12% of patients at a reproductive age could suffer from endometriosis
Endometriosis is a gynecological disease that touches around 1 woman out of 10. Linked to the growth of the endometrial tissue outside the uterus (womb) and can touch other surrounding organs such as ovaries, ligaments, rectum, bladder, vagina.
What are the symptoms?
Even though the disease can be asymptomatic, some symptoms can affect the patient’s life in a more or less severe way:
- Painful period (dysmenorrhea)
- Pelvic pain
- Pain during sexual intercourse (dyspareunia)
- Infertility
- Digestive and urinary disorders
Long ignored by physicians, the delay for the diagnosis is very long: 6 to 12 years on average, which enables the patients to have the medical support needed to improve their quality of life.
What are the different types of endometriosis?
Pain in endometriosis: The symptom that leads to a medical consult!
Endometriosis can cause very string pains (pelvic, during the menstruation, during sexual intercourse…) and because they are so debilitating, they can make the patients take very strong painkillers.
This recurrent pains will lead to a hypersensitization phenomenon (malfunction of the central nervous system) and a neuronal hyper excitability which is responsible for an amplification of the painful message and sensory hypersensitivity.
These mechanisms combined can cause a very painful and complex syndrome.