Whether you love her or hate her, ‘Girls‘ creator Lena Dunham is undeniably relatable. While most celebrities tend to create a perfect image for the public, the 33-year-old star isn’t afraid to show her vulnerable and messy side to the world.
One of the aspects of her life she’s been most open about is her health. Over the years, she’s publicly shared her experience with a gynecological illness that a lot of women also suffer from. And just recently, she enthusiastically announced that she’s been cured of it.
Emergency Operation
While Dunham is ecstatic that her illness is now gone, the road to her current state was full of bumps. Being diagnosed early on in her teens, the actress has gone through many operations to mitigate her symptoms.
She’s gotten a total of five surgeries just within the past year including the most recent one a few weeks ago.
As Dunham shared in a recent issue of her self-published newsletter, she woke up one weekend in pain, dry heaving and with her back aching. She was soon rushed to the emergency room where she had to get an emergency procedure.
Endometriosis is a condition where a lining that’s supposed to line a woman’s uterus grows outside of it usually around the pelvis area.
This abnormality can then lead to heavier periods, severe period pains and cramps. However, Dunham’s case is one of the more serious ones given the fact that one of Duham’s ovaries has actually become stuck to her pelvic floor.
Fortunately, she awoke at the hospital to some fantastic news. According to the actress, her doctor informed her that she was finally ‘disease-free’ thanks to the surgery and her previous hormonal treatments.
‘Disease-Free’?
This is good news, indeed. But Dr. Charles J. Ascher-Walsh, Mount Sinai‘s director, wants people to know that the description ‘disease-free’ may not be applicable to sufferers of endometriosis.
According to the doctor, the surgery often only targets to remove affected tissue and actually identifying the endometriosis in the body is a more difficult task. Another problem about this label is that there are many cases of women having the illness but being lucky enough to not experience its painful symptoms.
In the end, Ascher-Walsh believes that surgery is a great option for women whose symptoms are more severe.
Common Illness
According to statistics, around one in 10 women actually has the illness. That means that 10% (176 million people) of the world’s entire population suffers from it in varying intensities.
Thus, it’s not surprising to hear that a lot of A-listers also has been diagnosed with it as well. One of them is veteran actress Susan Sarandon who says that it took years for doctors to actually identify the disease in her case. There’s also comedienne Whoopi Goldberg and celebrity trainer Jillian Michaels.