ABC Endo: A Trinbago Survivor's Guide

What did the endo-sufferer say to her body? "Stop hurting yourself! Stop hurting yourself!"

EXPERIENCE is subjective; and I said before: as each woman differs from the other so, too, does her experience with pain.
     I understand that successful coping with endometriosis can be a highly personal issue, especially when the disease itself can be quite "selective" in what it dishes out to one woman over another.
     Endo hurts you deeply: whether periodically (pun acknowledged); for sustained stretches, or the neverending-seeming kind that occurs with a prolonged flare-up. 
     It's nothing less than a pounding of your flesh. Trust me, it pays to know the particulars.
     If this is your first time here, please peruse the post before this one, as it cites several of what might be causing your endo agonies. I am listing more here. Then we'll all take a break from the pain for a bit ... at least the talking about it. 

   More What Causes Endometriosis Pain   

• Lesions become engorged at period time and can cause intense menstrual cramps felt in the lower back as well as the abdomen
• Reduced blood circulation from cysts blocking blood vessels
• Vital organs face damage by invading endometrial tissue
• Bloating, rectal pressure, painful bowel movements and other intestinal difficulties result from lesions formed in the area between the rectum and the uterus
• Endometriosis on uterosacral ligaments makes sex painful
• Endometrial growths in the cul-de-sac behind the uterus can force it into a tilted-back position, making sex painful
• Endo can compress or stretch pain receptors, especially at specific times when tissues expand rapidly
• The immune system gets compromised, causing malfunctioning pain receptors to be more sensitive, or meddling with proper pain coding signals
• If ovarian cysts rupture, aside from resulting extreme pelvic pain, in rare cases peritonitis can set in. This is a life-threatening infection of the linings of the pelvic and abdominal cavities

     Brace yourselves dearies: there may be reasons not yet identified. 
     Which is why it helps to study yourself as you cope with endo. I mean, you might lead to the unearthing of other pain causes by taking note of what you are enduring and seeking answers about it.
    Discovery of difficulties is what leads to eventual discovery of remedies for them. 
    Manage your stress, refer back to the Mankoski Pain Scale (use the Search bar), and determine to start keeping track of all things endo. Not to let it take over your life, but for the express opposite reason: you taking it under your control.
     In the next post, I'll start telling you how to go about that.

In beauty may you walk.

Endo pain gives new meaning to "Girl on fire."

THERE IS a scene in an episode of X-Files in which a little girl is hurting people horribly; and her caregiver says to the persons contorted in agony and fear, "She's just a child. She doesn't know what she's doing." One suffering person screams back, "Yes she does!!!"
     Trust me, that's not how it is with your body and endometriosis pain. Your body really doesn't know what it's doing, no matter how often you feel like it has turned on you. It is just along for the ride.

     This doesn't mean, though, that the hurt has its reasons whereof reason knows nothing.

     There is science behind your agony, the medical kind; and you can know it. What's more, after you learn you can do things to help your body help you by not causing you pain.
     Wait. I said a stupid thing. It is not your body causing you pain. It is what the disease endometriosis is doing to your body that's causing you pain. 
     So feel free to attack endo back and blitz it into as near oblivion as you can.

     But first you've got to be bright to put up a good fight.

     Endo pain comes in all shapes and sizes, because there are motley issues producing it.

     Physically, your pain can be caused by:

• Inflammation: produced by your body to battle anything foreign and harmful, like substances secreted by endometrial implants
• Formations of scar tissue or adhesions, which are fibrous bands formed by inflammatory processes, that adhere normally separate surfaces and organs to each other, interfering with function and mobility
• Endometrial growths leaking inflammatory substances
• Blockage or compression of organs in the abdomen, like the ureters (these carry urine to the bladder from kidneys) or bowel
• Deep pelvic endometrial nodules are compressed or become inflamed
• Urinary tract systems invaded by endometrial matter 
• Gastrointestinal tract system invaded by endometrial matter (Told you it's war)
• Reduced blood circulation when blood vessels become blocked by cysts
• Nerve endings are affected by nearness of endometrial implants

     
These, dearhearts, are just the ones I'll mention today. I don't want to overwhelm you; some things need to be taken in small doses. I will describe more in the next post.
     Meanwhile, hug a pillow, a blankie, your best friend or your guy, and think about this: there are women just like you, myself included, who have learned how to put endo in its place. 
     With enough knowledge and fortitude you will, too.

In beauty may you walk

MY ARTWORK for endometriosis pain often involves a wall effect.
         Pain builds walls: the kind that keep you shut away from life's beauties, life's joys. The kind that hide the sun, that break your heart, hurt your spirit, oppress you with despair. Walls that kill hope.
         Let us fight to break down such walls!
         Remember, we are taking the "know your enemy" approach in our war on endo pain. We will know our enemy intimately, the way it has come to know us.
         We'll start the learning with When.

         But, "Oh," you say, "I know when I feel pain, so I don't need schooling on that."

         It won't hurt to attend. It may even help alleviate hurt in the long run. See, identifying when you feel your pains can help you define what your separate endo issues are, so you can treat with each "elementally."

When the Hurt's In Charge

• MENSTRUAL PAIN: Dysmenorrhea is the clinical word for cramps, and it can be felt in the back just as much as the belly, and stretch out from both to affect other reaches. Many women accept that extended pre- and during menstruation cramps are just par for the period course; but funnily enough, it can be the earliest sign that something is wrong and serve as a diagnostic indicator of endo.
• PELVIC PAIN: Once you learn how many pelvic organs the female body has, you become aware of what all endo can use to sling spasms at you, and not the nice kind. Pain can bombard one pelvic organ or several, your uterus or/and ovary (or/and both ovaries) or/and anything else that's "down there." Bloating can result, and that gives a specific painful discomfort of its own added to the cramping. "Well isn't it just like my period pain, then?" Yes, except pelvic pain does not confine itself just to your actual time of the month. You can be beset during your ovulation and before your period actually comes.
• BOWEL MOVEMENTS PAIN: "Just take a purge before your period," I've heard tell many a time. Like it's a simple as that. But this specific pain tells you that there are most likely lesions located between the uterus and the rectum, putting such pressure on both that you feel it when you try to pass. Furthermore, endo can be mistaken with irritable bowel syndrome because implants near the bowel produce chronic gastrointestinal symptoms. So while a doctor may be treating you for just IBS, you may be left to continue suffering from unidentified other endo-spurred gastro factors (and endo itself) like  yeast infections, prostaglandins release, endometrial tissue present in the cul-de-sac and out of wack intestinal bacteria flora. 
• SEX PAIN: Talk about knowing something intimately, right. Almost all endo-copers face this, with about two-thirds of us feeling dyspareunia, pain even after intercourse. Endo most occurs behind the uterus, in the cul-de-sac called pouch-of-Douglas. Lesions here can force the uterus into a tilted-back position (retroversion), bringing on unreasonable pain during vaginal penetration as the uterus shifts around or is totally pulled outward. The penis itself can damage with each thrust, by bruising or tearing present endometrial implants. This can cause bleeding after sex, and other complications one might encounter from an open wound. It can all be worse if you have sex while menstruating, as it will take longer to detect if you are bleeding from tearing and need to treat with that before it gets infected.
• OTHER AGONIES: Speaking of infections, the pain brought on by inflammation trying to battle those is severe and takes a long time to counter, because you have to fight the infection itself. Add to that, the resultant fever can actually kill you. Sorry to be blunt, but this is serious. Other symptoms, not immediately perceived as being painful, can also add aches to an already over-burdened body: nausea, vomiting, upset stomach, diarrhea, constipation and dizziness or passing out. There are also headaches, swollen limbs, hurts that come just from trying to walk, move at all, even sleep.

         These are among only the physical pains of endometriosis. Each one can indicate an issue we need to be looking at and doing something about.
         I suggest you refer back to the post, "The Agony Is the Beat."
         Please, do not sit back. I want you to groan and fear endo pain so much that you are willing to take committed steps to overthrowing it, if not completely, at least for almost that.

In beauty may you walk

Next post: Whyfore Art Thou Agony?
       










       

I ONCE described that the symptoms of endometriosis are as varying among different women as these women vary from each other.
         It's like a buffet menu but you have no say in what ends up on your plate. For some women, it's more of this and that, less of so-and-so; for others it's an unhealthy portion of Y, and X-amount of some'at else. 
         But here's what around 95 per cent of endo-copers share as communal fare: PAIN.
         Not surprising, that, since there is always pain in battles. And you are battling endo.
         Pain is endo's most wielded weapon; and an endo-sufferer can feel its wounding during her period, during her ovulation, during her day-to-day. You're always on the losing end when you face off with endometriosis agony.

         "Endo is causing me pain," you acknowledge. 

         But there are so many types of pain with endo, though. What is causing which pain?

         This is why I devoted an entire category specifically to pain. The issue is so grand, the layers are multi, there is so much to know: types of pain; times of pain; degrees and causes of; resulting complications; downright dangers to; triggers, treatments and trying to head pain off at the pass.
         All the most lauded generals of bygone wars advocated, "Know your enemy." That's the attitude to take with endometriosis pain, my warrior sistuhs. Get to know your pain intimately ... and I do not mean like you do now.

Pain gaining on you 

Learn the hurt inside out: how it evolves; why it does what it does; the altering feel of one type versus another; the remedies that can deal with each aspect where it is.
         Determine to make endo pain have to work hard to gain any ground in your life.
         Chronic ailments so rock our foundation, we often get lost under their influence and think of them as these great, big, insurmountable wholes.
         Even they are made up of elements. If we commit to aiming our concerted attacks on the manageable components, well, that's what wins us the war.

In beauty may you walk

Next post: Whys & Whens of Hurting

Endo agony may leave you feeling broken and empty, though the world around you is the same.

Mankoski Pain Scale: Zero to Ten

In beauty may you walk