Your Guide To What Is Endometriosis & How To Treat It

There is a need for you to know about endometriosis because you might actually be suffering from endometriosis and not even know that you do

25 million Indian women suffer from it, but most of them are undiagnosed.

Let me explain what this is in as simple words as I can.

The bleeding that happens during your menstrual cycles is actually your endometrium shedding every month. Now imagine this endometrium, getting stuck at places like the ovary or fallopian tubes, intestines, your caesarean surgery scar or very rarely even the lung.

And you get your monthly cycles as usual but this endometrium stuck there doesn’t know where to go, it doesn’t have a favourable environment but the only thing that it can do is respond to the hormonal changes and that response causes severe pain. Sometimes, there may not be any pain but there could be quite an extensive disease inside and might only be found out as a part of infertility evaluation.

There have been many studies to find out what causes this condition in the first place and nothing so far could actually pinpoint the cause.

Possible Causes Of Endometriosis :

Post-surgical complication:  This can occur if endometrial-like cells attach to scar tissue during a surgical procedure, such as caesarean delivery or an episiotomy.

Retrograde menstruation: This suggests that the backward flow of menstrual blood may displace endometrial-like cells outside of the uterus, causing endometriosis inside the abdominal cavity.

Immune dysfunction: The observation that autoimmune diseases to be more common in women with endometriosis support the possibility that pathogenesis of endometriosis may involve a defective immune response.

Cell transformation: Endometriosis can occur anywhere in the body. This may be caused by internal changes in cells outside of the uterus, which turns them into endometrial-like cells.

Genetics: There is a concordance of endometriosis in twins and also in first degree relatives.

Environmental factors

How Do I Know Then?

Painful cycles, painful intercourse, painful bowel movements or urination during the cycles, infertility should be evaluated. The doctor may perform the pelvic exam or order investigations like ultrasound or MRI and if need be diagnostic laparoscopy can be performed.

Is It Treatable & How To Treat It?

The treatment is of multiple modalities and aims at ‘why you went to the doctor in the first place'.

• If the complaint was pain, then hormones in the form of pills or even an intrauterine hormone-releasing device can be given along with pain killers.
• If the complaint was infertility then surgery may be advocated.
• If you have completed the family and nearing menopause then complete removal of the uterus with ovaries can be done.

Endometriosis is rarely spoken about in our country primarily due to no information even regarding its existence and literally millions of women suffer from it.

It’s high time, we recognised it as a problem, because it does alter the lifestyle making everyday life difficult, and complicate major life decisions, including having children. Talk about it, reach out for help. Don’t suffer in silence.