Is your period so painful that you miss work or school? Do you lay on the bed with a heating pad on your belly and even vomit?
Do you have pelvic pain with sex and have stopped having sex altogether?
You may have endometriosis.
As we approach the end of Endometriosis Awareness month, I would like to discuss this disease and how we can help improve your symptoms if you suffer from it.
Endometriosis occurs when there is Endometrial tissue outside of the endometrium. The endometrium is the tissue/cells that line the inside of the uterus. The purpose of the endometrium is to make a nice, soft home for the fertilized egg to implant when a woman gets pregnant. Every month, if a woman does not get pregnant, the endometrium sheds and this is what we call your period.
Endometriosis happens when these cells are in/on other places of a woman’s body. So they can be on the bowel, on the fallopian tubes, ovaries, bladder and many more. They have been found in the brain and even the lungs. The endometrial cells do not know they are in the wrong place and they respond to the body’s hormones just as if they were in the uterus. So, what happens is that when the hormones tell them it’s “time to shed, we aren’t pregnant,” they bleed. This leads to microscopic areas of bleeding wherever they are. Sometimes the bleeding is more and a woman can form a bloody ovarian cyst called an endometrioma. When this bleeding happens it causes irritation and can lead to adhesions or scarring.
Think of the areas of bleeding as “sticky” and this makes more sense. So your tubes might get stuck to your ovary or your bowels etc. Then you develop pain. This may be pain with your periods, pain with sex, pain with urinating or having a bowel movement. These are symptoms of many other medical issues so it is important if you have any of these symptoms and they are not going away with Motrin or Tylenol, that you make an appointment to see a gynecologist.
They are medications that can help your pain and may even eliminate your endometriosis. Birth control pills, non steroidal medications, and others can be prescribed. There is a new oral medication with minimal side-effects called Orlissa that you can talk to your doctor about.
DON’T SUFFER IN SILENCE!