What Is Endometriosis?
Thanks to all the medical and hospital shows running around like Scrubs, House and the wildly polarized Grey’s Anatomy, we’re exposed to plenty of medical jargon. Some of which, sometimes, seems very important. Endometriosis is one of those seemingly important terms, leading to the inevitable question of “What is endometriosis anyway?”
What is Endometriosis?
Endometriosis, simply, is one of the most common conditions that a woman’s reproductive organs could get. That also makes it one of the main causes of women’s pelvic pain, which should be a place the creator only meant to be treated nicely.
Women who suffer from it have endometrium, or the tissue lining the uterus, running around other parts of their body. The pelvic area and the abdominal cavity are the two most common places that it can be found. It attaches itself to any number of place, places that they shouldn’t be attaching themselves like the intestines or even the ovaries. Predictably, that doesn’t bode well for the woman. Sometimes, it even manages to make its way to the brain or even the lungs, causing a lot of trouble.
There are a lot of women with endometriosis, but not everyone gets it treated. After all, some women just don’t present symptoms of it. Even if people walk into a doctor’s office looking to get it treated because they think they have symptoms of endometriosis, they may end up be treated for something entirely different as they didn’t even have it. For the most part, women get it when they’re in their childbearing years, from twenty five to around thirty five.
Symptoms of Endometriosis
Now that you know what is endometriosis, you can begin to try to see if you have it. Well, looking for the symptoms of endometriosis can be difficult as one of the more recognizable ones is pain. Pain’s a terrible indicator as just about anything can cause pain but if you’re really looking, pelvic pain is a good way to spot endometriosis coming. This pelvic pain is at its worst just before a woman’s period comes and tends to weaken towards the end of the bloodflow.
Increased dysmenorrhea and unintentional pain during sex can also be signal flares to get yourself checked out for endometriosis. Fertility issues can also be one of those signal flares but as there are plenty of other reasons for infertility, it’s not a reliable one. It’s not even clear how the two issues come together, but it is somewhat certain that they are related.
The description of the pain might also lead to a successful diagnosis of the problem. Many describe it as a deep, constant ache that affects most of the lower body above the knees.
Laparoscopy for Endometriosis
The best way to find out whether you’re suffering from it is to get a laparoscopy for endometriosis. A laparoscopy is a minor and simple operation used to discover if a woman has endometriosis. It could become a gateway into treatment, but for the most part, it is a diagnostic procedure. Due to the obviously invasive nature of the laparoscopy for endometriosis general anesthesia is a must, even if it is a much less invasive procedure than other things. Some people can go home the day that it’s performed, while others are required to sleep over at the hospital to be monitored.
Endometrial implants cannot hide from a laparoscopy after a certain point. During the laparoscopy for endometriosis, a few biopsies are taken, or tiny little tissue samples to be tested. It’s this testing that determines whether or not a woman’s suffering from endometriosis as sometimes they can’t even be spotted with a laparoscopy.
Laparoscopy for endometriosis in terms of treatment is not as different as a layman might think. The procedure remains the same for the large part. It is a matter of repairing the damaged areas once they get in there. Diathermy is a part of the laparoscopy treatment and is often used to divide and coagulate the tissue involved. Lasers can also play a part in treatment and is in fact the more preferred treatment as it is far more precise and doesn’t cause as much collateral tissue damage as a diathermy.
Ending the Endometrial Talk
Endometriosis, while stealthy and sneaky, can be caught with some precaution and periodic trips to the doctor’s office. With so many things causing so much trouble from cancer to aids and so forth, a woman can never be too careful to get that pelvic or back pain checked.
Endometriosis can be prevented, though as you’ll find out not everyone would be up for them. Early pregnancy might reduce the chances of endometriosis, but of course, unless that’s the plan, it’s not so applicable. Oral contraceptives might more than help prevent endometriosis, as well as good old exercise. Happily, exercise also brings in a lot of other benefits, which makes it the preferred method.