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For years, sports broadcaster Anita Jones says she felt “gaslit” by doctors who insisted “nothing was wrong”, despite being in excruciating pain.
The 34-year-old – a presenter for CBS Sports and the Premier League – eventually had surgery last year to treat her endometriosis.
According to Endometriosis UK, only 50% of young adults in the UK know what endometriosis is, and many health practitioners – including GPs and A&E doctors – don’t recognise the symptoms.
This is despite it being one of the most common gynaecological conditions, affecting one in 10 women and those assigned female at birth, from puberty to menopause, in the UK.
Endometriosis occurs when cells similar to the ones in the lining of the womb grow elsewhere in the body. These cells can grow and change in response to hormones in the menstrual cycle, causing inflammation, pain and scar tissue.
Jones, who has also been a Sky Sports and BBC Sports presenter, first went to the doctors for painful periods at the age of 14.
“My periods were extremely heavy and I could never concentrate in school. When I went to the doctors they told me girls can just have painful periods and nothing was wrong,” she says.
“As I got older, I wasn’t just having pain when bleeding. I was having pelvic pain for at least two to three weeks of the month.”
March marks Endometriosis Action Month, and the charity says those with the condition face an average of nearly nine years before receiving a diagnosis.
Jones found some relief when she was prescribed the contraceptive pill at the age of 18, but by 26 the effects had worn off.
The following year, the Londoner came across a post online about someone else’s endometriosis diagnosis.
“She had listed all of these symptoms such as painful periods, pelvic pain and being extremely tired all the time. I identified with 90% of the things she had been living with”
Jones went to see a doctor immediately. “I told her I wanted to be referred to a gynaecologist – I wasn’t taking no for an answer this time.
“After years of being told nothing was wrong with me, for once I had felt like I had a voice.”
Then followed nine months of scans and laparoscopic surgery before finally being diagnosed with endometriosis when she was 28 years old.
“I remember asking the anaesthetist if they found anything when I woke up from surgery,” Jones says. “They did and I remember being in floods of tears. I had been gaslit for so long.”
At that stage the doctors had found endometriosis on the right side of Jones’ bowel and on her abdominal wall – which they would need to remove. To help with the pain she had a contraceptive coil fitted.
“Getting the coil [fitted] felt like a bomb [had] exploded inside me, but after six months it changed and for the first time in my life I felt like those girls that say they don’t really have any issues with their period.”
The relief was short lived though and six months later she was advised take a nasal spray to suppress her hormones, in an attempt to trick her body into thinking it has gone into menopause.
“I went through all the menopausal symptoms for six weeks with no sleep and intense sweating.”
Jones finally had surgery in May 2024, at a private hospital, after the endometriosis had spread to the outside of her womb, causing her large intestine to stick to it – and the organs had to be separated.
“Although they have got rid of everything, which is great, my life since then has been a real shadow of itself,” says Jones. “I’m a very active person and I’m still not fully recovered.
“I have physio every once or two weeks. I have assistance at work and even airports. I can’t walk long distances or carry heavy things. It is getting better but its approaching 10 months of recovery now.”
Jones – now an ambassador for Endometriosis UK – is keen to make sure young girls are taught the difference between a normal period and what endometriosis is.
“When you’re a 14-year-old girl, you are already going through so many changes in your body. I didn’t even have the vocabulary to express myself.
“Now as a grown woman, I have needed therapy. I didn’t anticipate my recovery would take this long and some days are challenging to the point I just think, What is the point in going to work or doing anything because I’m in so much pain?”
Jones says she’s now “very open” talking about her diagnosis at work.
“I will always take my small hot water bottle and painkillers with me to the grounds when I’m working at matches. I really don’t care and I will openly tell people if I’m having a bad day.
“So often people will look at me and think I’m OK because I’ll go to work and show up and they can’t fathom there is something wrong with me. Sometimes I feel like I have to justify why I need assistance or if I’m walking slowly.
She says: “To any woman who feels like something is not OK with her body, I would say push to see a gynaecologist. Listen to that inner voice.
“We need to talk about periods. We are all here and alive because women have periods. If you’re not going to talk about that and look into it, we are doing young girls such a huge disservice.”
