At 18 years old, Savannah Stuthers stopped taking birth control pills and opted for a non-hormonal alternative, eventually deciding on a copper IUD.
The full-time student from Fayetteville, Ark., had never experienced irregular or painful periods in high school. It was only after the contraceptive device was inserted in March 2023 that Stuthers started to feel constant pressure, cramping, and persistent spotting.
Trusting her intuition, Stuthers sought help from her doctors about the unbearable pain, but her concerns were often invalidated. Months passed and her discomfort deepened into a piercing pain, but by the time she was taken seriously, a scary diagnosis left one of her ovaries beyond saving.
In a viral TikTok video series, she explained the condition in more detail using graphic images.
“During the IUD insertion was when I had a feeling something was wrong,” Stuthers tells PEOPLE exclusively. Two weeks into her new IUD, the part-time waitress began bleeding every day and had occasional cramping. However, it wasn’t until July 2023 that she started to experience intense symptoms.
“At one point, I was questioning if my IUD had moved because it felt like a knife was being held on the left side of my uterus,” she recalls. As a result, Stuthers asked her doctor for an ultrasound to ensure that the device was in the right place, but her request was turned down.
“The doctor told me she had done this many times and knew it was in the correct spot and everything felt normal and to not worry,” Stuthers reveals. She was even told that it might take her body a year or two to fully adjust to the IUD.
Accepting that her pain had become an uninvited constant, Stuthers focused on staying engaged with the other important aspects of her life. In August 2023, she moved to St. Charles, Mo., for college, but her symptoms felt like they were holding her back.
Savannah Stuthers
Savannah Stuthers consistently notified her mom about scary symptoms.
“I downplayed most of my pain because of the doctors never validating my pain," Stuthers explains. "Walking around campus, I would have to walk with a hunched back because it seemed to be the only way to relieve some of the pain."
“I had very low amounts of energy because of this pain, which made me stay in bed most days and nights, which was weird for me because I am very outgoing and like to go do things with friends," she continues. "Since I was told this pain was normal, I felt so weak and lazy for not just powering through it.”
Then, in September 2023, Stuthers remembers sending a frantic text to her mother complaining about cramps that felt like they shot up the left side of her body.
“I had this horrible gut-wrenching amount of pressure and pain in my lower left abdomen that made simple tasks feel impossible…the light bleeding turned into very scary, large amounts of bleeding that I had never seen before,” she admits.
It was an incredibly frustrating time in her life, and led her to question whether she was just "making things up" because she "had a low pain tolerance."
However, one month later, she found herself in the emergency room.
After an ultrasound at the emergency room in October 2023, it was revealed that Stuthers had an 8-centimeter cyst on her left ovary and was referred to a male OBGYN in the area.
“He said he was very concerned about the size of the cyst and wanted to perform a laparoscopic surgery that same week,” she said. “I went into surgery three days later.”
Stuthers says it was shocking to have so many female doctors dismiss her concerns in the months leading up to her surgery. “I didn’t feel seen or validated until I was treated by a male doctor," she says.
Unfortunately, the procedure failed to reduce the size of the cyst, and Stuthers was notified that it had actually grown to 10 centimeters – the size of her doctor’s fist.
Savannah Stuthers
Savannah Stuthers after her surgery on October 13th, 2023.
“That is when he decided to cut me open like a C-section,” she tells PEOPLE. To his shock, the left ovary was completely detached, cutting off blood flow and ultimately killing it. When he cut into the cyst, he found teeth, hair and fat.
The dermoid cyst was identified as a teratoma – “a rare type of germ cell tumor that may contain immature or fully formed tissue, including teeth, hair, bone and muscle,” according to Cleveland Clinic.
“The doctor was very shocked, he said they are very rare. He also was very upset about me losing my ovary,” Stuthers says. “When he was telling my mom and I that the cyst grew so big it twisted and killed my ovary, I could see the genuine concern and devastation on his face.”
Stuthers’ family and friends were also stunned – her mother was especially unsettled by the discovery. Within a day of the surgery, word had spread, and even people she barely knew were texting her about the teratoma after her mom shared the photos.
“That was the last thing I would have ever expected the doctor to tell me,” Stuthers admits. “I was absolutely disturbed to know I had a tumor that had fully grown molar teeth, hair, and fat growing with me as I grew. That is something you don’t want to think is real.”
Savannah Stuthers
Savannah Stuthers is a 20-year-old college student.
Nevertheless, Stuthers’ recovery went smoothly. The most difficult part, she says, was navigating daily life on campus. “Getting in and out of my tall dorm bed was the biggest struggle of them all,” she explains. “My roommates were angels and helped me in and out of it for a week.”
One year after the surgery, a few more cysts appeared on Stuthers’ remaining ovary, though they ruptured on their own. Now, the 20-year-old takes daily birth control pills and skips the placebo week to suppress her menstrual cycle and preserve her right ovary – so far, it’s worked.
Sharing her story online, however, came with both support and backlash. “The ones saying I faked it bothered me,” Stuthers admits. “I am not creative [enough] to make up that kind of thing, nor would I ever lie to get ‘views.’ It also goes to show that most people don't believe women and the things most of us go through.”
She was especially disturbed by comments accusing her of killing a baby. “Those truly made me realize that not many people are educated or aware of dermoid cysts or teratoma,” she tells PEOPLE.
Following her terrifying experience, Stuthers’ advice is simple yet powerful: “Don’t let anyone invalidate how you feel… A simple ultrasound could have saved my left ovary and a lot of ongoing pain.”
