An Australian actress, best known for her role in Neighbors, has opened up about her current health battle with an invisible illness that left her suffering in silence until she finally received a diagnosis.
Jordy Lucas, 32, revealed that after landing her dream role on the Australian soap opera as a teenager, she began suffering from unbearable and irregular periods.
However, due to the misconception that painful periods are normal, doctors ignored Ms. Lucas’ concerns.
The actress remembers an episode in which she was rushed to the hospital after finishing a scene from Neighbors because she had been bleeding for several weeks.
“I felt like I was going to faint,” he said. News.com.au.
Jordy Lucas (pictured) was diagnosed with endometriosis last year after more than a decade of suffering from chronic pain and heavy periods.
Ms Lucas, best known for her role in Neighbors (pictured), began suffering symptoms after landing her dream role on the Australian soap.
Once again, her pain and bleeding were ignored and Mrs. Lucas was prescribed the birth control pill.
To some extent, the pill helped her control her symptoms, and she continued to take it for several years, including during her time living in the United States.
In 2020, she made the difficult decision to go off the pill after suffering from migraines and discovered that all the birth control had done was mask her original symptoms.
She, again, began suffering from chronic pain and heavy periods, but doctors continued to rule her out because nothing seemed abnormal on the ultrasounds.
Although her symptoms were a classic case of endometriosis, a disease an estimated one million Australians will suffer from in their lifetime, she found it difficult to get a diagnosis.
On average, it takes an Australian seven years to be diagnosed with endometriosis, often because the pain is attributed to menstrual cramps.
Mrs. Lucas did her best to continue with her daily life, but the pain became increasingly debilitating and her heavy periods left her anaemic.
Ms Lucas (pictured) was dismissed by doctors and prescribed the contraceptive pill as a way to mask her symptoms.
It was during this time that she realized that she was lucky to work as an actress, as she could not handle the stress of a nine-to-five job.
She was eventually given the green flag to undergo eye surgery, but admitted she was paranoid and doctors would find nothing wrong and would label her melodramatic.
However, the medical team was able to confirm that Ms Lucas had endometriosis in May 2023 and she burst into tears at the relief of having been “validated”.
‘I had to fight for years to be taken seriously; “When they took me seriously, I was at stage four and everything (internal organs) was fused,” he said.
Ms. Lucas underwent excision surgery in January 2024 to remove excess endometrial tissue and, in February, shared pathological findings from the procedure.
‘Endometriosis, adenomyosis and extensive and deep infiltrating ovarian cysts. Things that certainly don’t go together, they were literally stuck together,” she said.
‘I feel vindicated, but I also feel incredibly angry. Angry that this diagnosis took over ten years. Angry because they made me feel like a drug-seeking hypochondriac.
“What makes me most angry is that I started to question myself, my own body, my own pain.”
Ms Lucas (pictured) underwent excision surgery in January 2024 to remove excess endometrial tissue and described being “angry” that her diagnosis took so long.
Since her diagnosis, Ms Lucas has shared her journey with endometriosis online in an attempt to remedy the “shame” and “embarrassment” she used to feel.
It also encourages women to advocate for their health and trust their instincts.
“I hope to help women better advocate for themselves during the diagnosis and treatment of this horrible disease,” she said.
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