Olivia Culpo wants to help raise awareness about menstruation issues – and its long-term effects.
On Wednesday (August 26), the model went on Instagram Story to reveal that she has endometriosis. According Mayo Clinic, the condition is :an often painful disorder in which tissue similar to the tissue that normally lines the inside of your uterus — the endometrium — grows outside your uterus,” like the ovaries, fallopian tube and the tissue lining your pelvis.
“I’ve never publicly said this before but I have endometriosis,” she wrote on her Instagram Story. “Aka the most excruciatingly painful cramps/periods. Anyone else reading this have Endo? No fun.”
Following her revelation, many fans responded with DMs sharing their own experiences.
“I can’t believe that a lot of you also suffer from endometriosis,” she replied in another Instagram Story. “It is so not fun, very painful.”
She also revealed that she copes with her painful periods with heating pads, water and “lots of Midol, honestly.”
Olivia went on to share the reason why she decided to open up about her diagnosis.
“The thing I’m gonna say about endometriosis that I just think is really important is if you are having very painful periods and you are not being diagnosed with what you think could be endometriosis, definitely do your research because if you don’t discover that you have this, it could get in the way of your fertility,” she shared. “You could have tissue growing in areas that you really shouldn’t have that would interfere with maybe getting pregnant some day, your eggs could be getting damaged.”
“Definitely go to your doctor if you have painful periods. Painful periods are not normal,” she urged. “You just want to make sure that everything is ok if you did want to get pregnant. You just never know. You don’t want to wait too late, so I want everyone to take that seriously.”
“The reason why I’m so passionate about talking about this is because my doctor tells me about people who come to her in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s about not having been able to have kids,” she continued. “The thing that’s so sad about that is because they may have had endometriosis that may have affected their fertility in some way and if they had caught it earlier, they could have frozen their eggs. There would have been more options.”
“I just feel like if you’re someone out there with super painful periods, it’s very important to take it seriously,” she said, “and just figure out what your egg count is and then maybe look into other options if you have to.”
