by Nancy Petersen, RN, Endo Advocate & Educator, Founder of Nancy’s Nook.
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Have a baby, it will cure your endometriosis. Have another baby as you weren’t pregnant long enough. Nope, pregnancy has no impact on endometriosis. I actually worked with a woman who was a CEO of a major corporation in devastating pain from endo, single but followed the pregnancy advice. Twice. She found herself single with two toddlers, in agonizing pain trying to ride herd on a large corporation. She was pretty disillusioned. She did manage to find a skilled excision surgeon and relief. As much as she loved her kids, this was not the timing she had planned for a family but she trusted gynecology to guide her. Unfortunately.
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Remove your ovaries or uterus or both to treat endo. Nope, endo makes its own estrogen, healthy uterus and ovaries should be left alone.
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Go into chemical menopause for a cure. Nope, it not only doesn’t stop the progression of your disease while you are on meds, but puts you in low estrogen states creating risk for small vessel heart disease, bone loss, permanent bone pain, cognitive injury. These risks get pushed on down the patients’ life span where no one currently has to assume any responsibility for, most of the time not even discussing the risks.
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Take this pill, shot, or IUD. We don’t need to do a laparoscopy to determine if you have endo. Nope, a sloppy way to try to diagnose and it is not a confirmation of disease. Rather a laparoscopy done with adequate expertise will result in diagnosis and treatment.
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Endometriosis of the bowel is inoperable. A red flag for a surgeon who does not have the skills, certifications or other team members to deal with it effectively.
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Period pain, fainting, pallor, nausea, vomiting, bowel pain, constipation, diarrhea are a normal part of having a period. Nope, get a better doctor.
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We’ll just burn the lesions off. Nope, ablation or other terms that mean burning lead to incomplete destruction of disease and continued pain as high as 80% of the time.
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Irritable bowel, painful bladder, and collapsed lung have nothing to do with endo. Nope, all can be part of the picture, and require far more expertise than general gynecology to resolve.
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My doctor does not want to do a laparoscopy; he believes it always comes back. Nope, red flag for a physician not trained in the surgical resolution of endometriosis.
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My doctor left some of the more difficult areas of disease and plans to have me clean it up with medication. Nope, drugs do not treat endo, they are a temporary bandaid, and disease can continue to progress while you are on the drugs even if symptoms are quieter.
Just a few of the things we hear every day that are false, misleading and unlikely to be helpful but told to many of the over 85,000 members of Nancy’s Nook. *
*Still growing at the rate of 600-800 a week who have failed all gynecology has to offer except expert excision of the disease.