Chrissy Teigen has revealed she’s undergoing surgery for endometriosis, an illness in which endometrial tissue grows outside of the uterus in other areas of the body.
Endometriosis can cause severe pelvic pain, excruciating periods, infertility, bowel and urinary disorders, pain during intercourse, nausea and vomiting, among other terrible symptoms.
The 35-year-old model and cookbook author, who is married to singer John Legend (pictured main) shared a video on Twitter of her stomach appearing to move with cramps from the condition.
Teigen tweeted that she'd feeling "a bit off" since "my little Jack would have been born this week." She lost her third child in October last year, 20 weeks into her pregnancy.
She added: "I truly feel kicks in my belly, but it's not phantom. I have surgery for endometriosis tomorrow...but the period feeling this month is exactly like baby kicks. sigh.
"Look at this. I'll pretend it's him saying hi - it never stops."
Teigen also asked her followers for insight into endometriosis surgery recovery, asking: "What is the recovery-difficulty level? like can I make soup after?"
She's since shared a photo on her Istagram story of herself in her hospital bed:
After her surgery, Teigen shared a photo of her abdomen that showed her scars covered with gauze decorated with hearts.
She wrote: "Usually I'm really good after [surgery], this one's a toughie. My belly got numbed. It's gonna be numbed for a couple of the next days, hopefully it'll stay that way. Every little cough makes it hard."
Awareness of endometriosis has only become more widespread in the last couple of years. Endometriosis Australia says it can take an average of six and a half years to diagnose the condition, and it can only be diagnosed through laparoscopic or keyhole surgery.
Treatments have included hysterectomy or pregnancy, but there is no cure.
“Endometriosis almost cost me a kidney”
In 2018, endometriosis sufferer Diana Falzone was rushed to hospital with extreme abdominal pain and underwent emergency surgery.
When the doctors came to see her later, she learned her endometriosis could have led to her losing a kidney.
“Your right side was like cement from the endometriosis-your organs were fused together, and your ureters were completely trapped and closed off,” the surgeon told her (the ureter is a tube that carries urine from the kidney to the bladder.) “If you had not come for surgery soon, you most likely would have gone into renal failure.”
In an article she wrote for Prevention, Falzone recalled: “I was shocked. I could have lost my kidney from endo?”
The surgeon added that she also had a very large endometrioma on her left ovary. An endometrioma is a cyst filled with endometrial tissue.
“If that had gone untreated, I might have lost an ovary, too,” Falzone said.
Endometriosis during menopause
Endometriosis often gets better after menopause, as there is a drop-off in the body's production of reproductive hormones. However, because the body still produces small amounts of estrogen, some women continue to have symptoms.
According to Jean Hailes, if you had a surgical menopause – your ovaries were removed, with or without your uterus – then menopause symptoms will be experienced unless you start menopausal hormone therapy, or MHT (formerly called hormone replacement therapy, or HRT) soon after the surgery.
“Usually, endometriosis does go away after menopause," the website states. "However, it can come back when you are on MHT, but this is rare. Even more rarely, it can return spontaneously.”
It advises that if you are worried about any aspect of endometriosis or are worried that endometriosis may affect a part of your body or your future health, talk to your doctor.
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