, I rang my sister, who I’m very lucky is a GP herself, and she said she wouldn’t have suspected fibroids as they mainly affect people closer to 50.
Something that my sister acknowledged is that doctors themselves don’t receive adequate training on menstrual health conditions because the research simply isn’t there. It made me realise how often people are left to join the dots themselves.
I think it’s important to note that I’ve also had many experiences that show what good care can look like. The problem is that most women have had layered negative experiences with healthcare, and this can have a profound effect. When you’re used to not being fully heard, it changes what you ask for.
At the time of my diagnosis, I had a corporate job that gave me access to private healthcare, and I saw a private gynaecologist after my initial NHS appointment. She took me into another room and immediately did another ultrasound. She essentially gave me a womb tour – showing me the size of my uterus, my ovaries (she explained how you could tell which ovary I had ovulated from by the size, which I loved), and of course, the fibroids. For some reason, anything that grows in the womb is compared to fruit, so she showed me mine were around the size of walnuts and blackberries.
It reminded me of the artist FKA Twigs describing her fibroids as her ‘fruit bowl of pain.’
I had a laugh with the nurse who was in the room as a chaperone. The care I received felt like I was given back ownership over a part of my body that I’d only seen briefly through charts and doctor’s notes.
And it’s not just within private healthcare that I’ve had these positive experiences. The GP who referred me for the ultrasound in the first place was amazing. I once had a male doctor recommend choosing a time in my cycle where I’m not PMSing to come off SSRIs. I’ve had a GP acknowledge the areas of menstrual healthcare that medicine is still catching up on. And a physiotherapist who said casually reminded me, “you’re the expert on your own body.” That stuck with me.
Recently I had my one-year check-up on my fibroids. I requested a female tech and took my partner with me for support. Lots of tiny things made a huge difference, down to being handed blue roll to tuck into my jeans myself so they didn’t get the ultrasound jelly on them during the abdominal scan – rather than the nurse just doing it himself. Most significantly, when I emerged from the curtain, I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room ready to be told to leave, and the ultrasound tech laughed and told me to sit down so she could talk me through what she’d seen.
The diagnosis hasn’t changed anything in terms of the pain I experience during my period. I take the same painkillers as I did pre-diagnosis, which sometimes help, but not always. But everything has changed in terms of how that pain is understood and accommodated.
When you live with a chronic pain condition, you can start to feel like you’re doing something wrong to cause it, or that you’re just being dramatic. Even in the middle of debilitating, eye-watering pain, I sometimes wondered if I was somehow “making this up.” But having a diagnosis gave me the words for why – a name for something that had always felt vague and inexplicable.
Thankfully, I’d already had a period plan in place at work, and a supportive manager.
Having a diagnosis has made me feel much more confident advocating for myself, especially since conditions like fibroids and endometriosis can sometimes be classed as a disability (and are therefore protected under workplace law). Having that backing took away some of the emotional energy that used to go into explaining my condition.
I let my manager know roughly when my period is due, and we always have someone on hand as back-up if I’m delivering a lesson. I’ve never had to cancel a session so far, and not dreading potentially letting people down makes a real difference.
I’m still left with a lot of questions. Fibroids don’t always cause pain, and my periods have always been painful. Does this mean I’ve always had fibroids? Could I also have endometriosis, and the fibroids are just incidental?
For now though, the diagnosis is enough.
While I don’t believe you always have to find a silver lining in ill-health, I’m grateful that I’ve still managed, by and large, to love my period and my body. I don’t mean “I’m so grateful for my heavy painful periods, I love it,” but that I’m not ashamed or beating myself up anymore, and I will always strive to receive care.
While that has helped me massively on an individual level, this also isn’t an individual issue – it’s systemic, so we need systemic solutions. I’ve always had sympathetic managers, but what about those who don’t? People who do have to take time off work at awkward times? We need more concrete workplace provisions for menstrual health. Better healthcare for women and people with periods, and more investment into research.
In some ways, I consider myself lucky – fibroids are visible on an ultrasound, but endometriosis is much harder to spot. The fact that many people must be living with undiagnosed endo speaks to something bigger.
Our bodies aren’t mysterious or too complicated – medical research into them is just decades behind.
For now, I’ll keep coming back to what my physio said: you’re the expert on your own body. I’m proud of the self-advocacy skills I’ve built and can share. This is a message I remind myself of, I take into conversations with friends when sharing tips before appointments, and I share with the young people I work with. But it shouldn’t take years, chance, or luck to be heard – and it shouldn’t be on individuals to bridge the gaps in a system that’s still catching up with menstrual health.
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