Naga Munchetty opens up about experiencing years of 'extreme pain' as a victim of 'medical misogyny'
Naga Munchetty opened up about being a victim of medical misogyny before being diagnosed with adenomyosis during Thursday's installment of Lorraine.
The journalist, 50 - who presents BBC Breakfast every Thursday to Saturday alongside Charlie Stayt, 62 - appeared on the ITV programme to chat to step-in host Christine Lampard, 46, about her condition and her new book.
Adenomyosis, which affects one in ten women in the UK, occurs where the lining of the uterus starts growing into the muscle in the wall of the womb.
Naga was diagnosed with the condition in November 2022, but had been suffering with symptoms since the age of 15, but felt as if she wasn't being listened to and it took 32 years for her to get a diagnosis.
But the fact that it took so long for her to find out what was wrong, the star feels as if it stopped for from being the best version of herself.
Speaking with Christine, Naga said: 'We're all trying to be the best we can, I was being prevented being the best I could.'
Naga started her period at 15 and went on to develop 'extreme pain', would throw up, pass out and have really, really heavy periods.
Recalling conversations with her doctor, she said: 'I probably wouldn't have used the language I use now when I saw a doctor.
'I just said my periods are really heavy and painful. "Oh you'll grow out of it!"'
Doctors told her to go on contraception, and while it was a relief to her symptoms, it didn't explain why she was feeling so unwell.
It was only when she had a scan and they found a cyst on her ovary, that she was then told she had adenomyosis.
She explained: 'The uterine wall grows outside, the endometrium grows outside the uterus. So it spread into my pelvis and lower back.
'It can affect people in different ways.
'The pain is when hormones react, it tears the muscles you have heavy bleeding, but it was never diagnosed.
The presenter's book, named Critical Conversations on the Women's Health Crisis (and How to Thrive Despite it), explores other men and women's experiences.
Naga said of her novel: 'The book is almost like a hand book, it's born out of the fact I've experience medical misogyny.
'Being ignored, my symptoms being ignored. But it's not about me.
'It's just as someone who understands what it feels like to be told "Oh it's probably nothing", "You'll grow out of it", "Have a baby - that will fix it", "It will get better as you get older".
'Just speaking to dozens of men and women about their experiences about being ignored and thinking there is something here.
'Something that the medical world is not listening to. Beit, not enough research, not enough education, not enough time to listen and not hearing when someone is saying "I'm not coping". So that is what this is for.'
During the 32 years before her diagnosis the response was that she just 'had to get on with it'
Naga said: 'We all know women who have been told its probably nothing.
'Other women are dealing with it. It's normal.
'You spend a long time thinking is it me, am I really weak? Am I just not coping as a woman? Am I not like the other women who are just getting on with life?'
Before she was diagnosed, in 2019 Naga opted to get sterilised in an attempt to stop her symptoms because she thought it was her 'only option'.
Female sterilisation is a permanent type of contraception, which requires keyhole surgery, where the fallopian tubes are blocked or cut to stop sperm meeting an egg.
For Naga, she said the procedure wasn't a tough decision as she and her husband James Haggar, 52, were certain they didn't want children.
She said: 'I knew I didn't want children and I didn't want to be reliant on hormones or the regimen of the pill because it didn't fit with my lifestyle. It felt like it was my only option.'
Naga completely ruled out a hysterectomy because she didn't believe it would eradicate her pain.
Today, Naga takes the hormonal contraceptive pill to prevent periods and is on HRT for the perimenopause.
Watch Lorraine on ITV weekdays from 9am.
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