Olivia Culpo, 28, has spoken out for the first time about her endometriosis battle. The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model took to her Instagram Story on August 26, and opened up about the “painful” diagnosis. “I’ve never publicly said this before but I have endometriosis. Aka the most excruciatingly painful cramps/periods. Anyone else reading this have Endo? No fun,” she began. The condition causes pain and issues with menstruation, because the tissue that usually lines the uterus grows outside the uterus. Many fans quickly responded to Olivia, explaining their own battle with endo.
“I can’t believe that a lot of you also suffer from endometriosis. It is so not fun, very painful.” She explained that she deals with the pain with heating pads, water and “lots of Midol, honestly.” Olivia also urged fans to seek an official diagnosis if they believe they suffer from the condition. “The thing I’m gonna say about endometriosis that I just think is really important is if you are having very painful periods and you are not being diagnosed with what you think could be endometriosis, definitely do your research because if you don’t discover that you have this, it could get in the way of your fertility,” she explained.
Olivia added, “You could have tissue growing in areas that you really shouldn’t have that would interfere with maybe getting pregnant some day, your eggs could be getting damaged. Definitely go to your doctor if you have painful periods. Painful periods are not normal. You just want to make sure that everything is ok if you did want to get pregnant. You just never know. You don’t want to wait too late, so I want everyone to take that seriously.”
The former pageant queen revealed she was so passionate about the issue after her doctor told her about women who were unable to get pregnant because they unknowingly had endometriosis. “The reason why I’m so passionate about talking about this is because my doctor tells me about people who come to her in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s about not having been able to have kids,” she said.