Lori Harvey Opens Up About Painful Periods and Facial Hair Before Finally Being Diagnosed With PCOS and Endometriosis [Video]

Lori Harvey is speaking out about her health struggles and how long it took to get the answers she needed.

Video

On the “SheMD” podcast with Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi and Mary Alice Haney, the model revealed she was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and endometriosis after years of being told nothing was wrong.

“I’ve been so frustrated. I’ve been going to my gynecologist because I’ve just been feeling like something’s off in my body,” Harvey said. “But every time I go to her, she’s like, ‘You’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine. Nothing’s wrong.’ And I was like, ‘But I don’t feel fine. I feel like something is just off.’”

Her concerns were finally taken seriously when she met Dr. Aliabadi. During their first visit, Aliabadi told her there were “quite a few things going on.”

Harvey soon learned her symptoms were tied to PCOS and endometriosis, conditions that affect many women but often go undiagnosed.

She said she had been dealing with issues since she was a teenager, describing sudden weight changes, acne, rosacea, and facial hair growth.

“I was like, what’s happening? I’m like, okay, something is not adding up here. My body’s trying to tell me something, but I’m not getting the answers that I need,” she explained.

Her periods were also extremely painful.

“I used to have the most excruciating periods of my life. Every single time, I felt like I needed to go to the hospital—just crazy cramps. I’m taking 800 milligrams of Ibuprofen. Nothing is working. It’s just debilitating,” she recalled.

Doctors often brushed it off and told her to take Tylenol, which never helped.

“[Aliabadi] told me, ‘Yeah, babe, you’re right. It was not normal, and I’m so sorry that you’ve just been living with this.’ So she literally changed my life.”

Dr. Aliabadi noted that Harvey’s situation reflects a larger issue.

“We’re talking about Lori Harvey,” she said. “That’s what hurts me. That’s why I have you guys come here. Because if you cannot get someone to listen to you and diagnose you correctly, do you think other women have a chance? They don’t.”

Harvey also shared that many of her close friends deal with PCOS but were never properly educated about it.

“So many of my friends struggle with PCOS, and it’s something that none of us were educated on, and we all kind of were just suffering in silence because we didn’t know what it was,” she said.

She added that women are often told to push through pain instead of demanding answers.

“As women, it’s so normalized for us to kind of just suffer in silence,” Harvey explained. “And when you keep telling these doctors who are supposed to be there to help you that you don’t feel right and something’s off, and they keep telling you you’re fine, it’s almost like you’re getting gaslit, you know? You start questioning yourself.”

Today, Harvey feels relieved after starting treatment. She takes Metformin, which has helped balance her hormones and improve her health.

“Completely changed my life,” she said. “I feel good in my body, finally, for once. And I feel like what I should have been feeling like at 16. I’ve never felt more at home in my body than I do now.”

Harvey hopes her story will encourage other women to advocate for themselves.

“I think this is a very, very important conversation because so many of us are suffering with it, and we all need to be heard,” she said. “Everybody should be able to feel at home in their body.”