‘The Real Stuff’ Spotlights One Woman’s Fight for a Real Endometriosis Diagnosis After Years of Medical Dismissal

On Real Stuff with Lucie Fink, Maya McHenry finally puts words to the years she spent being dismissed and misdiagnosed for something many women struggle with. Before she was a model, publicist, or board member of the Endometriosis Foundation of America, she was a teenager passing out from pelvic pain so intense she’d wake up in the ER with doctors shrugging at her charts.

For almost a decade, her symptoms were blamed on everything but endometriosis—anxiety, Lyme, “bad periods,” you name it. And every step toward a real diagnosis came with a price tag, because most endo specialists don’t take insurance. As McHenry tells Fink, the cost wasn’t just financial. She missed classes, important life moments, even a friend’s wedding, all while trying to convince doctors she wasn’t exaggerating her symptoms.

Now, with the right specialist and a trauma-informed approach to her health, McHenry finally feels supported—and she’s ready to talk about what it took to get here.

Her first episode as a teen

McHenry traces everything back to one terrifying afternoon in high school. She was at home with her mom and sister when a pain she’d never felt before tore through her body—“it felt like a knife, basically going up my private place, up to my stomach.” Within moments, she blacked out. She didn’t even know she’d lost consciousness until she woke up in the hospital and her family filled in the blanks.

That episode became her wake-up call, but not in the way she hoped. No one mentioned endometriosis. Instead, doctors insisted it was anxiety, Lyme, or just a “sensitive stomach.” McHenry left with zero answers and a sense that this level of pain was something she simply had to endure. It was the beginning of years of fainting spells and hospital visits, along with the painful realization that her symptoms weren’t random—they were being ignored.

The price of getting a real diagnosis

McHenry learned quickly that getting answers about endometriosis costs more than most people can imagine. The only definitive way to diagnose it is a laparoscopic surgery—a procedure she says ran her “thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars,” and that was just the beginning. Most endo specialists don’t take insurance, meaning every appointment and test lands directly on the patient’s credit card.

The financial toll wasn’t optional for McHenry—it was the only path to being believed. And it highlights an ugly truth she and Fink talk about openly: for many women, especially women of color, proper endometriosis care is often paywalled behind privilege.

Finally finding an endometriosis specialist

Everything shifted once McHenry met Dr. Tamer Seckin, founder of the Endometriosis Foundation of America. After years of being dismissed, she finally had a doctor who understood the disease—and treated her like a full human being. “He has really saved my life,” she tells Fink.

Dr. Seckin not only operated; he advocated. He gave her his personal cell number, directed hospitals on how to treat her during flares, and created a level of safety she’d never experienced in medical settings. When she had to cancel her first interview with Fink because of a sudden flare, she recalls how he immediately sent her to a hospital where he could oversee her care. For McHenry, the difference is night and day. 

Trauma work that changed her flare-ups

After years of panic attacks, PTSD, and the grief of losing her sister Lyric, McHenry reached a breaking point. Her parents urged her to spend a month at a treatment center, a trauma-focused residential program—no phone, no distractions, just back-to-back therapeutic work from morning to night. She wasn’t sure she belonged there until she walked into her room and saw a handwritten note from her roommate: “Welcome to a place where it’s OK not to be OK.”

What happened next stunned her. She didn’t have a single endo flare the entire time she was there. The nonstop trauma work, breathwork, somatic therapy, and nervous-system tools gave her a level of regulation she’d never experienced.

Now, even when flares hit, she handles them completely differently. Instead of spiraling into panic, she grounds herself—ice bucket, breathwork, meditation, calling Dr. Seckin. “Even how I act now when I am having an episode is so drastically different than how I would have acted even like…last year,” she says.

She’s still living with endometriosis, but for the first time, she has tools that help her feel in control of her body again.

Want to hear the full convo? Check out The Real Stuff with Lucie Fink wherever you get your podcasts.

Read More

• ‘The Wellness Process’ Explains Why 15-Minute Workouts Can Actually Be More Beneficial for Women
• They Told Her She Was ‘Mentally Ill’ for Falling in Love With a Woman—Until She Found the Truth
• Getting Fired Might Actually Be A Good Thing, According to ‘Girls Gotta Eat’