How my burning genitals helped encourage the London Painathon

Yet right here I’m.

I don’t in reality need to do that, however I’m pressured to as a result of my tale supplies perception into the arena of ladies’s well being, or lack thereof.

I used to be a wholesome user, residing a quite usual lifestyles, till I used to be 32.

My worries had been: Is my cat lifeless? Am I going to crack this transient? And will I ever be as large as Steven Spielberg?

But because the adage is going: “Everything is super important. Until you are sick. Then you realise there was only ever one thing that was important. Your health.”

I discovered this out the onerous approach.

Enter the Painathon

I used to be a part of the ingenious workforce that devised The Painathon marketing campaign, dreamed up in February 2025 to coincide with the London Marathon. But the tale of this advert marketing campaign starts in September 2022.

At this time, I used to be going onerous attending weddings, chicken dos, and leaving dos, which introduced on a bout of thrush.

Thrush is a particularly not unusual illness that is affecting 75% of ladies. It’s a super vaginal downside to have, because it lacks the stigma connected to STDs – it comes on when your vagina microbiome will get out of whack. And alcohol lowers your immune gadget and floods your frame with sugar, in order that will increase your chance of thrush.

Still there’s a remedy you’ll get over-the-counter, which comes as a vagina tablet (pessary) that you just shuv up your vag and it typically varieties you out. However, it didn’t paintings for me.

This is as it was once my 10th thrush an infection in my lifetime. And it was once drug-resistant.

Over the years, I questioned if getting thrush yearly was once unhealthy. But no NHS assets looked as if it would give alarm. I wasn’t eligible for assist anyway as a result of that was once reserved just for girls with “recurrent thrush” – greater than 3 episodes in a yr, which I fortunately had by no means suffered.

Jump again to October 2022. It took 14 pessaries to be transparent through November. However, a burning feeling remained in my vestibule.

And it wasn’t going away.

The phrase ‘vestibule’ manner: an front room sooner than the primary internal of a construction. It’s the lobby sooner than the ballroom, it’s the warm-up sooner than the soccer fit, it’s the pre-lash for your large night time out. And the outside right here across the get started of the vaginal canal, is packed stuffed with nerve endings and is non-keratinised. It has no coverage from outdoor components.

Over a strategy of slightly below two years, that includes 26 Doctor’s appointments, two misdiagnoses, and £4,000 spent on personal well being (I wasn’t going to attend 9 months to peer an NHS document when my genitals had been continuously on fireplace), I came upon I had vulvodynia. Nerve injury to the vestibule.

It’s a tragic analysis to get; there’s no identified definitive remedy. And no tremendous efficient remedy.

It feels just like the burn you get when any person twists the outside in your arm. For me, it’s continuously there like a Tuesday fireplace alarm drill – once in a while subsequent to my eardrum right through a flare-up, however most commonly the shriek comes from a construction down the street. It’s no longer within the GP nor gynaecological syllabus, in spite of vulvodynia affecting as much as one in 4 girls throughout an entire life (NHS 2018). And vulva mavens know 10+ episodes of thrush are extremely correlated with vulvodynia; but there’s no preventative healthcare.

In the method of having my analysis, I used to be medically gaslit, suffered from the ‘trust gap’ – when affected person signs aren’t listened to and docs make a decision your signs for you. I garnered a way of compassion fatigue, medical disinterest and common indifference from healthcare suppliers: each in NHS and personal. And that was once against a posh-spoken lady from Kent who had each merit going for me.

I used to be at an rock bottom in October 2024, researching flights to Switzerland and Dignitas, after I concept I’d have a scroll on TikTok. Little did I do know that the set of rules would recommend a video that will completely alternate my outlook.

Health and hope

Monica Thomas seemed, sitting on a panel dialogue about girls’s well being, speaking rawly about how her well being prerequisites had impacted her lifestyles. She shared my ideas and fears. Most importantly, I used to be now not on my own.

She had arrange a charity, Women’s Health Hope. We struck up a friendship on Instagram, and I travelled all of the strategy to Ipswich for an in-person toughen staff – I couldn’t in finding any in London.

From this, I discovered she was once investment the entire charity on my own. I made it a non-public challenge, with my pretty ingenious spouse Dan, to stay noodling on tactics by which lets assist her.

In February, we spotted the London marathon was once drawing near and noticed my revel in as a large three-year-long painathon. We then discovered the visible of marathon bibs was once a super vector to keep in touch the insane NHS ready occasions that girls had been going through to get the healthcare they wanted. And the Painathon was once conceived.

Creating the marketing campaign

Almost everybody all for generating the visuals for the marketing campaign was once affected by a feminine well being situation. We had suffered financially, emotionally, and bodily from excessively lengthy wait occasions. Online, girls with endometriosis, adenomyosis, PCOS, fibroids, PMDD, lichen sclerosis, ovarian cysts and plenty of extra prerequisites – additionally shared their wait occasions. The longest being 22 years for a analysis of endometriosis.

Gynaecology has been deprioritized for years, with appointments being observed as non-urgent. However, those prerequisites, when omitted, can kill – we had one particularly shifting bib submitted through a lady known as Chloe whose sister, Freya, had died of thoracic endometriosis, having suffered 50 collapsed lung episodes.

And those prerequisites, in the event that they don’t kill, render you disabled. Many girls with endometriosis, as an example, can’t cling down a task as they’re in debilitating ache at sure occasions in their cycle. And usally in consistent ache in a different way.

There had been occasions with my situation, I didn’t know if I used to be going with the intention to proceed running, because the ache was once so dangerous. For instance, now if I am getting thrush, it’s neuropathic ache – like self-immolation. All I will do then is lie in mattress, conserving an icepack to my groin, taking a look on the ceiling, hoping this received’t be endlessly.

Thankfully, issues are higher now. I’m in much less ache as my nerves have calmed down a bit of. And I’ve discovered a pleasant gynaecologist who doesn’t make me cry after appointments.

Progress.

The Painathon restored my religion in promoting, cementing the truth that it may be an actual drive for just right. It can be offering hope. It can gasoline alternate. I thank my company, Fold 7, such a lot for backing the theory and bringing it into this international. It has been a super toughen all the way through my well being adventure.

I’m hoping girls studying this know that in the event you’re combating a hidden well being situation, you’re no longer on my own. You don’t must be ashamed or keep silent. And thanks to the lads supporting girls via those battles. It’s miserable, however your voices advocating for us can once in a while be extra tough than our personal. So stay shouting.

Work through Bodyform, Libresse and Nurofen has accomplished unbelievable issues to get the gender ache hole at the cultural map. And I’m hoping The Painathon is a part of a much wider motion within the trade to take on this factor. I stay up for a global the place there’s a remedy for endometriosis, there’s preventive take care of vulvodynia and prerequisites like fibroids, PCOS, and lichen sclerosis are all simply treatable. Until then, we want to stay campaigning.

Now, in the event you don’t thoughts, listed here are some footage and captions from our time making the marketing campaign. Enjoy.

1. All the women at the photoshoot – there’s no longer a wholesome lady to be observed.

2. One lady who joined within the painathon on social media.

3. Philippa on the marathon subsequent to the marketing campaign poster.

4. Phillipa with a stretch of posters close to the marathon course.

5. Phillipa’s first Women’s Health Hope toughen staff, the place they painted their studies.

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