Endometrios ont i ändtarmen

Endometriosis Lesions: Location, Types, Stages, Treatment

And pain has almost become like an onion with endometriosis at the core of that onion. Currently, we think that the likely source of endometriosis is actually occurring during development as a fetus. Know women have, for years and decades, been told that a period is supposed to be painful and we just have to unfortunately suck it up and deal with it. They walk home from the hospital with a beautiful baby in their arms.

In those scenarios, we can frequently see that disease either on ultrasound or on MRI. Not necessarily. So when a baby is developing inside the uterus of its mother, that's when we think endometriosis actually starts. So, yes, unfortunately, infertility can be associated with endometriosis. In those scenarios, sometimes we do consider a hysterectomy at the time that we're treating endometriosis.

So endometriosis, it's cells similar to the lining of the uterus that are growing outside of the uterus. The key thing to remember here is that endometriosis is a progressive condition, and it will continue to grow and may cause progressive symptoms. If you're having pain with your periods, pain in your pelvis in general pain with intercourse, urination, bowel movements, all of that may point us to a suspicion of endometriosis.

So we need to work not only to treat the endometriosis, but treat other potential sources of pain that have arisen. But over time with that progression of disease, the pain can start to occur outside of the cycle, so throughout different times of the month, with urination, with bowel movements, with intercourse.

Endometrios ryggsmärta

Also talk about it. That's not the reality. When we talk about infertility, those are patients who are struggling with pregnancy already. That's a really great question.

How Are Endometriosis Lesions Staged and Treated?

The vast majority of endometriosis is superficial endometriosis, meaning that it's almost like paint spackling on a wall, that we can't see it unless we actually go in and take a look surgically. The exception to that is if there's endometriosis actually growing into organs in the pelvis or the abdomen like the bowel or the bladder.

So that can prompt us to need to intervene and do treatment if we hadn't done anything previously. You can absolutely have children if you have endometriosis. I'm here to answer some of the important questions that you might have about endometriosis. Because during surgery we can remove tissue, look at it underneath the microscope, and definitively be able to say whether you do or do not have endometriosis.

So it's truly not an issue with the uterus at all, which is what we treat with hysterectomy. But that being said, even though we know endometriosis is progressive, for some patients, it doesn't ever progress to the point that we would need to do any treatment because it's more of a quality of life issue.

Unfortunately, most of the time, no. A lot of individuals with endometriosis have been in pain for a prolonged period of time, which unfortunately means that the body has changed in response. So endometriosis is something that can be a little bit elusive, but we can suspect it based on symptoms that you might be experiencing.

But also so you can be an advocate and make sure that you are getting the health care that you need and that you deserve. Get answers to the most frequently asked questions about endometriosis from Megan Wasson, D. Hi, I'm Dr. Megan Wasson, a minimally invasive gynecologic surgeon at Mayo Clinic. So for some patients, that means that initially the pain was only with the menstrual cycle. And if it's not impacting the quality of life, we don't really need to do anything.

And so I encourage you to educate yourself, not only so that you can come in to your health care provider and have a dialogue and a conversation as to what you need and what you're experiencing. I wish I could tell you the answer to that, but unfortunately, we don't know. But if we look at all patients with endometriosis, everyone with that diagnosis, the vast majority are able to achieve pregnancy without any problem whatsoever.

Being a partner for the medical team is truly key. That's called deep-infiltrating endometriosis. They can get pregnant, they can carry the pregnancy. But the vast majority of the time, it's truly not a problem.