The BBC Breakfast presenter has opened up on her struggle with the debilitating health condition that she calls ‘the evil twin’ of endometriosis
Naga was only diagnosed with the agonising condition in her mid-40s(Image: BBC)
BBC Breakfast‘s Naga Munchetty has opened up about her lifelong health struggle has “spread”.
Speaking to journalist Ateh Jewel on her Second Act podcast, Naga explained that she suffers from adenomyosis. Normally, the endometrium, the inner lining of the uterus, thickens steadily over a roughly 28-day cycle and will be shed and renewed at the end of each menstrual cycle.
But for Naga, and the roughly one in 10 women who share the often agonisingly painful condition, that structure grows outside the womb. “When it’s spread outside the uterus,” she explained, “it goes into the muscle, and so when it grows, it tears the muscle.”
And now, she says, it has spread. She explained that she’s now taking regular medication to suppress the symptoms of what would otherwise be a cripplingly painful condition. Naga said: “It’s spread into my upper thighs and my lower back, and so that’s when you have [flare-ups]. I now take medication to control, suppress the production of my hormones so that these don’t flare.”
Naga avoids wearing light colours in case she starts bleeding(Image: Millie Turner/Invision/AP)
She said the condition can contribute “to very heavy periods, intense pain, and that in itself has all consequences, fainting, diarrhoea, passing out, cramps, awful fatigue, all sorts of stuff”.
She revealed that it can cause bleeding on a dramatic scale, forcing her to sleep in three-hour stints at night so she can change her sanitary towel frequently enough. The fashion-conscious newsreader said she never wears white skirts or trousers because the bleeding can be so unpredictable, and so heavy.
Naga added that, because doctors had dismissed the severity of of her symptoms as “normal” for every woman, she felt as if it was her fault that she was struggling: “I thought all the other women in the world – because I was normal – were going through this, and coping and thriving.”
Naga has now written a book about women’s health(Image: BBC)
Dealing with the chronic pain was often isolating, she said: “I often took way too many painkillers, and said ‘I will sit here until it goes…I will get through this. Just leave me alone’.”
Naga started thinking that she must be the problem, because she was struggling to cope with her condition. She was only properly diagnosed in 2022. Adenomyosis is quite often misdiagnosed as fibroids, which can mean that women can suffer without proper treatment for years.
When she first went to a doctor for help with the problem, she wasn’t clear enough about what a huge impact it was having on her life. The veteran presenter added: “Because I did not say, I am flooding, I wear two pairs of knickers when I’m on and I’m changing the whole time. I’m anxious the whole time. I don’t sleep.”
Rather than having kids, Naga prefers to work on her golf game(Image: Getty Images)
Naga added that the only sure-fire way to diagnose Adenomyosis is after a hysterectomy – an operation which brings its own range of potential problems.
Naga has now written a book about the common problems women face in a world where, even today, women’s specific health issues are woefully under-researched. The book, entitled It’s Probably Nothing: Critical Conversations on the Women’s Health Crisis, is out now priced £11.99.