Writer and actress Lena Dunham has been incredibly open and vocal about her health issues in an attempt to break taboos and bring the pain often suffered by women to the forefront of people's consciousness. The Girls star underwent a hysterectomy last year during which she had her uterus removed as a result of painful endometriosis and since then she has gone on to write and produce a new HBO comedy, Camping, starring Jennifer Garner.

Lena DunhamLena Dunham has had further surgery as she continues to battle health conditions

With that show in the promotional stage, many fans were curious about the actress' lack of presence but Dunham has since revealed she has undergone another painful operation - this time to remove her left ovary.

After sharing pictures of herself in the hospital post-op, the 32-year-old shared a series of photos to her Instagram story to explain to fans what she had been going through.

She wrote: "Yesterday I had a two hour surgery to remove my left ovary, which was encased in scar tissue & fibrosis, attached to my bowel and pressing on nerves that made it kinda hard to walk/pee/vamp.

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"Over the last month it got worse and worse until I was simply a burrito shaped like a human.

"A lot of people commented on my last post about being too sick to finish promoting my show by saying they thought my hysterectomy would have fixed it (so did I)."

She added: "That I should get acupuncture and take supplements (I do). That I should see a therapist because it’s clearly psychological (year 25, y’all. These are the fruits!)

"But a big lesson I’ve learned in all this is that health, like most things, isn’t linear - things improve and things falter and you start living off only cranberry juice from a sippy cup/sleeping on a glorified heating pad but you’re also happier than you’ve been in years."

The star has been keen to share her painful illness story and also her journey with her weight - explaining she has felt much better and happier when a more healthy weight than when she felt she was too thin.

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She has also been open about her sadness at no longer being able to carry any children.

The star promised to turn her personal trauma into a platform to fight for women who don't have access to the resources that she does.

She wrote: "My health not being a given has paid spiritual dividends I could never have predicted and it’s opened me up in wild ways and it’s given me a mission: to advocate for those of us who live at the cross section of physical and physic pain, to remind women that our stories don’t have to look one way, our pain is our gain and oh s**t scars and mesh “panties” are the f**king jam.

"Join me, won’t you?"