When Prajakta Jyoti was 16, she began getting severe abdominal pains which progressively got worse and culminated in her mother spending thousands of pounds abroad to get a diagnosis.
“I had bad periods, but at first I wasn’t too concerned,” said Prajakta, now 20, who lives in Milton Keynes. “But then in the middle of my GCSE year, I had this really horrible pain which wouldn’t leave and kept getting worse.
“We went to A&E a few times and eventually, they thought it was my appendix so did an appendectomy to take it out. But it turned out to be a cyst which had burst.”
From that point, Prajakta’s pain worsened and she had an MRI scan which she said indicated endometriosis, a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows outside the uterus, causing pelvic pain.
“Eventually, I went to India to get a diagnosis because it was taking far too long in the UK and I was in so much pain. Within 12 hours of being in India, they diagnosed me with endometriosis, so it was a very different experience.
