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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What if your New Year’s resolution could fit inside a tote bag? Social media users are trying the “analog bag” trend, replacing phones with offline activities.
The trend is widely credited to TikTok creator Sierra Campbell, who posted about her own analog bag — containing a crossword book, portable watercolor set, Polaroid camera, planner and knitting supplies — and encouraged followers to make their own.
Her video prompted many others to share their own versions, with items like magazines, decks of cards, paints, needlepoint and puzzle books.
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“I made a bag of non-digital activities to occupy my hands instead of the phone,” said Campbell, adding that the practice has significantly cut her screen time and filled her life with “creative and communal pursuits that don’t include doom-scrolling.”
“I created the analog bag after learning the only way to change a habit is to replace it with another,” she told Fox News Digital.
Social media users are trying the “analog bag” trend, replacing phones with offline activities like cameras, notebooks and magazines. (Fox News Digital)
The science of healthier habits
Research on habit formation supports the idea of the analog bag, according to Dr. Daniel Amen, a California-based psychiatrist and founder of Amen Clinics.
“Your brain is a creature of habit,” Amen said during an interview with Fox News Digital. “Neurons that fire together wire together, meaning that every time you repeat a behavior, whether it’s good or bad, you strengthen the neural pathways that make it easier to do it again.”
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Studies show that habits are automatic responses to specific cues — such as boredom, stress or idle time — that typically deliver some kind of reward, according to the doctor. When no alternative behavior is available, people tend to fall back on the same routine, often without realizing it.
Research suggests that replacing an old habit with a new one tied to the same cue is more effective than trying to suppress the behavior altogether.
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“[When] cutting out coffee — you need to have another drink to grab for, not just quit cold turkey. It’s how the pathways in our brains work,” Campbell said.
By substituting a different routine that still provides stimulation and engagement, people can gradually weaken the original habit and build a new automatic response.
Substituting another activity instead of scrolling on your phone can help quell the impulse to reach for it. (iStock)
“Simply stopping a behavior is very challenging,” Amen said. “Replacing one habit with something that is better for your brain is much easier. That’s how lasting change happens, one step at a time.”
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If alternatives are within arm’s reach, people will be more likely to use them, the doctor said. “Your brain does much better with small, simple actions than big, vague intentions.”
Instead of saying, “I’ll stop scrolling today,” the doctor recommends choosing a small habit you can do in a few moments in specific situations, like knitting 10 rows of a scarf on your commute or reading a few pages of a book while waiting at the doctor’s office.
“If alternatives are within arm’s reach, you’re more likely to use them,” a brain doctor said. “Your brain does much better with small, simple actions than big, vague intentions.” (iStock)
Campbell shared her own examples of how to use an analog bag. At a coffee shop with friends, she said, she might pull out a crossword puzzle and ask others to help with answers when the conversation lulls.
Instead of taking dozens of photos on her phone, she uses an instant camera, which limits shots and encourages more intentional moments.
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In casual outdoor settings, such as a park or winery, she brings a small watercolor set for a quick creative outlet.
“It’s brought so much joy,” Campbell said of the analog bag trend, “seeing how it resonates with so many.”
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A deadly, drug-resistant fungus already spreading rapidly through U.S. hospitals is becoming even more threatening worldwide, though there may be hope for new treatments, according to a new scientific review.
Candida auris (C. auris), often described as a “superbug fungus,” is spreading globally and increasingly resisting human immune systems, Hackensack Meridian Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI) researchers said in a review published in early December.
The findings reinforce prior CDC warnings that have labeled C. auris an “urgent antimicrobial threat” — the first fungal pathogen to receive that designation — as U.S. cases have surged, particularly in hospitals and long-term care centers.
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Approximately 7,000 cases were identified across dozens of U.S. states in 2025, according to the CDC, and it has reportedly been identified in at least 60 countries.
Candida auris is a drug-resistant fungus spreading in hospitals worldwide. (Nicolas Armer/Picture Alliance via Getty Images)
The review, published in Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, helps explain why the pathogen is so difficult to contain and warns that outdated diagnostics and limited treatments lag behind. It was conducted by Dr. Neeraj Chauhan of the Hackensack Meridian CDI in New Jersey, Dr. Anuradha Chowdhary of the University of Delhi’s Medical Mycology Unit and Dr. Michail Lionakis, chief of the clinical mycology program at the National Institutes of Health.
Their findings stress the need to develop “novel antifungal agents with broad-spectrum activity against human fungal pathogens, to improve diagnostic tests and to develop immune- and vaccine-based adjunct modalities for the treatment of high-risk patients,” the researchers said in a statement.
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“In addition, future efforts should focus on raising awareness about fungal disease through developing better surveillance mechanisms, especially in resource-poor countries,” they added. “All these developments should help improve the outcomes and prognosis of patients afflicted by opportunistic fungal infections.”
Candida auris can survive on skin and hospital surfaces, allowing it to spread easily. (iStock)
First identified in 2009 from a patient’s ear sample in Japan, C. auris has since spread to dozens of countries, including the U.S., where outbreaks have forced some hospital intensive care units to shut down, according to the researchers.
The fungus poses the greatest risk to people who are already critically ill, particularly those on ventilators or with weakened immune systems. Once infected, about half of patients may die, according to some estimates.
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Unlike many other fungi, C. auris can survive on human skin and cling to hospital surfaces and medical equipment, allowing it to spread easily in healthcare settings.
“It is resistant to multiple antifungal drugs, and it tends to spread in hospital settings, including on equipment being used on immunocompromised and semi-immunocompromised patients, such as ventilators and catheters,” Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst and clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone, previously told Fox News Digital.
Scientists say the unique cell wall structure of C. auris makes it harder to kill. (iStock)
It is also frequently misdiagnosed, delaying treatment and infection control measures.
“Unfortunately, symptoms such as fever, chills and aches may be ubiquitous, and it can be mistaken for other infections,” Siegel said.
In September, he said intense research was ongoing to develop new treatments.
Only four major classes of antifungal drugs are currently available, and C. auris has already shown resistance to many of them. While three new antifungal drugs have been approved or are in late-stage trials, researchers warn that drug development has struggled to keep pace with the fungus’s evolution.
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Despite the sobering findings, there is still room for cautious optimism.
The fungus can cling to skin and hospital surfaces, aiding its spread. (iStock)
In separate research published in December, scientists at the University of Exeter in England discovered a potential weakness in C. auris while studying the fungus in a living-host model.
The team found that, during infection, the fungus activates specific genes to scavenge iron, a nutrient it needs to survive, according to their paper, published in the Nature portfolio journal Communications Biology in December.
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Because iron is essential for the pathogen, researchers believe drugs that block this process could eventually stop infections or even allow existing medications to be repurposed.
“We think our research may have revealed an Achilles’ heel in this lethal pathogen during active infection,” Dr. Hugh Gifford, a clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter and co-author of the study, said in a statement.
New research is underway to develop better treatments and diagnostics for C. auris. (iStock)
As researchers race to better understand the fungus, officials warn that strict infection control, rapid detection and continued investment in new treatments remain critical.
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Health experts emphasize that C. auris is not a threat to healthy people.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the CDI researchers and additional experts for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Angelica Stabile contributed reporting.
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