Waiting to find two lines on the stick and month after month discovering you are not pregnant can be truly heartbreaking.
There are many conditions and issues that can affect a women's fertility and ability to conceive or carry a child. But what if you have been poked and prodded and tested for every one of them, and the doctors
still can't give you an answer as to why you can't get pregnant?
That happened to 37-year-old Liz Medd, a radiographer from Sunderland, who explained to the
Huffington Post how the hardest part about the whole debacle was the fact that nobody would believe her when she said there was something that was not quite right.
"I’d seen every GP in the surgery, I’d seen the specialist at the local hospital," Medd explains. "I felt like I'd gone down every avenue."
After googling and doing her own research, she came across the little knows condition of Asherman’s syndrome, the name given to a condition where scar tissue form in the uterus (sometimes called uterus adhesions) and can prevent women getting pregnant or make them suffer recurrent miscarriages.
But when she suggested being examined for this to her GP, she was met with very little understanding. "In my medical notes it states how many times I told my GP I thought I had Asherman’s syndrome, and after every time they wrote 'long chat, patient reassured," Medd explains. "The issue is that it isn’t a condition doctors come across very often. It’s very low down on the list of things that could be stopping a woman having periods."
What is Asherman's Syndrome?
According to
Ashermans.org,
Asherman's syndrome, also known as intrauterine adhesions, is a condition where the cavity of the uterus develops scar tissue (adhesions). The symptoms, extent of the adhesions, effect on the uterine cavity and clinical importance vary greatly.
The most common cause of Asherman's Syndrome is injury to the uterus sustained during surgery, following a miscarriage or birth. It can also be caused by injury during an abortion, caesarean section or from Endometritis, a condition that
occurs when tissue like that which lines the uterus (the endometrium) is found outside the uterus – usually in the abdomen on the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and ligaments that support the uterus.
After having been examined properly and diagnosed, Medd was told she has developed Asherman's syndrome after she underwent surgery following a miscarriage, where she didn't miscarry naturally, but had to have a medical procedure done to remove placental- and fetal tissue.
"When I was discharged and told my periods should come back in four to six weeks, but they didn't," she explains.
Lack of periods following a surgical procedure involving the uterus is a common symptom of Asherman's, although many women who have the condition will have no real problems or symptoms at all, and will only discover they have a problem when they start trying to conceive or if they suffer recurrent miscarriages.
Had YOU heard of this condition before? Does anyone have a story to share about being diagnosed or overcoming Asherman's syndrome? Please send me an e-mail at Trine.Jensen@Herfamily.ie 
