Endometriosis: what’s it, what are the symptoms and how will it be treated?

Endometriosis has gained international attention in recent years when several renowned women come out and mentioned their struggles with the condition.

Girls creator Lena Dunham magnificently unfolded about her battle with endometriosis back in 2015, when she wrote in her Lenny Letter: ‘From the first time I got my period, it didn’t feel right. The stomachaches began quickly and were more severe than the mild-irritant cramps seemed to be for the blonde women in pink-hued Midol commercials.’

Star Wars actress daisy ridley wrote regarding her condition on Instagram (before she deleted her social media accounts) saying: ‘At 15 i used to be diagnosed with endometriosis. One laparoscopy, many consultations and eight years down the road, pain was back (more mild this time!) and my skin was THE WORST.’

In Australia, Emma Watkins, of the children’s music band The Wiggles, proclaimed in April that she wouldn’t participate in the band’s upcoming tour so as to undergo treatment for chronic endometriosis.

‘It makes the biggest difference as a result of it does something for the stigma. It will have an effect on anybody, even if you’re a Wiggle you’ll still have endometriosis,’ Mel Greig, the Australian radio personality said.

What is endometriosis?

Endometriosis may be a condition where tissue that covers the inside of the uterus, the mucous membrane, seems in other elements of the body and causes chronic inflammation, scarring and pelvic pain.

The endometriosis tissue outside the uterus can bleed even as it’d as the lining of the uterus. according to womenshealth.gov ‘this will cause swelling and pain as a result of the tissue grows and bleeds in a part where it cannot easily get out of your body’.

According to the NHS, it will appear in many different places ‘including the ovaries, Fallopian tubes’. endometriosis tissue may seem inside the abdomen, in or around the bowel and also the bladder.

The condition usually affects girls {and women|and ladies|and girls} of childbearing age and is less likely to affect women who have had menopause. endometriosis is more common in ladies in their 30s and 40s.

According to a scientific paper printed in the Journal of assisted reproduction and genetics, the condition affects 6-10 % of the overall female population within the U.S.A..

Endometriosis UK says that one in 10 ladies of reproductive age within the UK have the condition.