'I was told I was just constipated, but my devastating condition led me to have five miscarriages in six years'

“We have been trying for six years to get pregnant. I’ve been pregnant each year – but I’ve had five miscarriages thanks to endometriosis.”

Mirfat Band spent 10 years suffering horrific symptoms which often left her bed-ridden in pain – all the while being told her condition could be down to irritable bowel syndrome, infections, and even just constipation.

After running out of help from her GP, she insisted on seeing a gynaecologist, who finally organised a procedure to give her the real diagnosis of endometriosis. Mirfat cried with relief as she was getting answers at last.

But after devastating symptoms and even worse complications from a decade of going undiagnosed, she is speaking out to call for more education and understanding of the condition which lay invisible to her doctors, friends and work colleagues alike.

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Mirfat, who lives in Ashton, first started looking into her symptoms in 2009 while she was in her early 20s, she told the Manchester Evening News: “I had really bad pelvic pain that no one seemed to be taking seriously.”

The vaccine researcher went to her GP for more and more tests, but they all came back clear – leading to confusion. Mirfat was having extremely heavy, painful periods, often twice a month and far too heavy for sanitary pads, but says she was being told ‘that’s normal’.

“I always thought ‘I’m not making this stuff up, there’s something going on’. I didn’t want to take myself to A&E because that’s for very serious issues, but I couldn’t go to work.

“I’d have to stay in bed all day,” she said.

Endometriosis is a disease in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows