American singer-songwriter Halsey is earning medical praise for talking openly about her brutal struggle with endometriosis.
The 23-year-old told the TV show The Doctors that she had a miscarriage while performing on stage.
"Reproductive illness is so frustrating because it can really make you feel like less of a woman," the 'Alone' hitmaker said.
"There's a lot of the times when you're sitting at home and you just feel terrible about yourself, you're sick, you don't feel sexy, you don't feel proud, you don't feel like there's much hope."
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Halsey talked about the agony of her periods and revealed she was misdiagnosed with chronic fatigue and anxiety.
At one point she collapsed in the street, but doctors still struggled to make a diagnosis. Soon after they finally did, Halsey became pregnant.
"The next thing I knew I was on stage miscarrying. In the middle of my concert, and the sensation of looking a couple of hundred teenagers in the face while you're bleeding through your clothes and still having to do your show."
Halsey told the programme she had surgery last year and the Kiwi president of the World Endometriosis Society, Professor Neil Johnson, says her words will inspire hundreds of thousands of people.
"It's a big thing for young women to publicly share that kind of information because it is a very personal thing, but I think it's extremely helpful in terms of sharing information about endometriosis," he told Newshub.
Prof Johnson said it's often misdiagnosed because symptoms can overlap with other common ailments. But there are red flags when the pain is severe and persistent.
"It often will get worse over time through a woman's teens into her early twenties, and it's really all the different types of pelvic pain that women can experience that can be a marker for endometriosis."
Halsey said she plans to freeze her eggs, something Prof Johnson said should be considered by anyone who's going to undergo surgery for an endometriotic cyst on their ovary.
Newshub.
