When Karlie Wilkinson was a teenager, she was constantly in debilitating pain. She experienced intense abdominal cramping, severe bloating, nausea, and more.
Although she was eventually diagnosed with endometriosis, it took years to discover that's what had been wrong with her in the first place.
Her symptoms were similar to that of pregnancy, actually. She even had morning sickness and a heightened sense of smell. Of course, she wasn't actually pregnant, and nobody knew what was wrong with her.
Karlie went to doctor after doctor, but nobody could figure out what was going on. Doctors dismissed her pain and told her she was just being a drama queen. Others said she might have appendicitis or that she was just suffering from bad period pain.
Even though she was told numerous times that nothing was wrong with her, Karlie knew something wasn't right. She was in excruciating pain all the time, and as she got older, it just kept getting worse.
She ended up in the emergency room more than five times, but each time they did tests, everything came back normal.
Thumbnail Photo: Caters News
[H/T: Daily Mail]
Karlie Wilkinson went to tons of doctor's appointments in her late teens, but they could never figure out what was causing her excruciating abdominal pain.
Doctors always told Karlie the pain was in her head or that she was being dramatic.
Karlie told Daily Mail:
I would cry to my mum, but she didn’t really know what to do because the doctors kept saying I was fine.
It felt like no one ever believed me and they dismissed me as a teenage drama queen with period pain.
Eventually, doctors decided that Karlie's appendix might be causing her pain, so a specialist agreed to perform an appendectomy.
While Karlie was under general anesthesia, the surgeon realized it wasn't her appendix that was causing the problem at all.
After Karlie woke up from surgery, the doctor told her that they hadn't actually removed her appendix, but they had figured out what was wrong.
Karlie had endometriosis, a painful uterine disorder.
According to the Mayo Clinic, endometriosis "is an often painful disorder in which tissue that normally lines the inside of your uterus — the endometrium — grows outside your uterus. Endometriosis most commonly involves your ovaries, fallopian tubes and the tissue lining your pelvis."
Endometriosis can cause severe pain and can even cause fertility problems.
When Karlie looked online to find out more about the disorder, she was shocked and scared. She worried that her diagnosis was going to ruin her plans for the future.
Although there's no cure for endometriosis, there are treatments that can be effective.
Unfortunately for Karlie, this means she has to have laparoscopic surgery every 6 to 12 months to remove endometriotic cysts.
After living with diagnosed endometriosis for a few years, Karlie had a revelation: "I realized there must be other women out there suffering as well. I knew I had to do something."
In late 2017, Karlie decided to launch a petition to have endometriosis recognized as a real illness in Australia, where she lives.
After getting more than 110,000 signatures on her petition, the Australian government responded to Karlie and told her they'd formally recognize the condition as a real illness.
It's impressive that at only 22 years old, Karlie has already had such a huge impact on the medical community.
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