First of all I want to say thank you for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page, this means that my mission to spread awareness for endometriosis is working and that's amazing! 

I have recently been diagnosed with endometriosis, a chronic condition that affects 176 million women worldwide... Did I know of its existence prior to diagnosis?!... the scary but true answer is no.

So a few months ago I had no idea that 1 in 10 women in the UK suffer from this often debilitating disease, but what my personal experience demonstrates, as I am sure is common with many other women in the UK and worldwide, the condition still remains relatively unknown. Scary right! 

I am very lucky that my diagnosis is nowhere as debilitating as the condition can be, however it truly is a horrible, horrible thing. 82% of women at times are unable to carry out day to day tasks, that is a lot. 

For me, the diagnosis meant that I finally had an answer to many questions I had about the way my body was making me feel and why it was behaving that way. It opened up the opportunity for education, educating myself on how my lifestyle choices and making small changes can affect how I manage the endo, as opposed to just dealing with the waves of feeling uncomfortable, in the hope that they would pass sooner rather than later. I will never be rid of the endo, but I am starting to learn how I can manage it better.

So this is why I wanted to do something, not only to challenge myself in my period of early diagnosis and education to kick start my endo management - but more importantly to raise awareness of not only endometriosis but womens health. 

SO.. 

⭐⭐⭐ My Endo Challenge ⭐⭐⭐

⭐ For the next 3 months I will be going alcohol free! 

⭐ I will also be running a 5k in each of the 3 months - so thats 3 5k runs over the next 3 months! I aim to beat my time at each run, so the final 5k I run to end my challenge at the end of March I aim for it to be the best 5k I run to date! 

I also want to donate the value of my race time of each 5k to help my cause in Endomitriosis awareness, research, support, information and community that Endomitriosis UK provide. 

Endomitriosis UK are a charity that I turned to when I was diagnosed with endo and whom are a fantastic platform for those directly/indirectly affected by Endomitriosis as well as being a vital source of information for anyone and everyone. Their services and output are invaluable and as well as my challenge is to raise awareness, I also would like for it to raise awareness and funding for them, as they truly are and have been a lifeline in my endo journey, as I am sure it is for many others too. 

So, that's it! This is my challenge. I hope that I have provided if even a small bit of knowledge around Endomitriosis and helped to raise awareness, as it is a really key personal mission for the next 3 months. 

If you are able to, please donate and support Endomitriosis UK in their mission and also it would be a contribution to womens health, which is very much needed. And finally it would provide so much more positive motivation for me and my challenge - with your help I would be overmoon if we could reach the pledged target! 

Once again, thank you 💗

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.