written by Lydia Denworth, featuring quotes from Prof. Krina Zondervan.
Painful Endometriosis Can Effect the Whole Body, Not Only The Pelvis
The pain from endometriosis, which affects an estimated one in 10 people assigned female at birth, can be terrible. Some people are unable to work or go to school. Yet many physicians don’t recognise the symptoms. It takes sufferers seven to nine years to get a diagnosis.
That startling statistic, along with the general lack of familiarity with endometriosis, is a powerful example of the gap in knowledge about women’s and men’s health. There has been limited funding and investigation into what causes endometriosis or who is at the highest risk. That is finally changing, in part because the understanding of endometriosis is changing. It is not purely a gynaecological condition.
Endometriosis, which involves tissue from the uterus, begins with a process known as retrograde menstruation, in which menstrual blood flows back up the fallopian tubes and into the pelvis. The blood carries bits of endometrial tissue, which lines the uterus. Sometimes, instead of being cleaned up by the immune system, this tissue adheres to the ovaries or pelvic lining, then grows and creates its own blood supply. The lesions can cause infertility as well as debilitating pain. “We’re not talking a little bit of pain here,” Saunders says. “[People] can’t function.” And unlike menstrual cramping that occurs during a period, pain from endometriosis can flare at any time.
The medical profession’s habit of restricting health issues to narrow silos—traditionally, only gynaecologists saw endometriosis patients—hasn’t helped. “We chop up human health into specialties and systems, but we know now that [those systems are] much more interconnected than we had presumed,” says Stacey Missmer, a reproductive biologist at Michigan State University. Endometriosis creates symptoms and consequences that affect many other parts of the body, she points out.
Read the full story on the Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health website.