An Irish woman has revealed that her gynecologist denied her a hysterectomy in case her "sexual orientation changes" and she decides to have children.
Rachel Champ, a 27-year-old sales agent from Co Meath, recently went viral on Twitter after documenting her experience with an Irish doctor who said that he wouldn't consider a hysterectomy because she may decide to have children in the future, even though she is gay and married.
Can’t believe that today a gynaecologist told me that a hysterectomy wouldn’t be considered as an option for my debilitating period pain on the off chance that I divorce my wife, my sexual orientation changes, I meet a man and decide I want children ???
— rachel (@RachChamp_) November 1, 2021
Champ said that she has been suffering from debilitating period pain since she was 10 years old, adding that she has undergone two surgeries and tried "every combination of painkillers".
She said that she has also tried three different contraceptive pills and the Mirena coil, but "nothing has helped".
She said that any doctor that she visited over the pains told her that she was simply "unlucky" to experience such bad periods.
It wasn't until she underwent a pap smear test at the age of 25 that her female doctor informed her that such painful periods weren't normal and referred her for a series of further tests.
She subsequently underwent several tests, including an ultrasound, a laparoscopy, and insertion of the Mirena coil. The tests confirmed that Champ had multiple small cysts on both ovaries, including one that appeared to be an endometrioma.
Her pain was also no longer confined to monthly period pain but was now both daily and chronic.
Faced with up to 20 more years of debilitating pain, Champ considered undergoing a hysterectomy to finally end her suffering.
However, she said that the gynecologist that was assigned to her by the HSE told her that he wouldn't consider a hysterectomy because she was "too young" and her judgment was "clouded by pain".
"Important to mention that he did not give me any medical reason why I could not have a hysterectomy. He told me it isn’t an option because I’m too young, the pain I’m in is clouding my judgement and my life circumstances may change," Champ wrote on Twitter.
She later told BuzzFeed that her doctor said that he didn't want her to have any "regrets".
"I don’t want you to have regrets if circumstances change for you. Maybe you leave your partner, your sexual orientation changes, and you meet someone and he wants children," Champ's doctor told her, according to the interview with BuzzFeed.
Champ's viral tweet has received more than 440,000 likes since she posted it on November 1, while thousands of women have shared similar experiences in the comments.
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