Endometriosis is almost as difficult to pronounce as it is to diagnose. Almost. The first time my mouth struggled its way around those six syllables, I was huddled around a computer screen in a poky doctor's office in California, parroting what this rather kooky ob-gyn had just told me. I won't pretend to remember her precise words because, like all bad news, it came to me in slow motion. She said something along the lines of, “You have a haemorrhagic cyst, a chocolate cyst and often they are a sister ailment to en-do-me-tri-o-sis.” I remember the chocolate bit because it conjured up an image of a Cadbury Creme Egg and from then on I couldn't stop thinking about the absurdity of an Easter treat being stuck inside me, conspiring with its villainous relative.
Obviously, I immediately wanted to know how you could cure this ugly-sounding disease – and the answer is, nudge, nudge, get this … they don't know. Experts do know endometriosis is a condition in which the lining of the womb (the endometrium) proliferates and grows in places it shouldn't. They know that during a period these cells bleed, causing inflammation, pain and the formation of scar tissue, which sticks organs together. And they know one in 10 people with a womb, of child-bearing age, play host to the unwelcome disease. (Did I mention it can be agony? Like “end of Braveheart, laying on the rack waiting to be hung, drawn and quartered” bad?)
There are treatments that can help
