Tia Mowry-Hardrict Opens up About Her Experience With 'Extremely Painful' Medical Condition

Tia Mowry is a teen star, but that doesn't mean she has not faced trials. The Sister, Sister star has faced debilitating health issues since she was in her youthful adulthood. In a recent interview with TODAY, the Family Reunion star spoke of her experiencing years of "debilitating symptoms" before finally being diagnosed with endometriosis, at which point she was also struggling to conceive. 

However, in a new interview with HypochrondriActor hosts Sean Hayes and Dr. Priyanka Wali, she's speaking more about how difficult things became, and how doctors initially ignored signs. "I was passed from doctor to doctor to doctor, and they would say, "Oh, it's just a bad period, put heat on it or go for a run or take a hot bath." I'm like, I would have burn marks near my ovaries because I would put the... my skin of course," she told Wali in a recent chat on the podcast HypochrondriActor, available now on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The actress explained that she was in "extreme pain" before being diagnosed with endometriosis, adding:

"I would put the heating pad on it for hours trying to relieve symptoms," she said of the pain recalling how one time in college, she was in so much agony that she had to excuse herself from class. "I would sit on the toilet and whenever I would sit on the toilet, the edge would kind of go away. I remember talking to my doctor who diagnosed me years later after being on this journey, she told me that the muscles relax, I guess, when you're sitting on the toilet. So that's probably why you felt a little bit of relief. But anyway, my point is, is that after pain meds, I was put on birth control pills, that didn't work. I ended up having the surgery and that's the only way that you can properly diagnose endometriosis is when they go in there and they see all the scar tissue."

Mowry would go on to have her first son, Cree, but admits she once again dealt with issues pertaining to the health condition when trying to conceive a second time. After making adjustments the second time, she had her baby girl Cairo. 

Per Web MD, endometriosis is "a condition where tissue develops that looks and acts like normal endometrial tissue (the tissue that lines the uterus) but, it develops on the outside of the uterus. The tissue can grow on other reproductive organs inside the pelvis or in the abdomen." The uterine tissue, normally, breaks down and sheds inside the pelvis during the woman's monthly cycle. It leads to inflammation, swelling, and scarring of normal tissue, according to Hopkins Medicine. African American women make up for most cases. 

Endometriosis causes discomfort during sex, as well as causes difficulty getting pregnant, discomfort going to the bathroom, pain in between periods, heavy bleeding during your period, and random bleeding or spotting. There is currently no cure for endometriosis.