This September celebrates 10 years of EveryWoman Day, an initiative to raise awareness of poorly understood, painful and hidden women’s health conditions. This has now become an annual day, and public health initiative inviting women to speak up about their health journeys and challenges they have faced. This year EveryWoman Day will be celebrated on the 15th of September and is a chance to celebrate and discuss women’s health issues.
Despite women making up over 50% of the UK’s population and now more than 50% of UK doctors are women, research into issues that affect women remains disproportionately lower. Femtech companies continue to receive only a small proportion of overall health and digital wellbeing funding. Making things better for women makes things better for everyone – we want to live in societies where we support each individual to thrive.
This blog will explore a few conditions for us to be aware of as we are likely to know someone or be someone with one of these conditions. The more we normalise talking about women’s health, the more women we can help.
PMOS – polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome
PMOS, previously known as PCOS, impacts more than 170 million worldwide – that’s one in eight women. So, chances are, we all know someone or are someone with PMOS. PMOS was previously thought of as an issue of women’s reproductive organs but has now been shown to be more complex than that. Endocrine means relating to hormones, metabolic means relating to energy and syndrome is a term used in medicine for a group of things happening together. It is estimated that up to 70% of those with PMOS remain undiagnosed. This highlights why it is important to talk about the symptoms and signs so that we can help more women.
What are the symptoms and signs of PMOS? Some of the signs can be:
- Missed periods, irregular periods or very light periods
- Ovaries that are large or have many cysts
- Extra body hair, including the chest, stomach and back (hirsutism)
- Weight gain, especially around the tummy
- Acne or oily skin
- Male-pattern baldness or thinning hair
- Infertility
- Small pieces of extra skin on the neck or armpits (skin tags)
- Dark or thick skin patches on the back of the neck, in the armpits and under the breasts
I do want to point out that there can be different causes of these symptoms so having them doesn’t necessarily mean that someone has PMOS. I just learned yesterday that thinning hair can be caused by low iron levels (probably the cause of my hair falling out!) so please don’t read this list and worry that you must have PMOS. If you recognise some of these signs and symptoms and think you might have PMOS, please see your GP and have a conversation about it.
PMOS is usually diagnosed through an ultrasound and blood tests. Treatment includes changes to diet and exercise to help maintain a healthy weight and healthy blood sugar. Depending on symptoms, a GP may prescribe medicines to help with regular periods, support ovulation and blood sugar control and for acne. Women with PMOS may have difficulty conceiving and be at increased risk of diabetes and high blood pressure. This is why it’s important that we talk about PMOS and raise awareness so that we can support the estimated 70% of those who remain undiagnosed.
Endometriosis
The lining of the uterus, the endometrium, is shed every month when a person who menstruates has a period. That’s what a period is – shedding of the endometrial lining of the uterus. In endometriosis, tissue similar to the endometrial lining is found in other organs such as the ovaries, bowel or bladder. This tissue also responds to hormones of the menstrual cycle and can cause pain, become inflamed and become scar tissue.
Symptoms of endometriosis vary and can include:
- Pelvic pain
- Heavy bleeding
- Pain during or after sex
- Pain when going for a poo or wee
- Fatigue
- Some women can struggle to get pregnant
It can take months and sometimes years to get diagnosed because these symptoms aren’t specific to endometriosis. The way we can definitively say someone has endometriosis is by doing keyhole surgery. There is no current cure for endometriosis, and treatment focuses on supporting with symptoms.
In the UK, there are currently 1.5 million people affected by endometriosis. We currently don’t know what causes it and there’s no known way of preventing it. What’s great is that there is now more research and funding going into deepening our understanding of endometriosis so we can do more to support those with endometriosis.
Gynaecological cancer
September is also gynaecological cancer awareness month, so I want to take this opportunity to talk about the five types of gynaecological cancers – ovarian, uterine, cervical, vaginal and vulval. They all present with slightly different symptoms so I would encourage everyone to read up on them – although each of them is rare, the more we normalise talking about our bodies and checking ourselves, the more we can support people to pick up on potential issues earlier.
What can we do on EveryWoman day?
EveryWoman Day provides a great opportunity for each of us to speak about women’s health and our own bodies. I have been to the EveryWoman festival the last two years doing workshops on behalf of Natracare, and what I have loved is that it’s a day of women talking about our bodies and women’s health. Normalising using words like vagina and clitoris. Talking about what is ‘normal’ and when to be worried about periods. What on earth is a pelvic floor and how are you actually supposed to feel when doing pelvic floor exercises. I’m a doctor myself but each time I have come home with a better understanding of my own body and anatomy!
So if we all spend this day having one conversation about women’s health, we can normalise talking about periods and women’s health, and this is how we make a change – one conversation at a time.
Guest blog written by Dr Nuthana, September 2026
