For more than half her life, Becci Morris has lived with excruciating pain which at some points caused her to be sick or faint. On one particularly bad day she felt paralysed from the waist down.
As reported by the Liverpool Echo, the 28-year-old woman has suffered 15 years of agony as a result of endometriosis. From the age of 12, her periods have caused her extreme pain but over the past five years it's worsened.
"The pain isn't just in my abdomen, it's like there are hooks over my hips and I'm attached to electric wires on my legs," she said. "The pain of using the toilet is like having hot pokers poking everywhere.
"Sometimes it lasts hours and it just grinds you down. It's like being stabbed.
"It's the kind of thing that pushes you over the edge and you pass out or you vomit. The other month it was so bad I was paralysed from the neck down."
Paramedics were called and she was told it was her body's shock response to the pain. "It's a response that your muscles have," she said.
"Because you're taking in so many short breaths with the pain it's to do with the carbon dioxide. And smetimes she loses feeling in her left leg as a result of the endometriosis.
Scar tissue pushes on nerves in her hips meaning she's sometimes forced to use a wheelchair. The animal researcher at the University of Wolverhampton who now lives in Knutsford in Cheshire said the pain started when she had her first period and she went to the doctors about it when she was 12.
"I was fainting and vomiting and each time going to the doctors they said it was normal or that I had a low pain threshold," she said. "I stopped going to the doctors when I was 18 until I had an extreme pain episode where I ended up in A&E.
"They found that a cyst in my womb had burst and there was a bleed. When I started having extreme pain during bowel movements was when the doctors worried.
"After my fourth scan, they said it was clear that I had endometriosis. That was just a person doing the scan, not even a doctor or a specialist.
"The consultant said I had stage four endometriosis and that I needed surgery but I was told that it was a 12-month waiting list with that consultant. I got a phone call recently and I thought it was going to say I could go for my operation but it was the opposite.
"They said that my surgeon had left the country and I now have to wait another six months, maybe even 12 months. To help deal with the pain I'm now being temporarily chemically induced into menopause with injections."
Endometriosis affects one in 10 women and is when tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus, causing pain and/or infertility. In the hope of raising awareness of the condition and the impact it has on the lives of over 1.5 million people in the UK, Becci signed up to take part in a project called Endomorphosis for Endometriosis Action Month.
The creative venture, run by Cabasa Carnival Arts, saw ten women from the north west who are living with endometriosis turn their bodies into canvases. The women, aged between 20 and 39, worked with body painters to translate their feelings about endometriosis into a living artwork.
The pictures were taken by photographer Eveline Ludlow. They are on display at Gallery Oldham in Greater Manchester.
