Joanie Cox-Henry, Contributing WriterJoanie Cox-Henry is a journalist with a Bachelor’s degree in communications from Florida Atlantic University and more than 17 years of industry experience. She has been battling endometriosis for more than a decade and while she lost an ovary to the disease in 2013, she has not lost her sense of humor or her passion to bring hope to others living with the illness.
Justice Hope Enlow is a beauty queen on a mission. The newly minted Miss Santa Clarita USA will compete for the Miss California USA 2019 title in January, and when she sashays across the stage, Enlow, 24, plans to detail her life with endometriosis…
Dating as a perfectly healthy woman comes with enough challenges, but playing the dating game with endometriosis can be an absolute nightmare. Celebrities like Lena Dunham and Halsey to Julianne Hough, Jaime King, and Padma Lakshmi have all…
Padma Lakshmi would like to remind women everywhere that the fiercest fashion statement they can make this season is speaking up about their health— especially when it comes to endometriosis. The author, model, actress, and TV host…
Chrissy Teigen Instagrammed a photo of herself doing it and Gwyneth Paltrow has sung its praises on her lifestyle site Goop, but is vaginal steaming, which is also known as v-steaming or yoni-steaming, a holistic healing treatment or a harmful…
Above, Cassandra Bien-Aime (center), poses with her fellow endo warrior-dancers. Credit: Cassandra Bien-Aime Cassandra Bien-Aime is giving a whole new meaning to dancing the pain away. The 32-year-old East Orange, N.J.-native, endo warrior,…
The stickiest-ickiest days of summer are here, and there's nothing more refreshing than kicking back with a frosty beverage and a good book. For the latter, we've got you covered. Here are eight essential reads for endo warriors that will lift…
Although endometriosis typically infiltrates the reproductive organs, bowels, and bladder, the disease has other horrifying manifestations. Albeit rare, endometriosis can silently kill function in one or both kidneys. It's called ureteral…
Birth control pills continue to be a popular and viable option for women with endometriosis attempting to manage endo pain. But when it comes to choosing the best pill, are all birth control pills created equal? While there haven’t been…
Menstrual hygiene and breaking the silence surrounding menstruation, matters. To prove that point, in honor of Menstrual Hygiene Day on May 28, women around the world turned up the volume by tweeting messages of solidarity and attending events…
When it comes to period pain, especially endometriosis and adenomyosis pain, many women will try anything to alleviate the agony akin to Freddy Krueger stabbing your abdomen. But what if the remedy was truly off the wall? File this under: Why…
May is officially Pelvic Pain Awareness Month, thanks to the International Pelvic Pain Society (IPPS), who made the designation back in 2017. While chronic pelvic pain is defined as nonmenstrual pain in the pelvis that lasts up to six months…
Anthoula Stefanou was only 33—but, mysteriously, her ovaries weren't. Her doctors told her the organs had aged well beyond her years.“My AMH was extremely low,” Stefanou recalls being told by her fertility specialist of her…
Imagine having endometriosis excision surgery and needing no downtime. That's the reality for Dr. Mona Orady's patients. The San Francisco-based OB-GYN specializes in mini-laparoscopy. Instead of using instruments with a circumference of 5…
It was Tanzanian supermodel Millen Happiness Magese’s lifelong dream to have a child. After years of battling severe endometriosis pain and undergoing 13 surgeries, that dream seemed like an unreachable star. But Magese’s persistence…
Endometriosis pain was crippling yoga and Pilates instructor Kym Klein to her core, so she decided to fight back by strengthening her body with a customized fitness class of her creation. Klein developed Core 45, a mat-based, high-intensity,…
As The Blossom recently reported, having endometriosis and conceiving the old-fashioned way, can have its difficulties, but with a little help from in vitro fertilization, experts say endo women can have a higher success rate with conception.…
Jeremy Laura’s wife’s pain from endometriosis was so indescribable he could barely put it into spoken word—so he put it into song. Laura penned the song “Uncomplicated” as a testament to his wife of 19 years, Jen…
Samantha Bee took a jab at birth control as doctor's go-to remedy for all that ails women and gave an incredibly raw and real look at endometriosis in the March 21 segment “All You Get Is Birth Control” on her TBS show Full Frontal…
Getting pregnant and delivering a healthy, bouncing baby is something that, sadly, many women with endometriosis may never experience. The statistics can be even more sobering, with one study claiming that women with mild cases of the disease have…
At the tender age of 31, long before I finally got pregnant, I took a real-life tour of menopause, and I am here to tell you: I have been to the fires of hell and back.It forever left a special place in my heart for the 27 million women between…
The end of a rough work day can often mean heading to a local happy hour to unwind with your besties. But for women with endometriosis, a carefree night out can become an agonizing internal war that leads to a self-induced guilt-fest that may…
Tired of bulky pads cramping your style? We can relate! Here are some monthly menstrual solutions that prove thinking outside the typical feminine-protection-box can be better for your health and overall vibe. Flex This hypoallergenic, BPA…
Truth: all beauty products aren't created equal. Just ask Dr. Shivani Gupta, author of The Conscious Pregnancy, founder of supplement line Fusionary Formulas and Ayurveda expert. “So often, products touted as ‘organic’ or…
Being pregnant at 37 comes with its own bag of stress factors, including being labeled a "geriatric mother" à la Bridget Jones. But being pregnant at 37 with endometriosis takes the worry factor to skyscraper heights. I should be worrying…
Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food, is an oft-quoted adage from ancient Greek physician Hippocrates. He might as well have been speaking to endo women everywhere, because eating the wrong foods could potentially worsen the disease,…
We’ve all been there. After a long day, the idea of hitting the gym seems more unlikely than getting through an episode of This Is Us without crying a bucketful of tears. But for women with endometriosis, regular exercise, which can also…
My father-in-law was about to blow the candles out on his 61st birthday cake when I felt a familiar dampness between my legs. It was trickling through the crack of my underwear like an unwanted stream of water beneath an air conditioning unit.…
