Painful Periods – Endometriosis

People believe pain during periods is normal but severe cramps and pain which interferes with your routine activities is not normal and it could be endometriosis. The most common cause of painful periods is endometriosis which affects 1 in 10 women and more that 200 million women worldwide.

Endometriosis is a condition, where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus is found elsewhere where it does not belong and its “not endometrium”. The endometrium is the inner lining of the uterus that sheds when menstruation happens. Endometriosis may be present anywhere in the body but the most common location is the pelvis and in pelvis, ovaries are the commonest location, but it doesn’t involve only the ovaries it involves the surrounding structures, peritoneum, bladder, and bowel too. It’s a whole-body disease and its symptoms are also not confined to pelvic organs.

It is an inflammatory condition which causes fibrosis and pain and interferes with the normal function of the organ. The exact cause of this disorder is still not known but the theory of mulleriogenesis and other developmental theories explain the implantation of such tissues outside the uterus and it can produce its own estrogen and this tissue behaves like endometrial tissue causing ovarian cyst, tissue adhesion, and invasion of surrounding structures.
When this tissue grows into the uterus it is called as Adenomyosis.