Endometriosis : Managing Stress

We found this online the other day , it’s well written advice and it deserves to be spread – as a result here it is, credit is linked below.

 

What can I do to prevent endometriosis? Although endometriosis is rarely life-threatening, it affects life on two very critical levels—well-being and fertility. Women are often surprised by the differences they can make in ending the misery of endometriosis.

Taking charge of the disease involves change. There is no getting away from it. it requires a real willingness to invest in yourself and alter some daily routines and ways of thinking about the disease, as follows.

• Build a support system. This begins with finding a doctor who understands endometriosis and how it has affected you in particular. There is no use in convincing skeptical practitioners that you are suffering from a real condition if they persist in believing that your symptoms are psychosomatic.

Discuss your condition with family members and friends in a calm and tactual manner. Explain what you have learned about the disease and why you are feeling the way you do. Severe menstrual camping attributed to prostaglandin levels, painful intercourse, and mood swings due to hormone fluctuations are real factors ha die disease. Now that your loved ones know it’s not “in your head,” ask for their help in getting you through any especially difficult time. If you feel you need pyschological counseling either alone or in ramify therapy to help sort out your feelings shout the impact of the condition on you and on others, seek help now.

The “career woman’s disease” touches the lives of millions of women who must deal with their condition and continue to work efficiently. This can be a problem. Many employers are not interested in hearing that employees suffer from chronic disorders such as endometriosis. As with sufferers of PMS, women with endometriosis may be assumed to be overly self-indulgent during menstruation. It has been estimated that 140 million work hours are lost each year to the symptoms of endometriosis, a fact that the business world cannot ignore.

Yet, they do. Now it is up to you. Your wisest strategy is to be consistently reasonable at work and prudent about whom you inform of your condition. Although your impulse may be to educate your employers and coworkers, many of whom may have the disease or know others who might, not everyone may be sympathetic to you. They are two schools of thought about discussing this disease and its effect on women, and doing so on the job. Some avoid public disclosure, feeling it is best to be discreet. They are concerned that knowledge of their condition may he used against them, that is, used as a reason to bold them hack from greater responsibility and promotions.

Other women fed that having endometriosis is not a stigmatizing factor and that a calm, honest, and educational approach will not hinder their career advancement. These women are bolder about their approach to the disease. They may disseminate information about endometriosis, or post notices of discussion groups to alert women to what they can do for themselves and for others, too. Knowing they do not have to keep silent about their condition and finding even one other woman at work who shares their problem gives them a psychological boost and an important sense of supportiveness. The action you do or do not take at work will depend entirely on the kind of job you have and the general tone of your workplace. You will know best what to do in this case.

 

Post contents from:  http://fdadrug.net/2009/05/endometriosis-managing-stress

Tomatoes help Endometriosis?

As promised, more on alternative treatments for Endometriosis sufferers.

As readers of this site know, Endometriosis causes Pain due to the tissues that would normally be found in the womb being found elsewhere in the body, various complications surround this, such as adhesions due to the body reacting to the tissues presence etc..

However a study has found (preliminary results) that the chemical found in tomatoes (and watermelons) which is responsible for their red colouration may help to reduce symptons.  The chemical Lycopene has been known to be an anti-oxident for a quite a while, and has been linked to having benefits for cardiovascular disease and some cancers.

The specific aspect which may give relief is in the preventing of adhesions, these are formed around damaged cells, often thought to be part of the bodies immune response to injuries.  With the higher stages of Endometriosis it is not unusual for a surgeon to see webs of adhesions binding internal organs together during laproscopic surgery due to the Endometrial growths.

The Lycopene appears to inhibit the growth of these, therefore inhibiting one of the major suspected causes of pain in chronic sufferers.  The study was undertaken on culture cells, by Dr Dbouk, the cultures measured the formation of proteins which the body uses as markers for iniating the adhesion cell growth, in the cultures these proteins were reduced by 80 – 90%.

Dr Dbouk told the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference in San Francisco “What we found in our laboratory study is that lycopene can help with the adhesions that these conditions cause,” he said. “One of the major complications of endometriosis is that it causes inflammation which induces adhesions.

“The inflammation basically causes scarring. What we did was to look at protein markers that could help us trace the activity of the abnormal cells that cause these adhesions. The lycopene worked to reduce the abnormal activity of these cells.

“This means that you would not get the adhesions, which suggests that lycopene could work to mitigate the complications and ailments of endometriosis. So, hypothetically speaking, we might be able to reduce the adhesion effects of endometriosis.”

 

At this time there has been no study done to determine how much of the chemical is actually transmitted in the body from consumption in the diet, so whilst theoretically it is possible to postulate that the chemical may be available in high enough quantities to make a difference to Endometriosis sufferers there is no clinical evidence yet.

 

However you can take one very good bit of news if you don’t like raw tomatoes – ketchup contains the chemical as well, so there’s no reason to stop using it!

 

This story has been reported by many sources, including Marie Claire, Times Online, The Telegraph and The Daily Mail.  As a result we are confident that this story is valid and people can indeed carry on eating Tomatoes.

Alternative treatments

Starting a new series of articles – we are going to look at some alternative therapies that may help endometriosis sufferers.

Whilst these are largely conjecture – we hope to help inform people and give reasons for these therapies working and back it up with any study data we can locate.  

This is to counter the crack-pot “cures” that do not exist and are proliferating the Endometriosis communities now, especially “cures” which are deamed authoritive because one person got relief, with no science behind them or cures.  Often these can be more dangerous if the advice is followed naively.

As they say… stay tuned for this series which will be semi-regular, in that we will update it when we get the information ourselves!

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