GROWING pains

WHAT’S TRUE AND WHAT’S FALSE WHEN IT COMES TO ENDOMETRIOSIS?

Periods mean pain, right? Excruciating cramps, that horrible aching, dragging feeling, sharp stabs to the abdomen… it’s all just part of being of a woman.

Actually, it isn’t. Excessively painful periods are not normal. There can be several causes of severe menstrual pain, with one of the most likely being endometriosis. This condition affects around 120,000 girls and women in New Zealand, and about 176 million worldwide. Around 50% of women with infertility have endo.

Yet for such a common condition, it’s poorly understood and not often talked about. Plus it can take many years to get a diagnosis. So here are some endo queries answered.

You can have endo and not realise it TRUE

One of the main symptoms of endometriosis is pain; however some women experience mild or moderate pain, rather than severe. In other cases, they think the pain they have is normal, so they don’t do anything about it.

Often, infertility is the rst symptom to be noticed and it’s not until investigations start into why you aren’t getting pregnant that the condition is discovered.

Other endo symptoms are:

• Pain in places other than the abdomen such as the lower back

• Abnormal menstrual bleeding

• PMS

• Painful intercourse

• Bowel problems, such as diarrhoea, constipation, bloating, dif culty passing bowel motions and painful wind

• Tiredness and lack of energy

• Pain before or with urination and recurrent urinary tract infections

It’s easy to diagnose endo FALSE

Many women go undiagnosed for years, partly because endo symptoms can be associated with other conditions, and those are often investigated rst. According to an Australian study, it can take around seven years to get a diagnosis. It’s thought there are many women who are never diagnosed; they just put up with the symptoms.

Diagnosis can be tricky because there is no single test that shows you have endo. The only way to de nitely con rm it is to have a laparoscopy – a surgical procedure in which a specialist looks at your insides using a tiny camera inserted via a tube. The doctor can see whether you have any lesions, cysts or scarring, and how severe the problem is.

It’s a fairly major procedure, involving general anaesthetic and a stay in hospital.

If you’ve got endo, you’ll probably never have kids FALSE

It is true that endo can result in

DID YOU KNOW… IN VERY RARE CASES, ENDOMETRIOSIS HAS BEEN FOUND IN THE DIAPHRAGM AND ON THE LUNGS