Lena Dunham‘s long battle with endometriosis is over, at least for now. The Girls star, 30, revealed in her April 4 newsletter, Lenny Letter, that after a recent surgery, she no longer suffers from the disorder, in which tissue normally found in the uterus grows outside of it.
The actress, who has been open about the condition for years, described a recent incident where she experienced a “knees-buckling, back-aching, [and] dry-heaving-at-the idea-of-breakfast” level of pain. Dunham was alarmed, she explained, because she had been trying natural methods such as yoga and a change in diet to lessen her symptoms. She sought help at a hospital and was later scheduled for surgery.
“When I emerged, cotton-mouthed, [the doctor] told me something I
hadn’t expected to hear, maybe ever: there was no endometriosis left,” she wrote. “I was disease-free.”
Her happy ending does come with a hitch: The endometriosis may return in the future. “But for now,” Dunham continued, “once my
sutures have been removed and my bruises have changed from blue to
yellow to green to gone, I will be healthy. All that will remain is my
long-term relationship with pain, and it’s time to get real about that.”
Other celebrities who have suffered from the condition include Julianne Hough and Padma Lakshmi, who also wrote about her ordeal for Lenny Letter.
