Many women deal with nauseating cramps and painful sex for decades. But, Dr. Iris Orbuch explains, they may be signs of endometriosis.
Full article:
Showing posts with label implants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label implants. Show all posts
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Friday, May 02, 2014
Dr. Drew doesn’t understand your “garbage” diagnosis ~ Endometriosis and Interstitial Cystitis
Grrrrrrrrrr. All the work we do for awareness and then this schmuck comes along...
The "Loveline" cohost draws outrage for his comments on endometriosis
Dr. Drew Pinsky is a board certified internist and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at USC, but most of us know him better as radio and cable television’s most tireless ambulance chaser. Over the years, he’s doled out a variety of less than sound and/or helpful ideas. But when he speculated recently to a “Loveline” caller about his fiancée’s endometriosis, he definitively made the case against getting medical advice from flippant talk show hosts.
As Erin Gloria Ryan first noted on Jezebel, Pinsky was fielding a call from a man who was concerned about his girlfriend’s “multitude of conditions,” including endometriosis, interstitial cystitis, lactose intolerance and what he described as “no stomach lining.” The good doctor quickly interjected before the listener could even pose his question, explaining, “These are what we call sort of functional disorders. Everything you mentioned, everything you mentioned, are things that actually aren’t discernibly pathological. They’re what we call ‘garbage bag diagnoses,’ when you can’t think of anything else, you go, ‘Eh, it’s that.’ So, it then makes me question why is she so somatically preoccupied that she’s visiting doctors all the time with pains and urinary symptoms and pelvic symptoms, and then that makes me wonder, was she sexually abused growing up?”
Though the caller did acknowledge that his fiancée had in fact survived abuse, let’s take a step back here and observe that he never said the woman was “preoccupied” and “visiting doctors all the time” – on the contrary, he said she almost always “refuses” to go to doctors, even when she’s “in so much pain.” But Dr. Drew had a handy explanation, stating, “Trust me, she saw lots of doctors before you.” He then went on to explain why her early abuse was causing her problems now. “When people have unexplained pain, pelvic pain, it’s called somatoform dissociation,” he said, “and the only way her body, which was suffering during those early experiences, can tell its tale of woe is with pain. And she really needs to see a trauma specialist, not a urologist. Know what I’m saying?” This was immediately segued with Pinksy’s colleague joking that an additional way someone could have unexplained pelvic pain was by having sex with the show’s guest, Alan Thicke. Charming.
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Here is the link to the CNN contact form for Dr. Drew's show...also what I wrote. Please give them a piece of your mind. IC folks....go get him!
Dr Drews comments on endometriosis are outrageous. He is not educated in a disease that strikes more than one in ten women! Find another doctor! Chronic stage 4 endo with severe adhesions has almost killed me twice. It is real, incurable and I hope you devote air some time in spreading awareness about endometriosis to counteract the sad stereotype that has made the burden of this horrible disease even harder.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Endometriosis symptoms and pain written off too often
By ASHLEIGH GLEESON Health
A HUNTER woman who once menstruated through her belly button is sharing her personal story to raise awareness about endometriosis.
Naomi Weatherburn, 46, suffered from painful periods ever since she was a teenager.
But despite the condition being so common – approximately one in 10 women have it – the GPs and gynaecologists she visited told her some level of pain was normal and she would just have to endure it.
It wasn’t until Ms Weatherburn was married and stopped taking the pill because she wanted to get pregnant that she was diagnosed with endometriosis."
Monday, March 31, 2014
Eve's Daughters, or, Go With the Flow
In the beginning, there was pain.
My periods began when I was 13-years-old, and I only remember them accompanied with pain. I bled heavily each month for six to eight days. As I got older, I would find myself passed out on my bedroom or bathroom floor from painful cramps. I would pass heavy blood clots, was often lightheaded, and regularly was prescribed iron supplements and over-the-counter medications like ibuprofen. When Alleve came on the market, I was thrilled to try a new pain reliever. They would dull, but never eradicate, the pain. My periods were always preceded with hefty bouts of PMS; I suffered from bloating, fatigue, headaches, skin rashes, and swelling in my knees and fingers.
When I'd report these symptoms to my doctor, he told me that periods can be like that. Some girls have problems, others don't. I just happened to be one of the girls who had a problem period. My mother told me the same thing, adding, "That's what my mother told me. It was like that for me and for other girls I knew growing up, too." As Carol Pearson discusses in her TEDTalk, as Zora Neale Hurston wrote inTheir Eyes Were Watching God ("Black women are the mules of the world"), as Eve was told after she fed into her curiosity and took a bite of that forbidden fruit, I learned -- whether the lesson was intended to be learned this way or not -- that being a girl, becoming a woman, was painful. And I had to live with that pain. I had to learn to handle pain.
And so I did. I went with the flow.
What I didn't know was that I had endometriosis.Endometriosis is a disease that affects 10 percent of women globally. It knows no race, class, or socioeconomic status. Some doctors refer to endometriosis as a benign cancer. Padma Lakshmi, model and co-founder of the Endometriosis Foundation of America, describes the disease as "a web, like a vapor, like weeds in a garden that permeate everything, and stain everything. And metaphorically as well as clinically what you have to go and do, whether it is with laparoscopy or therapy or just understanding and support, is you have to go in there... and get rid of it. Not only getting rid of it in the womb, but getting rid of it in the heart and the mind."
When I'd report these symptoms to my doctor, he told me that periods can be like that. Some girls have problems, others don't. I just happened to be one of the girls who had a problem period. My mother told me the same thing, adding, "That's what my mother told me. It was like that for me and for other girls I knew growing up, too." As Carol Pearson discusses in her TEDTalk, as Zora Neale Hurston wrote inTheir Eyes Were Watching God ("Black women are the mules of the world"), as Eve was told after she fed into her curiosity and took a bite of that forbidden fruit, I learned -- whether the lesson was intended to be learned this way or not -- that being a girl, becoming a woman, was painful. And I had to live with that pain. I had to learn to handle pain.
And so I did. I went with the flow.
What I didn't know was that I had endometriosis.Endometriosis is a disease that affects 10 percent of women globally. It knows no race, class, or socioeconomic status. Some doctors refer to endometriosis as a benign cancer. Padma Lakshmi, model and co-founder of the Endometriosis Foundation of America, describes the disease as "a web, like a vapor, like weeds in a garden that permeate everything, and stain everything. And metaphorically as well as clinically what you have to go and do, whether it is with laparoscopy or therapy or just understanding and support, is you have to go in there... and get rid of it. Not only getting rid of it in the womb, but getting rid of it in the heart and the mind."
Saturday, March 22, 2014
New Guideline: Management of Women With Endometriosis
ESHRE Guideline: Management of Women With Endometriosis
Dunselman GA, Vermeulen N, Becker C, et al
Hum Reprod. 2014;29:400-412
Hum Reprod. 2014;29:400-412
Background
Endometriosis can be diagnosed when endometrial tissue is found in extrauterine locations. It is found in 10%-15% of the general population and in up to one third of the infertile population.[1] There are various theories that attempt to explain its etiology. Some cases can be explained by retrograde menstruation, but metaplasia, hormonal, inflammatory processes, and abnormal cytokine function also seem to play a role.[2]
A wide variety of symptoms may accompany endometriosis. Some women are asymptomatic, whereas others are affected by dysmenorrhea, menorrhagia, dyspareunia, chronic pelvic pain, and urinary and gastrointestinal symptoms. The symptoms typically recur in a cyclic fashion, and an exacerbation can occur around menstruation.
The diagnosis can be suspected on the basis of symptoms but is established when histologic confirmation of endometrial glands and stroma is made from a tissue biopsy sample obtained from an extrauterine location.
Read the rest here: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/822100
Saturday, March 15, 2014
How can diagnosis for endometriosis be improved?
Wednesday 12 March 2014 - 8am PST
"Let's start with the gynecologists," begins Linda Griffith.
"Many of them trained in a day when the classic endocrinology and gynecology textbooks described endometriosis as follows: 'The typical endometriosis patient is a nulliparous white woman in her 30s who is well-educated and tends to be highly anxious.' Yup, that is the profile of the patient with the persistence and resources to get diagnosed prior to the 1990s."
Medical News Today is speaking to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) biological engineer Linda Griffith on the eve of Endometriosis Awareness Day, which will be marked by a huge peaceful demonstration.
An international "Million Women March" will take place on Thursday, March 13th. It begins in Washington, DC, but involves participants in 53 countries across the world."
Saturday, March 01, 2014
Endometriosis Awareness 2014
Endometriosis Awareness 2014
Endometriosis Awareness takes place across the globe during the month of March with a mission to raise awareness of “the invisible disease”, which affects an estimated 176 million women.
Read More about awareness across the world dor the month of March!
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
What it costs to have endometriosis
J Manag Care Pharm. 2007 Apr;13(3):262-72.
Actuarial analysis of private payer administrative claims data for women with endometriosis.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Endometriosis is a painful, chronic disease affecting 5.5 million women and girls in the United States and Canada and millions more worldwide. The usual age range of women diagnosed with endometriosis is 20 to 45 years. Endometriosis has an estimated prevalence of 10% among women of reproductive age, although estimates of prevalence vary greatly. Endometriosis is the most common gynecological cause of chronic pelvic pain, but published information on its associated medical care costs is scarce.
OBJECTIVE:
The aim of this study was to determine (1) the prevalence of endometriosis in the United States, (2) the amount of health care services used by women coded with endometriosis in a commercial medical claims database during 1999 to 2003, and (3) the endometriosis-related costs for 2003, the most recent data available at the time the study was performed.
METHODS:
This study was a retrospective review of administrative data for commercial payers, which included enrollment, eligibility, and claims payment data contained in the Medstat Marketscan database for approximately 4 million commercial insurance members. All claims and membership data were extracted for each woman aged 18 to 55 years who had at least 1 medical or hospital claim with a diagnosis code for endometriosis (International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification [ICD-9-CM] codes 617.00-617.99) for 1999 through 2003. Claims data from 1999 through 2003 were used to determine prevalence and health care resource utilization (i.e., annual admission rate, annual surgical rate, distribution of endometriosis-related surgeries, and prevalence of comorbid conditions). The cost analysis was based on claims from 2003 only. Cost was defined as the payer-allowed charge, which equals the net payer cost plus member cost share.
RESULTS:
The prevalence of women with medical claims (inpatient and/or outpatient) containing ICD-9-CM codes for endometriosis was 1.1% for the age band of 30 to 39 years and 0.7% over the entire age span of 18 to 55 years. The medical costs per patient per month (PPPM) for women with endometriosis were 63% greater ($706 PPPM) than those of the average woman per member per month ($433) in 2003; inpatient hospital costs accounted for 32% of total direct medical costs. Between 1999 and 2003, these women with endometriosis who were identified by either inpatient and/or outpatient claims had high rates of hospital admission (53% for any reason; 38% for an endometriosis-related reason) and a high annual surgical procedure rate (64%). Additionally, women with endometriosis frequently suffered from comorbid conditions, and these conditions were associated with greater PPPM costs of 15% to 50% for women with an endometriosis diagnosis code, depending on the condition. Interstitial cystitis was associated with 50% greater cost ($1,061 PPPM); depression, 41% ($997 PPPM); migraine, 40% ($988 PPPM); irritable bowel syndrome, 34% ($943 PPPM); chronic fatigue syndrome, 29% ($913 PPPM); abdominal pain, 20% ($846 PPPM); and infertility, 15% ($813 PPPM).
CONCLUSIONS:
Women with endometriosis have a high hospital admission rate and surgical procedure rate and a high incidence of comorbid conditions. Consequently, these women incur total medical costs that are, on average, 63% higher than medical costs for the average woman in a commercially insured group.
- PMID:
- 17407392
- [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Why does my hip hurt so bad?
Ok this is plausible...but what doc can I convince OR is it from that evil lupron..eating my bones away?
| |||||
We report the case of a young woman with recurrent unilateral hip pain. A polylobular cystic mass was found in the right adductor space. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed a polynodular mass migrating from the intrapelvic region along the obturator nerve. Because of a history of cyclic pain and the characteristics on MRI (hypointense rim and spots of spontaneous hyperintense signal on T1-weighted images), an endometrioma was suspected. The diagnosis of endometriosis was later confirmed through ultrasound-guided biopsy.
|
(Waer et al. 2012)
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Waer P, Samson I, et al. (2012). Perineural spread of endometriosis along the obturator nerve into the adductor thigh compartment. Jpn J Radiol 30 (5): 446-9.
| ||||
| PMID: 22350637 DOI: 10.1007/s11604-01 http://www.torna.do/s/Perineural-spread-of-endometriosis-along-the-obturator-nerve-into-the-adductor-thigh-compartment/?x=5&y=1 |
Friday, December 20, 2013
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Gene variant linked to endometriosis
YALE (US) — Researchers may have identified a genetic basis of endometriosis, a condition that causes millions of women chronic pelvic pain and infertility.
The Yale University researchers’ discovery of a new gene mutation provides hope for new screening methods.
Published in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine, the study explored an inherited mutation located in part of the KRAS gene, which leads to abnormal endometrial growth and endometrial risk.
Click here to read entire article: http://www.futurity.org/health-medicine/gene-variant-linked-to-endometriosis/
The Yale University researchers’ discovery of a new gene mutation provides hope for new screening methods.
Published in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine, the study explored an inherited mutation located in part of the KRAS gene, which leads to abnormal endometrial growth and endometrial risk.
Click here to read entire article: http://www.futurity.org/health-medicine/gene-variant-linked-to-endometriosis/
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Recurrence of Endometriosis and hip pain
I knew it! I have been trying to tell docs of my hip pain for 30 years now and have been brushed off or stared at blankly...I just love a little validation! Recurrence of Endometriosis??? I d on't know...what I have had happen to me is they had never been able to fully excise my endo and from what I read I am not sure it can all be visualised during the time of surgery....Lurpon??? No thank you....never again. I am almost 1 inch shorter than I use to be and dx'ed with osteoporosis at age 40!
Endometriosis and hip pain
Recurrence of Endometriosis and hip pain
Dear Ask The Doctor: Can endometriosis come back after surgery and spread to the hips
Dear Deesha: Recurrence of endometriotic lesions is stimulated by estrogens, the female hormones produced by the ovaries. During the normal menstrual cycle, blood levels of estradiol (the main estrogen) fluctuate between 40 and 400 pg/mL. These levels are necessary to achieve pregnancy but they also contribute to the recurrence of endometriosis.
Recurrence rate for endometriosis has been estimated to be 10% per year. One study found it to recur in 40% of women within 5 years after conservative surgery. There is a 6 times higher risk of recurrence after hysterectomy if the ovaries are not removed. Even in women who have their ovaries removed, there is still a risk of further recurrence of Endometriosis.
On occasion endometrial adhesions can restrict the hip ligaments, causing pain and limping. Hip joint pain that worsens in a cyclical fashion in line with the menstrual cycle will usually be caused by endometriosis. Surgical treatment to remove endometrial implants is sometimes undertaken in the hope of relieving the hip joint pain associated with endometriosis.
Last Updated ( Thursday, 19 January 2012 )
http://www.askthedoctor.com/topics-a-z/45-endometriosis/116458-recurrence-of-endometriosis-and-hip-pain.html
Endometriosis and hip pain
Recurrence of Endometriosis and hip pain
Dear Ask The Doctor: Can endometriosis come back after surgery and spread to the hips
Dear Deesha: Recurrence of endometriotic lesions is stimulated by estrogens, the female hormones produced by the ovaries. During the normal menstrual cycle, blood levels of estradiol (the main estrogen) fluctuate between 40 and 400 pg/mL. These levels are necessary to achieve pregnancy but they also contribute to the recurrence of endometriosis.
Recurrence rate for endometriosis has been estimated to be 10% per year. One study found it to recur in 40% of women within 5 years after conservative surgery. There is a 6 times higher risk of recurrence after hysterectomy if the ovaries are not removed. Even in women who have their ovaries removed, there is still a risk of further recurrence of Endometriosis.
On occasion endometrial adhesions can restrict the hip ligaments, causing pain and limping. Hip joint pain that worsens in a cyclical fashion in line with the menstrual cycle will usually be caused by endometriosis. Surgical treatment to remove endometrial implants is sometimes undertaken in the hope of relieving the hip joint pain associated with endometriosis.
Last Updated ( Thursday, 19 January 2012 )
http://www.askthedoctor.com/topics-a-z/45-endometriosis/116458-recurrence-of-endometriosis-and-hip-pain.html
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