Elen Wyn, who was in The Traitors on BBC One last year, said she suffered with pain that felt like “barbed wire around her stomach” which was eventually diagnosed as endometriosis
A contestant on The Traitors said she was laughed at by a GP and told she had a low pain threshold during her 10-year wait for an endometriosis diagnosis.
Elen Wyn was initially told discomfort which felt like “barbed wire around her stomach” was “just period pains”. When she was as young as 14, Elen frequently missed school and sat out of sport, but a GP insisted she just had a low pain tolerance.
Her battle continued for 10 years, during which time a male doctor allegedly laughed at her complaint, until she was diagnosed with stage four endometriosis was detected. However, by this stage, it had spread across Elen’s bowel, bladder, fallobian tubes and kidney.
Elen remains on a lengthy waiting list for keyhole surgery but is using TikTok as a platform to raise awareness about endometriosis, where cells similar to those in the lining of the womb (uterus) grow in other parts of the body.
Speaking on the social media app, Elen, who is now 24, said: “Sometimes it’s like you’re being repeatedly stabbed. I knew it wasn’t normal regardless of what I was told.”
Elen, who appeared in The Traitors in 2024, said GPs need to treat women’s health with greater sensitivity and called for better funding from the Welsh government. The Welsh government said it was spending £3million on a women’s health hub in each health board by March 2026.
But it takes little away from Elen’s experience, during which she was offered a contraceptive pill when she was really struggling – despite not being sexually active. The pain became so nad Elen was unable to walk or leave the house at times as a teenager.
The lowest ebb came when she was studying in Cardiff. Elen added: “I saw another GP but he said the same, that my pain tolerance was too low. I remember him laughing at me, it was awful.”
A female HP eventually addressed Elen’s concerns and made her feel “completely validated”. Yet now, the young woman remains on the long waiting list for surgery. The operation will help ease Elen’s pain but endometriosis, which affects 10 per cent of people assigned female at birth who are of reproductive age in the UK, is incurable.
Endometriosis is an often painful disorder in which tissue similar to the tissue that normally lines the inside of your uterus — the endometrium — grows outside your uterus.
It is a relatively common condition, primarily affecting girls and women of childbearing age. It is less common among women who have been through menopause.
It can cause painful or heavy periods, and may also lead to infertility, fatigue and bowel and bladder problems.
Approximately 1.5 million women in Britain live with endometriosis.
While it is a long-term condition, for which there is no cure, treatments to ease symptoms are available.
More information from the NHS is available here
Symptoms include extremely painful periods, deep fatigue, bladder issues, trouble conceiving and pain during sex. Yet, research by charity Endometriosis UK found the average diagnosis time for endometriosis in Wales was nine years and 11 months in 2024.
Elen continued: “I have been offered the coil or the pill, [but] other than that I was given nothing which is so frustrating… I don’t suffer nearly as much as I used to… [but] I have done that all on my own.
“I think a narrative needs to be erased here. Because it’s a condition associated with female hormones, people tend to link the symptoms with being dramatic and it’s really frustrating to me.”
The Welsh government said endometriosis was one of the eight priorities outlined in its Women’s Health Plan for Wales. It told BBC News: “We have already funded endometriosis nurses in every health board, developed the Endometriosis Cymru website and provided £50 million of additional funding to help cut the longest waiting times, which includes gynaecological conditions.
It added £3million would be used to establish a Women’s Health Hub in every health board by March 2026, “to support timely diagnosis and management of menstrual conditions including endometriosis”.
