BBC presenter Naga Munchetty said she has a debilitating womb condition that has left her screaming in pain.
The broadcaster, 48, said she has adenomyosis, a condition that causes the lining of the womb to bury into the muscular wall of the womb.
Speaking on her BBC Radio 5 Live show, she said: “Right now, as I sit here talking to you, I am in pain, constant, nagging pain in my uterus, around my pelvis.
“Sometimes it runs down my thighs and I will have some level of pain for the entire show and for the rest of the day until I go to sleep.
“Every so often the pain changes. It becomes a stabbing pain, a pain that takes my breath away and I can do nothing but sit with it for a minute or curl up to cope.”
“A pain that takes my breath away”@TVNaga01 reveals that she’s been diagnosed with adenomyosis, after years of acute menstrual pain.
She’s been sharing her own experience and speaking to others affected by the condition.
Listen on @BBCSounds https://t.co/fj3Kvuagoo pic.twitter.com/99ZdhBboXf
— BBC Radio 5 Live (@bbc5live) May 22, 2023
The pain was so bad over the weekend, she was screaming and her husband called an ambulance, Munchetty said.
She said: “On Saturday night I came home from the theatre and my adenomyosis flared up.
“I was in so much pain I could barely walk from the car to my front door. It was only with my husband’s help that I made it upstairs.
“The pain was so terrible I couldn’t move, turn over, sit up. I screamed non-stop for 45 minutes.
“I finally got to sleep and in the middle of the night the pain returned and it was worse.
“My husband called an ambulance.
“By the time they called back the pain had subsided a little but that pain, my goodness, I couldn’t move.”
Munchetty said she was told she has the condition eight months ago – though her uterus would need to be removed and examined to get that confirmed.
The presenter, who is resisting a hysterectomy, said the diagnosis came “after decades of painful, heavy periods, periods that made me pass out, sweat, cry, moan, groan, curled up in a tight ball, having to sleep on a towel”.
Munchetty said she was doubled over in pain and vomiting when she started her period at 16 – and then had a 10-day period every three weeks, passing out and being sick each time and feeling like she had been “stabbed in the abdomen”.
She said: “I felt weak but also angry. Every time I told a doctor about it I was told I was just unlucky.”
She said she was never offered a scan or ultrasound or any follow-up appointments until she bled for 30 days straight a few months ago and had a scan, which revealed adenomyosis.
Munchetty’s 5 Live show featured other women living with the condition, including one mother who said her daughter no longer asks to play with her because she knows she will not be able to because of her pain.