One in 10 women of reproductive age around the world suffer from a condition known as endometriosis.

It's an illness where tissue similar to the uterine lining grows outside of that organ in places it's not supposed to be.

It can lead to infertility, debilitating pain, and financial hardship.

For our series Unequal Treatment, I recently spoke with Dr. Laura

Homewood, a gynecologic surgeon at UVA Health, about how the medical community is working

with patients to learn more about this disease. Dr. Holmwood, thank you so much for joining us.

We mentioned that it sometimes takes years to get a diagnosis. What is the average patient's

time to get a diagnosis, and why does average patient's time to get a diagnosis,

and why does it take so long? The famous statistic around endometriosis is that it can take an

average of seven years and seen seven different doctors before a woman can get her

definitive diagnosis of endometriosis. Despite it being a very common diagnosis, it's difficult

to diagnose because you have to actually have surgery to get a tissue diagnosis. And so there's no easy

blood tests. There's no easy screening imaging that may be able to be found in other diseases. But also, some providers

aren't good at catching it. They're very vague symptoms that can mimic other diseases, and that

can lead to big delays for women, unfortunately. We spoke to one patient advocate who said she

went nearly a decade before she was diagnosed and experienced

tremendous uncertainty, high medical bills in the interim. Let's take a listen to what she had to say.

I was very young when I first started going through this in my young 20s, and I didn't have a lot of

extra money. And then as time even went on, some of the surgeries were not covered by my insurance.

So I had to pay out of pocket to have surgery.

Endometriosis has a huge financial burden and impact on the individual who's suffering and their families.

Do you see a lot of patients with stories like hers?

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