Endometriosis Cysts Must Be Treated Promptly

By Amanda Clark

Imagine enduring agonizing abdominal pain once a month. That's the fate of nearly five million American women who have a reproductive illness called endometriosis. The illness is caused by an excess of uterine tissue that attaches itself outside the uterus, often resulting in painful, dangerous 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.

While its causes may be obscure, the results of endometriosis, such as endometriosis cysts, are both detectable and painful. In fact, extreme abdominal pain is one of the major symptoms of endometriosis. Other symptoms can include heavy menstrual periods, severe menstrual cramps, chronic pelvic pain or pain in the lower back, painful sexual intercourse, uncomfortable urination or bowel movements during menstrual periods, bleeding or spotting between periods and infertility, or the inability to conceive and bear a child.

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.

While ongoing endometriosis can be managed with certain hormones and pain medications, once endometriosis cysts hemorrhage or burst, they must be treated immediately by surgery. In some cases it is possible to remove the endometriosis cysts and restore a woman's reproductive organs. Sadly, in other cases the only safe treatment for severe endometriosis is surgically removing the reproductive organs, a procedure known as a complete hysterectomy.

If you believe you are suffering from endometriosis, see your gynecologist as soon as possible. - 31802

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