Endometriosis Treatment Options


Treatment options for endometriosis need to be considered carefully, and many factors need to be weighed in when deciding which type of treatment plan to follow.


Treatment options for endometriosis

There are a range of treatments available to women with endometriosis within main-stream medicine.  In most cases a woman will have been referred to a gynaecologist for her treatment, and usually a definite diagnosis will have been done with the laparoscopy. 

 

Due to the difficult nature of this disease and the different ways it manifests in the body, it can often be difficult to obtain successful or long term treatment success. The objective of the treatment offered today is to help relieve the pain and reduce the symptoms.  Treatment also aims to shrink or slow down the endometrial growths, to try and restore fertility and to delay the recurrence of the disease.



Treatment options for endometriosis


A woman’s treatment should be decided in partnership between her and her medical advisers.  If you do decide to pursue your treatment with drug or surgical treatment, there will be a number of factors to take into account when deciding which treatment path to follow.  This will include:


  • Severity and type of symptoms - may influence your options of treatment.  Some women with endometriosis have little or no symptoms; and no treatment may be needed.  If symptoms are mild, painkillers alone may be sufficient. 


  • Hormone treatments are sometimes effective at easing pain but do not improve fertility.  Surgery may be suggested if infertility is caused by endometriosis.

  • Age and plans for pregnancy - symptoms often improve during pregnancy.   The longer you have endometriosis the greater the chance that it will reduce your fertility.  Also, the longer you leave endometriosis unchecked, the more damage it will do, and the more pain it will cause.

  • Success of treatment and side effects - the hormone treatment options all have similar success rates at easing pain, but they all have side effects.  Some of these side effects are intolerable by some women and so treatment may be switched from one drug to another.

  • Recurrences - once endometriosis has been cleared with a course of treatment it may recur again in the future.  In fact, in many cases it does recur.  A new course of hormone treatment and/or surgery will have to be contemplated.

  • Personal choice - a woman should choose for herself which treatment option to take.  She should not be coerced into any one type of treatment because it is the easiest for the physician, or it is the specialism of the physician. 

  • Second opinion - It is also advisable to get a second opinion.  You may get 2 totally different approaches and attitudes to this disease and its treatment.  One physician may be counting his days to retirement and the other physician may have some personal experience of the disease.

  • Confidence - You need to feel at ease with you chosen health care provider no matter which field of medicine they work in.  This goes along way to having faith in the process of healing.  

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References:

endometriosis.org

webmd.com- endometriosis

Endometriosis-uk.org

Mayoclinic.org - endometriosis



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