Endometriosis is a condition which affects many women, leading to symptoms such as severe pain during menstruation, sexual intercourse, pain while ovulating, abdominal bloating, fatigue, and heavy bleeding. Infertility is also very common for women who have this condition. Endometriosis is a condition where there is uterine-like tissue growing on areas of the body other than the uterus. The goal of this article is to discuss whether there is a natural cure for this condition.
But before I discuss this, what is the cause of endometriosis? The exact cause of this condition is unknown, although it does seem to be more common in women who have a hormone imbalance. Because of this, many doctors will try to treat endometriosis through the use of estrogen injections. While this can be effective when the woman has an excess in estrogen, it is more common for a woman to have a progesterone deficiency. And if this is the case, then the estrogen injections administered by medical doctors won't be effective. And then what frequently will happen is that the medical doctor will attempt to treat the condition through pain medication, or the doctor might even perform surgery to remove the endometriotic lesions.
A Female Hormone Panel Can Be Very Valuable
To determine whether or not a woman with endometriosis has a hormone imbalance, it's best to have them obtain a female hormone panel. Such a panel will reveal the levels of the hormones estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and DHEA. An expanded hormone panel will also give the levels of the pituitary hormones FSH and LH, which also can be very useful. While the hormones estrogen and progesterone are probably the most important ones to evaluate, one needs to keep in mind that hormones interact with one another. As a result, it's a good idea to look at some of the other hormones, as they can also be contributing to the problem.
Besides giving hormone injections for an estrogen problem, what else can be done if the person is found to have a hormone imbalance? Well, if the panel reveals a deficiency in one or more of the hormones, then many medical doctors will recommend for the woman to take bioidentical hormones. For example, natural progesterone is commonly given to a woman who has a progesterone deficiency. Similarly, bioidentical testosterone or DHEA can also be taken to address a deficiency with either of these hormones.
While bioidentical hormones can be beneficial to use in some situations, the problem is that they usually don't do anything to correct the underlying cause of the condition. So when one of my patients presents with a hormone imbalance, I will try to correct this without recommending natural hormones, if at all possible. Many hormone imbalances can be corrected through a natural treatment protocol. In situations where the person has a severe hormone deficiency, bioidentical hormones might be necessary to take, although in most cases it should only be on a temporary basis, until the actual cause is found and then addressed.
Why Don't Medical Doctors Look For The Underlying Cause?
The reason why most medical doctors don't look for the underlying cause of endometriosis is because they simply haven't been trained to do so. Most medical doctors are trained to administer medication or perform surgery, and not actually look for the root cause of the problem. This isn't meant to suggest that it's easy to find the cause of endometriosis, as the cause is not always due to a hormone imbalance. But why most doctors don't perform a female hormone panel to at least look at the levels is something I don't understand. And many holistic medical doctors who do recommend these hormone panels do nothing more than administer bioidentical hormones. Once again, this might be necessary at times, but giving natural hormones alone doesn't correct such a problem.
Once again, there is a time and place to use natural hormones, and so I am definitely not opposed to recommending them to my patients when they are absolutely necessary. However, as I mentioned before, most of the times a hormone imbalance can be corrected without the person needing to take bioidentical hormones. And when they do need to take them, this shouldn't be permanent, yet some medical doctors recommend that their patients continuously take natural progesterone, when many times this isn't necessary.
Dealing With Infertility Issues
As I mentioned earlier, many women with endometriosis have fertility issues. And when the endometriotic lesions are caused by an existing hormone imbalance, which once again is a frequent cause, then correcting this hormone imbalance will usually cure endometriosis. This in turn will correct many infertility issues that have medical doctors puzzled. So thousands of women who are unable to become pregnant can potentially conceive if their doctors were to detect and then correct such a hormone imbalance.
In summary, endometriosis has no known cause, but many women can overcome this condition when they have a hormone imbalance. Receiving an expanded female hormone panel can provide a lot of useful information to help detect the cause of the problem, and can help the doctor come up with a treatment plan to cure endometriosis. So while conventional medicine is still an option for some women, because a natural treatment protocol is non-invasive and frequently effective it makes sense to at least try following such a protocol first.
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