𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕟𝕘 𝔾𝕚𝕣𝕝𝕤 ℂ𝕝𝕦𝕓 ☁︎☀

The Endometrium That Got Lost

This post was written entirely by ItIsOnlyHannah
as a school paper.

Thank you for raising awareness during Endometriosis awareness month, Hannah!

And we appreciate all of your support for SGC.

🌼✨🌼✨🌼✨🌼✨🌼✨

Approximately 176 million women around the world have a painful disorder that can affect their everyday lives. It's chronic, painful, and often gets steadily worse. Endometriosis causes the endometrial tissue of the uterus to grow elsewhere in the pelvic cavity.

Infertility and effects on pregnancy are also associated with endometriosis. For a woman with endometriosis, the average wait between her first symptoms and accurate diagnosis is seven years. This is largely because of stigma and misunderstandings about what is typical (Gordon, Olivia).

Misdiagnosis may also occur because endometriosis shares symptoms with many other conditions. Sometimes, it is pushed off as just painful period cramps(Hayward, Jeff). Thankfully, there is hope for the women suffering with endometriosis. Many treatment options exist and have been clinically proven to work.

Endometriosis is a disease that affects women, some without them knowing it, by causing endometrial tissue to develop in other parts of the pelvic cavity where it should not be. The lining of the uterus is called the endometrium. During each menstrual cycle, part of the endometrium thickens, becomes engorged with blood, and, if conception does not occur, sheds during menstruation.

Each month, these abnormal endometrial tissue fragments, lesions, bleed like the lining of the uterus does during menstruation. However, because the fragments are embedded in tissue, the blood cannot escape.

Instead, the blood collects in sacs called cysts, or the bleeding irritates the surrounding tissue, which responds by forming a fibrous covering around each bleeding area.
The persistent irritation caused by repeated bleeding can produce scar tissue called adhesions.

Adhesions can distort and twist the fallopian tubes, causing infertility(Mayo Clinic. Family). Some believe that the endometrium implant on organs because menstrual flow backs up and flows backward through the fallopian tubes and into the pelvic cavity. The chunks of endometrium then implant and form lesions. This is known as retrograde menstruation. Another theory is that adult stem cells turn into endometrial cells in the wrong place. This theory would explain why the tissue is sometimes found in brains and lungs. No one really knows for sure why or how this happens. Lesions are extra sensitive to growth-causing estradiol and resistant to the counteractive progesterone(Gordon, Olivia).

This tissue grows on the ovaries, fallopian tubes, vagina, intestines, bladder and other parts of the pelvic cavity. Experts estimate that approximately eleven percent of American women have endometriosis.

There are approximately 176 million women with this disease worldwide. Most have no symptoms and require no treatment, but for some, endometriosis is a progressive disease that becomes more painful and debilitating with time. The condition, which may run in families, usually is detected between the ages of twenty-five and forty and is more common in women who have not had children(MayoClinic. Family).

After the onset of menopause, the development of the abnormal endometrial tissue usually subsides. Sometimes, endometriosis causes no, mild, or unnoticeable symptoms.

Others are life-changing. The most common symptoms include lower back and abdomen pain just before periods. Some cases have irregular periods, heavy periods, painful periods, spotting before the flow begins, painful intercourse, infertility, sometimes pain before and several days after the start of a period, and pain when straining to have a bowel movement(Mayo Clinic. Family).