What is Endometriosis?
Endometriosis is a disease in which foreign endometrial-like tissue grows on internal organs (and/or anywhere else throughout the body) creating inflammation, scarring, extreme pain and in some cases irreparable damage.
Endometriosis affects 1 in 10 people born with a uterus regardless of race, gender, or ethnic identity - that’s an estimated 200 million people worldwide. It takes an average of 10 years to properly diagnose endometriosis.
Healthcare professionals often misdiagnose endometriosis with mental health disorders like anxiety and depression, kidney stones, Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD), appendicitis, chronic fatigue, and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), or other bowel disorders like ulcerative colitis, etc.
Endometrial-like tissue grows on internal organs (and/or anywhere else) throughout the body.
How does treatment go wrong?
Many patients are treated with hormonal medications like Lupron that do not treat the disease but only mask the symptoms and can induce menopause.
Others endure unnecessary or ineffective surgeries, like ablation or hysterectomies often at the hands of unqualified medical professionals.
Ablation surgery is not a proper treatment and has a very high recurrence rate. What is the best known treatment for endometriosis?
Currently the best treatment of endometriosis is excision surgery, which isn’t covered under many healthcare plans around the world, including in the US and UK. These costly operations create a barrier to entry for many people who do not have the means or access to top healthcare professionals.
Excision surgery is comparative to cancer surgery, due to its complexity. Although there is a huge variance in recurrence rate when it comes to excision surgery (between 30-67% depending on the location of the endometriosis, the skill of the surgeon, etc.), it proves to be far more successful than any other treatment at eliminating symptoms and providing long-term relief to an average of 75-85% of patients.
Excision surgery proves to be far more successful than any other treatment at eliminating symptoms and providing long-term relief to an average of 75-85% of patients.