My Unexplained Abdominal Pain: Part 2

The wait list for a gynaecologist in British Columbia is at least one year. (I’m not convinced the wait list is only one year, but that’s a story for another day.) The concern I’m having with this theory is that it’s thought that I should see a gynaecologist first before exploring the possibility (or the ruling out) of a bowel/colon issue. I understand that it could be argued that submitting requisitions to multiple specialists at the same time could convolute navigating my situation, and it could possibly create complexity for doctors exploring two specialties at once. Is sending two requisitions at once irresponsible? I used to think it was.

I’ve asked whether it would be quicker if I were to travel out of country for more advanced testing. I was advised that travelling out of Canada isn’t necessary. According to other women’s responses throughout several online forums I frequent, some of Canada’s top health-based gynaecologists are suggesting to some patients that they’ll find quicker diagnoses in the United States. The funding to surgically accommodate the 1 in 10 women in Canada who suffer from endometriosis alone isn’t there —this doesn’t include misdiagnoses and women with other health concerns that are being treated as endometriosis (or IBS).

I was advised at my local clinic that the gynaecologist wait time is probably maximum three months. Hearing this only days after learning about the real-time collapse of British Columbia’s gynaecology field, I had my suspicions. But as patients we need to stay hopeful and trust doctors’ feedback, right?

I was put on the gynaecology wait list in August 2025. According to information I was given by the clinic I was referred to, the gynaecologists in this clinic are either on leave or they’re working elsewhere in the hospital. While I wasn’t shocked by this news considering the current capacity (inexistence) of Canada’s healthcare system it still felt like a setback. I’d rather hear an “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” rather than a wait time guesstimate.

I saw a gynecologist on December 2, 2025 after many calls to the clinic –I was initially being advised that no cases are being pushed through unless they have to do with pregnancy or cancer. In my head I asked myself, “how would I know if I have cancer,” considering extensive years’ long wait times for “non-emergency” scans. After months of devoted advocating, I received my consultation.

Queue the heartache (but necessary to pursue more answers): the gynaecologist suggested that my family physician revisit the colonoscopy route. It’s as if I know my body…

I get it. It can’t be simple being a doctor of any kind. I recognize that medicine isn’t always black and white, and that some paths are indeed trials. This is basically my journal of my own lived experiences. Having said that, I believe that nothing in this world improves without hard-fought breakthroughs and deep advocacy from the heart of those who are living it –whatever it is that leads us to advocate. For me it’s the “here, take this in the meantime” and the lack of offered resources by a system I pay a decent amount of my taxes to. It’s the suggestion of birth control that will "treat” (mask) the core issue, and which fuels other diseases. It’s the fallback to Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and only offered pain medication instead of opportunities for comprehensive testing. It’s the first two rounds of antibiotics that  “can’t hurt” while only the third and fourth round were actually treating two separate infections. It’s the suggestion that my nerve-to-brain signals aren’t transmitting properly. It’s the not being advised to see a Naturopath (or some sort of alternative specialist). It’s the way that the system is designed to treat, not cure.

On the alternative specialist note, I hope I live long enough to see the day where alternative medicine isn’t used as an alternative anymore. I’ll forever be grateful for Functional Medicine Practitioner, Noelle David who’s steered me down a path of achievable long-term health goals, and she’s proposed lifestyle habits that I can be excited about.

Go for it, call me difficult.

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All of this –my abdominal pain feeling most like a bowel/colon issue– isn’t to say that endometriosis isn’t actually having a party inside me, throughout my organs. It could be something else entirely too.

I am fond of a Reddit thread I stumbled upon recently called “The Reason Women Are Left in Pain: A Controversial Opinion”. I came across this thread while I was trying to find an explanation about endometriosis being sometimes used in women’s health as an unconfirmed “blanket diagnosis”. My intention is not to downplay the seriousness of endometriosis diagnoses, but to further explain my pain (at first to myself) as if it might be related to some level of endometriosis. I thought the possibility of a bowel/colon issue had to be a separate health issue. I want to fully understand how varied endometriosis pain can be before I were to explore it as an area of possibility in my journey.

For now I describe whatever my pain is as temperamental.

A portion I liked most in this Reddit thread is, “endometriosis is complicated, but so are the conditions that look like it. Many people are told they have endo, when they actually do not and vice versa.

Doctors use “differential diagnosis”, which is a process of elimination. They start with the most common explanation and work down the list. Since around 10% of women have endo, it is often the first thing considered for pelvic pain.

The problem is that symptoms most commonly associated with endometriosis overlap almost perfectly with other conditions. Multiple overlapping issues, microscopic endo, or normal-looking results make diagnosis confusing. Microscopic endo always leaves the possibility that something was missed. Many people go into surgery thinking it will fix everything. Sometimes the pathology shows no end, or the pain persists because another condition was missed.”

The Reddit thread, filled with real-life first-hand “endo” experiences, then goes on to share how persistent pain is often assumed to be psychological as if it’s “in your head”. When a doctor shared this assumption with me after no pain medication or nerve-focused antidepressant mitigated my pain, I knew for sure I wasn’t crazy. (I always know I’m not crazy in thinking there’s something wrong with my body, but it’s often easy to rethink it’s “in my head” each time I’m medically gaslit.) But hearing a doctor’s doubt, especially one who I’ve grown a connection with, made me feel crazy. I could go on all day about how I’m not crazy (and neither are you, I promise). Though, I’ll be touching on the impact of compounding feedback that women’s pain mustn’t be real later on in my writing as I elaborate on bits and pieces of where this assumption comes from.

In short, women’s health seems like an inconvenience. And is it lucrative for most countries' healthcare systems? I don’t believe that it is.

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My constipation, which dates back to about May 2025 intensified with abdominal pain, pelvic pain and lower back pain over this past summer. Previous to this I’d experienced escalating period pains. My worsening and inconsistent periods are when I felt like something might be off. I mean, I knew something was off, but I felt like I had to pretend not to know my own body to even chance being seen by a general physician.

I wouldn’t say that I have extensive experience navigating Canada’s healthcare system –I went to high school with a woman who’s endured two double lung transplants after a Cystic Fibrosis diagnosis over the course of a decade, and recently a Hairy Cell Leukemia diagnosis. While I’m not about to lessen the importance of my own health concerns or compare my journey to others’, I will say that I was medically gaslit at the beginning of my (first) journey to a Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction (TMJD or TMD) diagnosis. I came across a doctor who openly said he didn’t know much about jaw pain but that he’d put me in touch with a doctor who does. So far, it’s been less strenuous to trust general physicians who aren’t afraid to share that they don’t know.

Is medical gaslighting intentional? I don’t believe it’s intentional in any way shape or form at a general physician’s level; I do however believe that there are reasons to be concerned at the system-as-a-whole level. I also do not believe that those aspiring to be doctors in Canada (or any country) go through extensive schooling only to mislead patients because they can; Canada’s doctors seem apprised to practice in ways that benefit “the system”.

It took nearly three years of learning to navigate the world of oral and maxillofacial medicine through a patient’s lens before I actually knew how to navigate “the system” itself at a basic level. Part of this involved utilizing private healthcare (though expensive, the best decision I could’ve ever made). Unfortunately I’m experiencing what feels like two of the least beneficial health conditions to Canada’s healthcare. The worst part: it feels like I’m in this for the long haul.

Excuse me while I champion tooth and nail through the disconnect in women’s health.

If I can help even one woman feel less alone during her health struggles and be able to grapple with her unexplained pain through alternative resources, that’s why my learning to understand the root of my own pain matters. That’s why I’m talking about it… other women, perhaps like yourself, need to know you’re not alone and that your pain is not normal and it’s not “in your head”.

Women’s health deserves more attention. Who better to bring attention to the fractures within women’s health than by those feeling the effects of the disconnect themselves… the patients… the women.