She came off the pill - then her insides turned to 'concrete'

When Lisa Jessup decided to come off the birth control pill, she knew big changes could be ahead. She was 30 years old and just married, and her and her husband were ready to start their own family.

But the decision also uncovered symptoms of a serious diagnosis that had been suppressed by the pill. Within a few weeks, she noticed a hard lump in her tummy and went to the doctors to get it checked out. From there, she was fast-tracked into surgery with stage four - the most advanced stage - endometriosis.

Surgeons removed one of her ovaries and warned she should try for children as soon as possible if she wanted them, adding she was an 'absolute mess inside'. But she told the Manchester Evening News it was only the start of a decade in which she became 'a shell of herself'.

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After her first surgery, Lisa and her husband decided to try for children through IVF. They were successful on the second round, and had twins - something she says she is 'really grateful' for. However, her endometriosis symptoms only worsened in the years after pregnancy. Every month, during the week leading up to her period, she began to suffer 'electric shock' pain and vomiting.

"I'd be vomiting and lying on the bathroom floor with just this huge fatigue and not being able to kind of move," the Flixton mum said. "I would have symptoms all the time, but the week prior to my period was just absolute hell.

"I would spend my life in the bath for that whole week, and my social life was like non-existent. I used to turn friends down and be very last minute and it made me feel really isolated and lonely.

"I couldn't function properly. I'd just