'Doctors thought I was pregnant – then they found teeth and hair inside me'
Doctors discovered a massive ovarian cyst "filled with hair and teeth" inside a woman who suffered agonising periods for more than 20 years. Valentina Milanova was left feeling like she "was dying" or suffering from a "mysterious disease" when she experienced her first period aged nine.
The now 30-year-old, who was raised in Bulgaria, had no education about menstruation and was given the contraceptive pill aged 11, which offered some early relief. Doctors were left mystified when her condition returned years later - forcing her to take a year off school when she was just 14 - but eventually diagnosed her with polycystic ovary syndrome, finding one of the cysts developing inside her was "filled with hair and teeth".
Full list of symptoms 34 million women are being told 'are not normal'
Valentina, the founder and CEO of sustainable period and vaginal care firm Daye, said doctors found the 8cm cyst after administering an intravaginal scan. They had previously tested her for a range of conditions, including E. coli and kidney disease.
Experiencing her period three years before most girls do, she said she was "very surprised", adding: "I didn't know what was happening to my body, because no one had had a conversation with me yet about what to expect from menstruation."
She added: "I thought I had some kind of a disease, or maybe I was dying." She was also left feeling ashamed, and kept her condition a secret from her parents. "I didn't want to worry anyone and I also didn't realise that it was happening on a cyclical, monthly basis."
At one point, doctors even suggested she might be experiencing an ectopic pregnancy, despite Valentina's repeated assurances that she was not sexually active. It wasn't until after she was tested for pregnancy that doctors believed her.
She found it "very misogynistic" that it was assumed she may have been lying about sexual activity and "should just trust the medical perspective". Valentina was diagnosed with PCOS, a condition the NHS states causes irregular periods, an excess of "male" hormones named androgens, and polycystic ovaries.
She has suffered from cysts, severe pain, bloating, and heavy menstrual bleeding ever since, and decided to establish Daye after moving to the UK in 2018. She said her experiences played a central role in her decision to found the firm, saying she hoped to help other women avoid "a gynaecological health horror story".
She said: "My experiences helped me understand the bigger problem at hand. Most women experience a gynaecological health horror story in their lifetime.
"I genuinely do not believe that we can have healthy societies or healthy economies if we continue to ignore this." Daye's innovations, which include revolutionary diagnostic tampons, have helped assist more than 100,000 people in the UK and are advancing research into women's health.
Daye has developed diagnostic tampons for at-home STI and HPV screening, reaching more than 100,000 patients in the UK and advancing research on vaginal health.
Selected for the three-year NHS Innovation Accelerator programme, Daye's tampons offer superior diagnostic accuracy compared with traditional self-collected swabs, directly supporting the NHS's goal of eliminating cervical cancer by 2040.
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