For Marta Peiró (Torrent, 1998), a soccer player for the Swiss Servette, life turned upside down last October. She was only 24 years old when she was diagnosed with endometriosis -growth of tissue outside the uterus- after an appendicitis operation that caused internal bleeding. The terrible side effects of the hormonal treatment he had to undergo forced him to withdraw from professional football for three months, but in May he put on his boots again and now tries to achieve a balance that allows him to combine his therapy with high-performance sport .
How has your life changed as a result of the diagnosis?
I was relieved. She thought 'I'm not crazy', I don't have a normal period, which is what they told me, and I no longer live with anemia pills and vitamins every day. But from here my life changes. First they tell you that you have much less chances of being a mother naturally, in my case they are reduced by 70%, and then you know that either you have surgery and you 'empty' yourself, you remove your entire reproductive system, or you are going to have to learn to live with some hormones that ruin you, which is what is happening to me. Hormones are ruining me in every area of my life. There is no cure as such.
It is a difficult disease to detect.
Endometriosis has an average detection time of 7-10 years, it is detected very late, and it is different in each woman. I had been normalizing a period of ten days, with excessive bleeding, to the point that I had tests and always had anemia. If you add to this a job in which you have to push your body to very great limits practically every day of the week, it was a horrible combination. I got to normalize my life with anti-inflammatories, with anemia, with days that I couldn't move, I felt totally incapacitated. But I went to the doctor, I had a cytology, an ultrasound, and nothing was detected, because it is very difficult to detect. Today the technology is not as advanced as it should be to achieve early detection.
Being a professional athlete, how could it be overlooked?
Football is far behind in this aspect. They do tests to detect injuries, cardiac or general problems, but in terms of gynecology we are totally forgotten, helpless. Everything is private, the clubs do not cover anything and this happens in 95% of the teams, I would dare to say. We have the rule every month, it is very important to know if that is going to prevent you from competing and it has to be something that is at the same level of importance as the rest of the tests.
Clubs like Barcelona explain that they have an exhaustive control of the cycles of their footballers
It's one of the reasons why Barça is the team it is right now, because of these kinds of details that are really very important things. I am very glad that he does it and I hope the rest of the clubs copy these models.
Should training be adapted to the time of the cycle?
Of course. You have to have a conversation with your player to get her to tell you how his menstruation affects her. For example, when I had my period – now I am in an induced menopause – she gained about two kilos the previous week. In the first two days I deflated and when I finished I had lost a lot of weight. I've had muscle injuries because of it, I'm convinced. It is no coincidence that they are always one or two days after the period.
What changes can be introduced?
It is very important that they know how it affects each player and that training sessions are adapted based on that. If there is a strength workout and you are at the beginning of your period, if that day you cannot lift 60 kilos and you have to lift 30, 20 or do the exercise without weight, you have to adapt, period. If you don't, the bleeding is greater, the pain is increased, and the risk of injury is greater.
He returned to play in May, how did he do it?
Negative experiences make you super strong mentally, more than I thought. I started with a hormonal treatment that made me feel very bad, I vomited every day after a normal effort such as running, I had a lot of pain, I couldn't sleep well... a lot of side effects totally incompatible with sports practice. I returned to Spain and changed the treatment and this seems to be doing me better. I saw the light a little bit, also thanks to the psychological help I've had and I felt strong enough to gradually come back and test myself. I wasn't really going to compete, but the combination of being psychologically very strong and the fact that the new treatment was making me feel better, made me reach what I hadn't imagined, which was to compete.
What future plans do you have?
My idea is to continue with football until my body says 'enough'. Now I will change the treatment probably. I have to put a vaginal ring because this one is not working as well as it should, according to the gynecologists, it should not have as many side effects. I will start this treatment at the end of July or beginning of August and I don't know how it will go. Maybe I'll also get an IUD, maybe I'll empty myself a little... this is according to the evolution, every three months I have a check-up.
