Health
Woman suffers pain for 20 years until her mystery ailment is finally diagnosed
A woman who suffered intensely painful periods for some 20 years was finally diagnosed with a revealing ailment — helping to clear up a mystery that began plaguing her even before she became a teenager.
Jen Moore, 35, a former wedding cake baker, said she was unable to stand up straight when she first began experiencing painful periods as a girl of 11 years old.
She said doctors put her on birth control pills to try to reduce her periods, according to news agency SWNS — but that didn’t alleviate her pain over the years.
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She was informed by doctors that what she was experiencing was “normal,” she told the news agency — and that she was just someone who was “unlucky” to have painful menstrual periods.
But during the COVID lockdown, when she came off the contraceptives after 22 years, she said she “didn’t recognize the person she became” and would often pass out from the pain and blood loss.
When she was young, Jen Moore of the U.K. (not pictured) said her mother took her to see doctors — and they were told her painful periods would stop eventually. (iStock)
When she went to a physician due to her menstrual pain and had an ultrasound, she was told that no endometriosis had been detected, she told SWNS.
Not satisfied, Moore, of Cambridge, England, paid on her own to have an MRI scan.
She was ultimately diagnosed with endometriosis and adenomyosis, conditions in which the lining of the uterus grows in places where it should not be.
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Said Moore, “At the time, I thought it was normal because I didn’t know any different.”
When she was young, she said, her mother took her to see doctors — and Moore said she was told that her painful periods eventually would stop.
“I thought it was normal because I didn’t know any different.”
She said doctors told her that even if she did have endometriosis, “all they would do is put me on the pill.”
She also said that today she still feels “rage” at what happened to her.
There is an “urgent need,” said the CEO (not pictured) of a women’s wellness organization, “for greater awareness, early diagnosis and better support for those living with the condition” known as endometriosis. (iStock)
“I also feel heartbroken,” she told SWNS, “thinking about myself as an 11-year-old who had no idea she was about to go through so many of these things.”
She added, “I feel hope that generations are standing up and that they don’t want to tolerate this anymore.”
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Yet “I feel that it shouldn’t have to fall to the patients to do that,” she also said.
Moore said that even now, she feels “exhausted” and that there “isn’t an area of my life” that this hasn’t touched.
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She said that even though she had painful periods for so long, she wanted to go to college and try to live as normal a life as possible, “despite being bed-bound” for about a week every month.
She has learned, she said, that she has endometriosis on her bowels and her bladder — “it’s everywhere again, it’s just relentless.”
A woman was not satisfied with what she learned from an ultrasound — so she pushed to get further tests to figure out what was going on. (iStock)
She said she’s had “this condition damaging her organs for 22 years — that’s a lot of damage to unpick, so surgeries are never magic and [don’t] always provide a pain-free life.”
“Unfortunately,” she said, “there is still a lot of endometriosis for me.”
There is an “urgent need for greater awareness.”
Janet Lindsay, CEO of Wellbeing of Women, told SWNS, “Endometriosis is a condition that affects the lives of many women, often for years before a diagnosis is made … For too long, women’s pain has been dismissed or misunderstood.”
There is an “urgent need,” she said, “for greater awareness, early diagnosis, and better support for those living with the condition.”
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Last year, Bindi Irwin, daughter of the late Steve “Crocodile Hunter” Irwin, discussed her recovery from surgery following an endometriosis diagnosis.
Irwin, 26, said her “inescapable” pain was dismissed by doctors for 10 years as she was tested for all kinds of diseases.
Bindi Irwin, pictured in May 2019 in Beverly Hills, California, discussed her battle with endometriosis last year. (John Wolfsohn/Getty Images)
“I was tested for everything,” Irwin told People magazine last summer. “Every tropical disease, Lyme disease, cancer, you name it. I had every blood test and scan imaginable.”
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Endometriosis, according to the Mayo Clinic, is a condition “in which cells similar to the lining of the uterus, or endometrium, grow outside the uterus,” as Fox News Digital previously reported.
“Endometriosis often involves the pelvic tissue and can envelop the ovaries and fallopian tubes.”
The condition can be severely painful for those suffering from it — and it can impact fertility and menstruation.
Lauryn Overhultz of Fox News Digital contributed reporting.
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As colorectal cancer (CRC) is now the leading cause of cancer death in adults under 50, a new report reveals some surprising shifts in the incidence of the disease.
Although rates of CRC have been declining among seniors, those 65 and under are facing a rise in diagnoses, according to a report titled Colorectal Cancer Statistics, 2026, from the American Cancer Society.
Adults 65 and younger comprise nearly half (45%) of all new colorectal cancer cases — a significant increase from 27% in 1995, states the report, which was published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.
The disease is rising fastest among adults 20 to 49 years old, at a rate of 3% per year.
Colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death in adults under 50. (iStock)
Among adults 50 and under, 75% of colorectal cancers are diagnosed at an advanced stage. Half of the diagnoses in that age range are made between the ages of 45 and 49. Although that age group is eligible to receive routine screenings, just 37% do so.
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The report also revealed that rectal cancer is on the rise, now accounting for about one-third (32%) of all CRC cases — an increase from 27% in the mid-2000s.
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“After decades of progress, the risk of dying from colorectal cancer is climbing in younger generations of men and women, confirming a real uptick in disease because of something we’re doing or some other exposure,” said Rebecca Siegel, senior scientific director, surveillance research at the American Cancer Society and lead author of the report, in a press release.
Among adults 50 and under, 75% of colorectal cancers are diagnosed at an advanced stage. Half of the diagnoses in that age range are made between the ages of 45 and 49. (iStock)
“We need to redouble research efforts to understand the cause, but also circumvent deaths through earlier detection by educating clinicians and the general public about symptoms and increasing screening in people 45-54 years.”
It is projected that 158,850 new cases of colorectal cancer will be diagnosed this year, and that the disease will cause 55,230 deaths, per the report.
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More than half of CRC cases can be linked to high-risk behaviors, the researchers said. Those include lack of nutrition, high alcohol consumption, smoking, lack of exercise and obesity.
“These findings further underscore that colorectal cancer is worsening among younger generations and highlight the immediate need for eligible adults to begin screening at the recommended age of 45,” said Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer at the American Cancer Society.
When the disease is caught at a local (early) stage, the five-year survival rate is 95%. (iStock)
“The report also shines a light on the crucial importance of continued funding for research to help discover new therapies to treat the disease and advance patient care.”
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When the disease is caught at a local (early) stage, the five-year survival rate is 95%, the report stated.
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A new study suggests that middle-aged men may be more vulnerable to faster biological aging, potentially linked to exposure to “forever chemicals.”
The research, published in the journal Frontiers in Aging, examined how perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, more commonly known as PFAS, could impact aging at the cellular level.
PFAS are synthetic chemicals commonly used in nonstick cookware, food packaging, water-resistant fabrics and other consumer products, the study noted.
Their chemical structure makes them highly resistant to breaking down, allowing them to accumulate in water, soil and the human body.
Chinese researchers analyzed blood samples from 326 adults enrolled in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1999 and 2000.
A new study suggests that middle-aged men could face accelerated biological aging at the cellular level due to exposure to PFAS. (iStock)
The researchers measured levels of 11 PFAS compounds in participants’ blood and used DNA-based “epigenetic clocks” — tools that analyze chemical changes to DNA to estimate biological age — to determine how quickly their bodies were aging at the cellular level, the study stated.
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Two compounds, perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) and perfluorooctanesulfonamide (PFOSA), were detected in 95% of participants.
Higher concentrations of those chemicals were associated with faster biological aging in men of certain age groups, but not in women.
“People should not panic.”
The compounds most strongly linked to accelerated aging were not the PFAS chemicals that typically receive the most public attention, the researchers noted.
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“The associations were strongest in adults aged 50 to 64, particularly in men,” Dr. Xiangwei Li, professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and the study’s corresponding author, told Fox News Digital.
“While this does not establish that PFAS cause aging, it suggests that these widely present ‘forever chemicals’ may be linked to molecular changes related to long-term health and aging.”
The study found that two of the compounds were detected in 95% of participants, and higher levels were linked to faster biological aging in men ages 50–64. (iStock)
Midlife may represent a more sensitive biological period, when the body becomes more vulnerable to age-related stressors, according to the researchers.
Lifestyle factors, such as smoking, may influence biological aging markers, potentially increasing vulnerability to environmental pollutants.
While Li said “people should not panic,” she does recommend looking for reasonable ways to reduce exposure.
That might mean checking local drinking water reports, using certified water filters designed to reduce PFAS, and limiting the use of stain- or grease-resistant products when alternatives are available.
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Meaningful reductions in PFAS exposure will likely depend on broader regulatory action and environmental cleanup efforts, Li added.
The researchers noted that midlife could be a particularly sensitive stage, when the body is more susceptible to stressors associated with aging. (iStock)
Study limitations
The researchers outlined several important limitations of the research, including that the findings show an association, but do not prove that PFAS directly causes accelerated aging.
“The study is cross-sectional, meaning exposure and aging markers were measured at the same time, so we cannot determine causality,” Li told Fox News Digital.
The study was also relatively small, limited to 326 adults age 50 or older, which means the findings may not apply to younger people or broader populations.
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Researchers measured PFAS levels using data collected between 1999 and 2000, and today’s exposure patterns may differ.
Li added that while PFAS is known to persist in the environment and the body, these results should be validated through larger, more recent studies that follow participants over time.
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