Maddy*, 38, used to feel conflicted about taking Mounjaro. The drug, licensed for weight loss in 2021, has become a cultural lightning rod. “I know people who are using it to lose too much weight and I think for people who have disordered eating, which I don’t have, this is a really troubling era,” she says. “There’s a lot of stigma around GLP-1s.”
But Maddy is not taking Mounjaro to lose weight. She has both PMOS (formerly known as polycystic ovary syndrome, a common condition causing irregular periods, infertility and weight gain) and endometriosis – a long-term condition where cells similar to the womb lining grow in other parts of the body, causing severe pain and scarring. Her symptoms have escalated dramatically in recent years. “By 2024 I was so inflamed and swollen, I went up two dress sizes, I was in absolute agony for two weeks of the month and I started bleeding from my bum around my period,” she says. The pain felt like “my womb was falling out and was sticking nails into my body as it did so for 10 days every month”.
She also developed back and hip pain, and terrible fatigue. Her GP agrees that she probably does have endometriosis, but the only options presented to her were surgery to confirm the diagnosis (which she didn’t want) or taking oral contraception, which she had historically react badly to.
