Amy Schumer has opened up about the loneliness of suffering from endometriosis on a new docuseries, which drops today on Paramount Plus.
As the fourth guest on “The Checkup With Dr. David Agus,” the 40-year old comedian said her experience with the severe health condition, which affects up to 6.5 million women in the US, had been “really difficult.”
“I’ve been in so much pain, you know, my whole life — not just the week of my period,” she said.
“For months, I had been complaining of pain. It was just this pain you can’t see, and there is the inclination to always think a woman is just being dramatic.”
“It just hurts, and it’s really just a lonely, lonely disease.”
The series host, Dr David Agus, described Schumer as “unapologetically honest” as she recounted her relationship to alcohol, revealing that she’d started drinking at 12.
“One time, I remember I came out of a blackout, and there was a guy in my room that I didn’t, that I hadn’t remembered meeting,” she said.
Schumer also described the “pregnancy that nearly broke her”, as “a full nine months of being violently ill.”
“I wouldn’t hear the word, hyperemesis, until six months in,” she said — before Dr Agus described the severe disorder hyperemesis gravidarum, which sees someone suffer persistent nausea and vomiting during their pregnancy.
Schumer had documented her ordeal and shared it on social media, telling Dr Agus “I feel moved to share what’s going on. When I hear other people with the same struggles,I feel better, I feel less alone.”
Last year, she revealed she had her uterus and appendix removed due to endometriosis, posting a video directly from hospital, telling her followers that if they “have really painful periods”, they might have endometriosis.
Society can “paint women as weak” if when they complain about pain, she said, adding, “We’ve been told for so long that we’re annoying and dramatic and all these things, and we’re not.”
“My pain is real, your pain is real — we have to advocate for ourselves.”
In Australia, endometriosis affects at least one in 9 girls and women (usually in their 30s and 40s) and the consequences can be severe. Symptoms can include pain in the stomach, back and hip areas, bleeding, chronic pelvic pain, nausea and fatigue, pain during sexual intercourse — all symptoms that can negatively affect one’s quality of life.
According to the World Health Organization, the condition is often misdiagnosed because of its variable symptoms and because in many countries “healthcare providers are not aware that distressing and life-altering pelvic pain is not normal.”
Schumer’s latest season of her smash hit comedy, Inside Amy Schumer dropped in October, with the final episode airing last month. In the show, some sketches explore the sexism of gynecology – a field Schumer has poked fun at in her previous seasons.