'I dismissed my "bad" period symptoms for years. Then my friend lost an organ.'

A few months ago, I was walking through my local mall when my friend Jen* called me out of the blue. Not for any usual reason — to debrief our mid-forties ailments, parenting debacles and perimenopausal meltdowns — but to tell me she'd had a hysterectomy.

I stopped outside Woolworths, my jaw on the floor.

A hysterectomy?

The announcement wasn't a total shock. Jen and I have spent years swapping stories about our chaotic, irrational bodies; unpacking surprise health issues is our love language. But major surgery? To remove an organ? That seemed extreme.

"What?" I said. "Why?!"

To answer my question, Jen had to walk me back through literal years of confusing symptoms. Depression. Anxiety. Pain during sex. Low libido (and accompanying guilt).

Dramatic bloating. Stomach aches. Constipation. Gas. Leg pain. Back pain. Fatigue. Brain fog. Wild mood swings. Periods so heavy she dreaded leaving the house. Iron levels so low she once joked she should carry a transfusion bag in her shopping tote.

We often made fun of these symptoms, laughing over margaritas about the fresh hell of womanhood, ageing, and almost certainly having ADHD (I don't say that lightly, by the way — our kids are diagnosed, we both tick all the boxes). Between us, we had enough material for a deranged comedy routine. But suddenly none of it felt funny.

Behind the jokes, Jen's apparently unrelated symptoms left her confused and ashamed.

Watch: What To Expect With A Hysterectomy. Article continues after video.

She'd often been dismissed by doctors, placated and even gaslit. While seeking a psychiatric referral, a locum once accused her of trying to procure ADHD meds for weight loss and recommended an antacid instead.

Another time, clinic reception staff were so curt she ondered if she'd earned some kind of black mark for demanding 'too many' appointments.

And still the symptoms kept coming, like a game of medical whack-a-mole.

Unsurprisingly, she blamed herself.

"It's me. I'm tired, hormonal. I'm being dramatic, a sook. Toughen up, tiger. The working mother's theme song."

Then came HRT. 

Three months before the hysterectomy, Jen took the only available appointment at her clinic and saw a different GP to discuss perimenopause. Rage, night sweats, insomnia, menstrual flooding — she had the full package. The doctor agreed and prescribed hormone therapy.

Initially, she felt a lift: improved energy, reduced perspiration, clearer thinking. But soon the bleeding and pain intensified. Her moods crashed. Some days she felt like she was disappearing under the weight of it all.

"It was honestly the worst I've ever felt," she told me, tearfully. "I had some very, very dark thoughts." 

Her husband, terrified, called the GP behind her back asking what emergency steps he should take.

After that call, and after Jen confessed how bleak her internal monologue had become, her two GPs put their heads together. Eventually, they decided she might have a "boggy womb."

Yes, it's a real term. So grotesque and undignified that once the danger passed, we laughed about it until we cried. Boggy. Like a rancid sponge. A stinky, waterlogged wetland. Truly — could medicine not come up with something less repulsive?

Anna pictured. Image: Supplied

For the record, a 'boggy womb' refers to a soft, enlarged uterus. Most commonly, it's associated with uterine atony after childbirth, but it can also be linked to something else — a little-known but very common condition whose name Jen was about to hear for the first time.

The GPs referred her to an OB-GYN. The specialist took one look at her history, listened properly, and said one game-changing word: "Adenomyosis."

Jen made a face. "Adeno-what?"

My response, when she told me later, was identical. Sorry, come again? Because, while I consider myself pretty clued-in when it comes to women's health, I'd never before heard that word.

Here's how the gynaecologist explained it. Adenomyosis is an often progressive condition where endometrial tissue grows into the muscular wall of the uterus, causing heavy bleeding, pain, inflammation and enlargement.

It's often described as the 'bad cousin' of endometriosis, which, by contrast, occurs when similar tissue grows outside the uterus; they're related, and often overlap, but are nonetheless distinct.

Symptoms typically improve after menopause when hormone levels drop — but for others they worsen over time, especially with exposure to added estrogen.

The list of treatment options included pain relief, the Mirena IUD, the Pill, uterine artery embolisation (where blood flow to the affected tissue is blocked, causing it to shrink), or endometrial ablation (destruction of the uterine lining via heat, laser or freezing). But all were described as "maybe" fixes.

And while Jen could imagine why a woman still in need of her uterus might try them, she was 45, done having children, and fresh out of patience. When the specialist offered a hysterectomy, she accepted immediately.

The moment she woke from surgery, she felt different. The constant back pain — caused, as it turned out, by her uterus pressing on her sacral nerve — had vanished. Within weeks, the bloating disappeared along with her bowel issues (the boggy bastard, she realised, had been compressing her colon too). Her moods stabilised, the dark thoughts receded, and for the first time in years she felt like herself again.

That's when I started asking bigger questions. Why had neither of us ever heard of this?

How had doctors missed it? And why were such severe symptoms treated as overreactions — or simply inevitable?

According to government health resources, adenomyosis may affect between one-in-five and one-in-three Australian women. Endometriosis affects about one-in-nine. So why the silence?

Well, partly because adenomyosis is hard to diagnose. Its symptoms mimic dozens of other conditions, and ultrasounds often miss it. MRIs and laparoscopies can help, but both are costly and not always accessible.

The only definitive diagnosis is made after a hysterectomy, when the uterus can be examined under a microscope — meaning there are few confirmed cases to study.

'It's historically dismissed.'

It's also historically dismissed as 'normal period pain,' leading to low funding and limited scientific interest.

But is it 'normal' to bleed through a tampon in two hours? To stay home for two days every month in case you leak in public? To pass clots the size of small jellyfish? To experience so much pain you have to stop work and lie down on your office floor? 

Solutions can be expensive too, and often aren't covered by Medicare. Hormonal treatments can help, but as Jen learnt, HRT can make adenomyosis significantly worse due to the extra oestrogen.

And we never talk about it because periods are 'gross.' Absurd and embarrassing, like all the best toilet humour — which is perhaps the part that haunts me most: Jen and I had laughed at her symptoms, folded them in with our usual chaos. But Jen's pain wasn't funny. It wasn't normal. And neither is mine.

Before Jen's hysterectomy, I didn't know that my own heavy bleeding, crippling dysmenorrhoea, stabbing pelvic pain and bloating might be something more than "just being female." 

I didn't know there were options besides grinning and bearing it. Did you? Seriously — if adenomyosis affects up to a third of women, there must be millions of us walking around in silent, clueless agony.

Sitting at dinner in period undies reinforced by two super-strength pads and a menstrual cup, going home to guzzle Naprogesic and stand under a scalding shower. Pretending it's all fine when it really, really is not. And how is that acceptable?

The truth is women deserve better than antacids. We need more than Panadol and discretion. Medical misogyny is real, dangerous, and baked into the system in ways we barely notice — until someone we love ends up in surgery.

So, I've booked my own gynaecology appointment. And I'm talking about it. Because if sharing our stories helps even one woman push harder for answers or feel less alone, then maybe this silent epidemic won't stay silent much longer.

*Jen's name has been changed for privacy.

Feature Image: Supplied.