100,000 J’can women, girls suffer pelvic disease

KINGSTON, Jamaican, Observer - AS the country observes March as Endometriosis Month, co-founder of the Better Awareness and Support for Endometriosis (BASE) Foundation, Shauna Fuller-Clarke, is urging employees and school administrators to become more sensitive to and supportive of the approximately 100,000 women and students grappling with the disease locally. According to Fuller-Clarke, who has been diagnosed with stage four endometriosis — a condition that occurs when cells from the lining of the uterus grow in other parts of the body causing a string of symptoms including intermittent and/or chronic pelvic pain, bowel or urinary disorders, irregular bleeding, painful menstruation, rectal pain, painful intercourse and infertility — loss of productivity is perhaps the biggest challenge those affected face. "Depending on how severe the disease is, if you don't get treatment, it can result in loss of productivity so you can't attend work or school," she said. "I know of a university student who had missed her final exams because of the pain she was feeling and when she told the school they thought she was faking the pain and she had to resit the course."