Nearly five million American women suffer from a condition known as endometriosis. This disease results when uterine tissue, which usually is sloughed off during the menstrual period, instead migrates to other parts of the reproductive system, often causing extreme pain and developing into endometriosis cysts.
Doctors have yet to learn what causes endometriosis. Some think it results when women have babies later in life, since the uterine tissue that's usually discharged during menstrual periods seems to build up excessively. Recent studies suggest that genetics may be involved; women whose close female relatives, such as mothers and sisters, develop endometriosis are at much higher risk for getting the disease themselves. Other risk factors include having exceptionally heavy periods, or periods that last longer than a week, and starting menstruation before adolescence, as early as age 9 or 10 in some cases.
Though its causes may not be known yet, the effects of endometriosis are felt every month by millions of women. The primary symptom of endometriosis is severe pain. The pain results from the migrated uterine tissue acting like the lining of the uterus. Each month, the uterus prepares itself for the possibility of receiving a fertilized ovum. When no ovum implants itself in the blood-rich uterine lining, the tissue is discharged through menstruation. Endometriosis tissue behaves in this same way, except that the tissue has nowhere to go. Thus it builds up, swells and often forms painful endometriosis cysts.
Thankfully, endometriosis cysts usually aren't cancerous. They also usually stay somewhere in a woman's reproductive organs and don't migrate to places like the lungs or liver. Sometimes endometriosis cysts can develop on the bowels or bladder, however, because these organs lie so near the reproduction organs.
Sometimes endometriosis will respond to treatment with certain hormones. Women also can take over-the-counter pain relievers or prescription medications to deal with monthly pain. However, there is no medical way to eliminate endometriosis; it has no cure.
See your gynecologist immediately if you're suffering from symptoms that resemble endometriosis. Only your physician can diagnose your illness properly and recommend the right treatment.
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