Model Olivia Culpo revealed for the first time that she suffers from endometriosis.
If you don’t know, endometriosis 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,” according to the Mayo Clinic.
“I’ve never publicly said this before but I have endometriosis. Aka the most excruciatingly painful cramps/periods. Anyone else reading this have Endo? No fun,” Olivia posted on her Instagram Story on Wednesday (August 26).
She spoke about using heating pads and Midol to help relieve her pain before speaking to those who also suffer.
“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 said. “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.”
Olivia added, “Definitely go to your doctor if you have painful periods. Painful periods are not normal. 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.”
Then, Olivia said, “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. 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.”
Another celeb bravely spoke out about having this condition and suffering a miscarriage.
