A woman who suffered intensely painful periods for some 20 years was finally diagnosed with a revealing ailment — helping to clear up a mystery that began plaguing her even before she became a teenager.

Jen Moore, 35, a former wedding cake baker, said she was unable to stand up straight when she first began experiencing painful periods as a girl of 11 years old.

She said doctors put her on birth control pills to try to reduce her periods, according to news agency SWNS — but that didn't alleviate her pain over the years.

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She was informed by doctors that what she was experiencing was "normal," she told the news agency — and that she was just someone who was "unlucky" to have painful menstrual periods.

But during the COVID lockdown, when she came off the contraceptives after 22 years, she said she "didn't recognize the person she became" and would often pass out from the pain and blood loss.

When she went to a physician due to her menstrual pain and had an ultrasound, she was told that no endometriosis had been detected, she told SWNS.

Not satisfied, Moore, of Cambridge, England, paid on her own to have an MRI scan.

She was ultimately diagnosed with endometriosis and adenomyosis, conditions in which the lining of the uterus grows in places where it should not be.

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Said Moore, "At the time, I thought it was normal because I didn't know any different."

When she was young, she said, her mother took her to see doctors — and Moore said she was told that her painful periods eventually would stop.

She said doctors told her that even if she did have endometriosis, "all they would do is put me on the pill."

She also said that today she still feels "rage" at what happened to her.

"I also feel heartbroken," she told SWNS, "thinking about myself as an 11-year-old who had no idea she was about to go through so many of these things."

She added, "I feel hope that generations are standing up and that they don't want to tolerate this anymore."

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Yet "I feel that it shouldn't have to fall to the patients to do that," she also said.

Moore said that even now, she feels "exhausted" and that there "isn't an area of my life" that this hasn't touched.

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She said that even though she had painful periods for so long, she wanted to go to college and try to live as normal a life as possible, "despite being bed-bound" for about a week every month. 

She has learned, she said, that she has endometriosis on her bowels and her bladder — "it's everywhere again, it's just relentless."

She said she's had "this condition damaging her organs for 22 years — that's a lot of damage to unpick, so surgeries are never magic and [don't] always provide a pain-free life."

"Unfortunately," she said, "there is still a lot of endometriosis for me."

Janet Lindsay, CEO of Wellbeing of Women, told SWNS, "Endometriosis is a condition that affects the lives of many women, often for years before a diagnosis is made … For too long, women's pain has been dismissed or misunderstood."

There is an "urgent need," she said, "for greater awareness, early diagnosis, and better support for those living with the condition."

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Last year, Bindi Irwin, daughter of the late Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin, discussed her recovery from surgery following an endometriosis diagnosis. 

Irwin, 26, said her "inescapable" pain was dismissed by doctors for 10 years as she was tested for all kinds of diseases.

"I was tested for everything," Irwin told People magazine last summer. "Every tropical disease, Lyme disease, cancer, you name it. I had every blood test and scan imaginable."

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Endometriosis, according to the Mayo Clinic, is a condition "in which cells similar to the lining of the uterus, or endometrium, grow outside the uterus," as Fox News Digital previously reported.

"Endometriosis often involves the pelvic tissue and can envelop the ovaries and fallopian tubes."

The condition can be severely painful for those suffering from it — and it can impact fertility and menstruation.

Lauryn Overhultz of Fox News Digital contributed reporting.

A new opioid-free pain medication was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday, marking a non-addictive alternative for patients.

Journavx (suzetrigine), made by Vertex, is the "first and only approved non-opioid oral pain signal inhibitor," according to a press release from the Massachusetts-based company.

The new drug is intended for treatment of moderate to severe acute pain in adults. 

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Patients with acute pain after surgery or due to a broken bone or an injury are often prescribed opioid medications, according to Julie Pilitsis, MD, PhD, a neurosurgeon at Banner – University Medicine and chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson.

"This is the first time many patients receive opioids, and a subset of patients are known to go on to become dependent or addicted to the medications," she told Fox News Digital.

"Patients with pain have had very few options to treat their pain with medications that don’t have addictive properties or side effects they can’t tolerate."

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The main reason traditional pain relievers have addictive properties or intolerable side effects is that they work by modifying receptors in the brain, Pilitsis noted.

"This medication — which is a drug that inhibits sodium channels — works outside the brain on pain receptors," she noted.

"To have a non-opioid option to prescribe in these cases is exciting — and this is the first time in nearly two decades that we have something new to offer patients for acute pain."

Acute pain — sudden or urgent pain that results from injury, trauma or surgery — affects more than 80 million Americans annually and is the most common reason for emergency department visits, according to statistics.

Around half of these will be prescribed an opioid, and 10% of those will have "prolonged opioid use."

In 2023, more than five million Americans 12 and older reported a "prescription use disorder" within the past year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Approximately 294,000 people died from prescription opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2022, the above source stated.

By managing acute pain effectively, suzetrigine may help prevent it from developing into chronic pain without the danger of dependency, meeting a "major unmet need," noted Jianguo Cheng, MD, PhD, a pain management specialist at Cleveland Clinic.

"Many current therapies rely on opioids, contributing to dependency and misuse," he told Fox News Digital. "Suzetrigine’s non-opioid mechanism eliminates risks of misuse, addiction and respiratory depression, making it a safer alternative for acute pain management."

In addition to acute pain, suzetrigine may also be a solution for neuropathic (nerve) pain, depending on the results of further studies, the doctor added.

Dr. Marc Siegel, clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health and Fox News senior medical analyst, also applauded the approval of suzetrigine.

"It has no sign of addiction, which makes it a hugely important new tool as we fight the opioid epidemic," he told Fox News Digital.

In clinical trials, the non-opioid medication received high patient satisfaction ratings, with 83% reporting "good" to "excellent" pain relief in real-world applications, Cheng noted.

Siegel noted that the drug has shown to decrease pain by about half, which he described as "excellent."

"This drug is a big step forward and has been well-studied," he added.

Suzetrigine has become available for patients with acute pain, noted Pilitsis. 

"It will be important to find physicians who are comfortable prescribing pain medications and to check with your insurance company to ensure that it is covered," she advised.

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The medication is expected to fall under the Non-Opioids Prevent Addiction in the Nation (NOPAIN) Act, effective January 2025, which provides Medicare coverage for FDA-approved non-opioid pain therapies, according to Cheng. 

"This policy aims to improve access and affordability, ensuring suzetrigine’s inclusion in outpatient and surgical settings while reducing reliance on opioids," he said. 

The most common side effects of Journavx, according to the company’s website, include itching, muscle spasms, rash, and increased levels of an enzyme called creatine phosphokinase in the blood, among others.

The drug may also cause temporary fertility challenges.

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Certain medications can increase the risk of side effects and affect the drug’s effectiveness, the company cautioned, as can food or drink containing grapefruit.

Patients should see their doctor if any side effects become bothersome or do not go away.

Fox News Digital reached out to Vertex for additional comment.