Lifting lid on the pain of a mystery disease

IT IS a disease that can be misdiagnosed and overlooked and chances are you have not heard of it.

Don’t feel bad, because most people and some health professionals may give you a blank look when asked about adenomyosis.

April is adenomyosis awareness month and the disease is as cripplingly painful and despair-inducing as it is hard to say.

The disease strikes 25 per cent of women and is still a relative mystery.

“There are more sufferers out there than what we realise,” said Dr Katrina Marshall of the Well Women Clinic and Barrier Reef Medical Centre.

“Certainly with women between 30 and 50 who are having problems with their periods it is quite possibly that adenomyosis is the likely cause.”

It is a common cause of pain and bleeding in women and is often confused with endometriosis.

The two may co-exist in the same woman.

The kicker is sufferers can be unaware that they have this nasty condition until their uterus is examined after a hysterectomy.

“Unfortunately some women put it down to ‘it is just my period’,” Dr Marshall said.

“Sometimes we can see it on an ultrasound. MRIs tend to be quite costly.”

The pain is often so bad that sufferers retain scars from heatpacks pressed into their swollen bellies.

“I have seen women with burns from their heatpacks,” Dr Marshall said.

“A lot of women are scared to leave the house – they plan their lives around when they bleed.”

For those women who feel that something isn’t quite right, Dr Marshall urged them to seek advice and second opinions.

“A lot of women have thought that that’s what periods are meant to be like,” she said.

“There may more going on.” be actually

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