WHAT IS ENDOMETRIOSIS?
I've been working with someone on editing my book, and so I decided it was probably time to share a little bit more about it. My book is a memoir, about healing an illness that is supposedly incurable.
When I was 23 I was diagnosed with an illness called endometriosis. Endometriosis is an immune-hormonal disease, in which the endometrium tissue which is normally found inside the uterus is found outside of it in other parts of the body. When a woman has her period, her brain tells all of this tissue to break and bleed, regardless of it's location in the body. However, if it is outside of the uterus there is no way for it to be flushed out of the body, so she ends up with internal bleeding, which apart from being excruciating in pain, also causes a lot of damage to her body. It also causes degeneration of the blood and tissue shed from the growths, inflammation of the surrounding areas, and formation of scar tissue. Each month this happens, the body sees this tissue as an open wound so it tries to cover it, in order to heal it, and this results in scar tissue building up over scar tissue. If this illness is left untreated over a course of many years, a lot of women have found that these adhesions end up attaching their organs in their reproductive system together, in what is called a ‘frozen pelvis’. In these cases the entire reproductive system is usually completely removed.
While Endometriosis is usually found in the area surrounding the reproductive system it has been found pretty much everywhere else in the body. A lot of the ways endometriosis affects a woman or a girl’s body is dependent on the location of it. If it is in the bowels or the intestines it can obstruct those areas from functioning properly or if it completely obstructs it she can die. If it is found in the lungs it can lead to a woman having a collapsed lung on her period, which is what happened to me. If it is found in the brain, it can cause migraines as a result of internal bleeding every month. One thing that is really misunderstood about this illness is that it can be found anywhere in the body. While it is commonly found in the reproductive system or the areas surrounding it, it’s been found in other remote areas, like right under the skin or in a woman’s thighs. Endometriosis is a very serious illness, that is not taken seriously at all. Despite the fact that it is estimated around 70-90 million women worldwide suffer from it, the majority of people have never heard of it, and the medical community still doesn’t think it’s a very big deal. It is also linked to 12 different types of cancer, and 12 different types of auto-immune diseases, and in the later stages of the illness it usually causes infertility seeing that it pretty much destroys the entire reproductive system.
While the cause of endometriosis is unknown, they have found a direct link between the development of this illness and exposure to dioxins. Dioxins are highly toxic chemicals that are found in our environment. The majority of them get inside our body through our food supply specifically through eating meat, and diary products. The other ways they get into our body is through air pollution and contaminated water. Once inside the body it can be very difficult to get them out. I talk a lot in my book about healing this illness through acupuncture, herbs, Reiki, diet changes and a variety of other techniques. I believe you can definitely detox from this naturally and that is the best way to approach this illness.
The medical community definitely does not take this illness seriously, they are also incredibly misinformed about it. In my case it took me almost 4 and a half years to get diagnosed with it in the first place, because everyone thought I was too young to have this illness. In a lot of cases it takes women anywhere from 5-7 years or even up to 9 or 10 years to be diagnosed with this illness. As you can imagine by that point she is very very sick, because by the time you initially start going to the doctor you are sick, and then the disease gets worse every month. While it's estimated that this illness affects anywhere from 70-90 million women worldwide, I personally believe that given how toxic our environment is that there is no way that every woman doesn't have endometriosis to some degree. I mean keep in mind that approximately 1 billion people on this planet don't even have access to clean drinking water, how could these numbers not be higher?
I think one of the most important facts that I learned during this illness, which I wish I could let every woman on this planet know about is that, dioxins, are also found in our sanitary products. In both tampons and sanitary pads. I genuinely believe this could be the direct cause of a lot of cancers, and other reproductive diseases that affect that part of our bodies. Regardless of if you have endometriosis or not this is something that you should be well aware of.I use something called Natracare, there are a few other brands as well, I know whole foods carries them, or you can use cloth sanitary pads. You can also buy them online, because the major supermarkets and the major brands do contain dioxins, so you have to go a little bit out of your way to find them. But this alone could save your life. Imagine how much exposure we've had to these chemicals as a result of having tampons with dioxins in them, in that part of our body for a week straight out of the month. It's right there in your reproductive system, it's just horrifying when you think about it. Especially, since no one has ever informed us about this.
Why isn't endometriosis taken seriously? First and foremost it only affects women, and we live in a male dominate world, with a male dominated and male created medical system. The male population can look at pictures of vaginas all they want, that doesn't mean they'll ever know anything about menstruation or what it means to be a woman. On top of that menstruation is still something that is very taboo to talk about. Women can be very embarassed about this, because we've been taught that it is something that is dirty and shameful, and in most cultures girls aren't even told that they will someday have periods. This illness also affects women's reproductive systems, another taboo topic, and also involves topics of sex and sexuality, once again not something openly discussed. It leaves women feeling very alone, and also it's almost been ingrained in us that menstruation is suppose to be painful. It's a curse, that we have because we're women, right? This couldn't be further from the truth your period should NEVER hurt and more importantly menstruation used to be a time of extreme celebration, and something that the male population was in awe of. This was of course under the matriarchy, when it was seen as beyond remarkable that as women we can bleed for a week out of the month without dying and without pain.
Overall, I would tell every woman that she needs to put her own health first and foremost, because no one will ever care about you as much as you care about yourself. I would also tell her, that when a doctor says something is "incurable" what he/she is really saying is that "they do not have the tools to help you heal from it, but that doesn't mean that other people don't have those tools." I met a lot of powerful, amazing healers on my journey who help people heal from every illness imaginable. If doctors aren't giving you the answers you like, then go elsewhere, and find someone who will tell you what you want to hear. Also, always be 100 percent in charge of your health, never give your power over to someone else, just because they might have more degrees than you. When it comes down to it, do your own research. The only reason I'm still alive, is because I spent hours upon days and months researching this illness, in order to find out as much information as I could, so that I could find someway to heal from it. Overall, my health today is much better than it was. I still feel like I'm healing on some level, but I am no longer in massive amounts of pain, and I know that for the most part the endo is pretty much gone.
This site teaches you how to make cloth sanitary pads, I just really liked the first comment which was by a teenage girl who is going to cut up one of her brother's t-shirts so that she can "recycle" it.
http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/sanitarypads.htm
This is a link to Natracare the products that I use that do NOT contain dioxins.
http://www.natracare.com
This is a link to the Endometriosis Association they are the leading researchers in the world, and have a lot more information about this illness.
http://www.endometriosisassn.org/
When I was 23 I was diagnosed with an illness called endometriosis. Endometriosis is an immune-hormonal disease, in which the endometrium tissue which is normally found inside the uterus is found outside of it in other parts of the body. When a woman has her period, her brain tells all of this tissue to break and bleed, regardless of it's location in the body. However, if it is outside of the uterus there is no way for it to be flushed out of the body, so she ends up with internal bleeding, which apart from being excruciating in pain, also causes a lot of damage to her body. It also causes degeneration of the blood and tissue shed from the growths, inflammation of the surrounding areas, and formation of scar tissue. Each month this happens, the body sees this tissue as an open wound so it tries to cover it, in order to heal it, and this results in scar tissue building up over scar tissue. If this illness is left untreated over a course of many years, a lot of women have found that these adhesions end up attaching their organs in their reproductive system together, in what is called a ‘frozen pelvis’. In these cases the entire reproductive system is usually completely removed.
While Endometriosis is usually found in the area surrounding the reproductive system it has been found pretty much everywhere else in the body. A lot of the ways endometriosis affects a woman or a girl’s body is dependent on the location of it. If it is in the bowels or the intestines it can obstruct those areas from functioning properly or if it completely obstructs it she can die. If it is found in the lungs it can lead to a woman having a collapsed lung on her period, which is what happened to me. If it is found in the brain, it can cause migraines as a result of internal bleeding every month. One thing that is really misunderstood about this illness is that it can be found anywhere in the body. While it is commonly found in the reproductive system or the areas surrounding it, it’s been found in other remote areas, like right under the skin or in a woman’s thighs. Endometriosis is a very serious illness, that is not taken seriously at all. Despite the fact that it is estimated around 70-90 million women worldwide suffer from it, the majority of people have never heard of it, and the medical community still doesn’t think it’s a very big deal. It is also linked to 12 different types of cancer, and 12 different types of auto-immune diseases, and in the later stages of the illness it usually causes infertility seeing that it pretty much destroys the entire reproductive system.
While the cause of endometriosis is unknown, they have found a direct link between the development of this illness and exposure to dioxins. Dioxins are highly toxic chemicals that are found in our environment. The majority of them get inside our body through our food supply specifically through eating meat, and diary products. The other ways they get into our body is through air pollution and contaminated water. Once inside the body it can be very difficult to get them out. I talk a lot in my book about healing this illness through acupuncture, herbs, Reiki, diet changes and a variety of other techniques. I believe you can definitely detox from this naturally and that is the best way to approach this illness.
The medical community definitely does not take this illness seriously, they are also incredibly misinformed about it. In my case it took me almost 4 and a half years to get diagnosed with it in the first place, because everyone thought I was too young to have this illness. In a lot of cases it takes women anywhere from 5-7 years or even up to 9 or 10 years to be diagnosed with this illness. As you can imagine by that point she is very very sick, because by the time you initially start going to the doctor you are sick, and then the disease gets worse every month. While it's estimated that this illness affects anywhere from 70-90 million women worldwide, I personally believe that given how toxic our environment is that there is no way that every woman doesn't have endometriosis to some degree. I mean keep in mind that approximately 1 billion people on this planet don't even have access to clean drinking water, how could these numbers not be higher?
I think one of the most important facts that I learned during this illness, which I wish I could let every woman on this planet know about is that, dioxins, are also found in our sanitary products. In both tampons and sanitary pads. I genuinely believe this could be the direct cause of a lot of cancers, and other reproductive diseases that affect that part of our bodies. Regardless of if you have endometriosis or not this is something that you should be well aware of.I use something called Natracare, there are a few other brands as well, I know whole foods carries them, or you can use cloth sanitary pads. You can also buy them online, because the major supermarkets and the major brands do contain dioxins, so you have to go a little bit out of your way to find them. But this alone could save your life. Imagine how much exposure we've had to these chemicals as a result of having tampons with dioxins in them, in that part of our body for a week straight out of the month. It's right there in your reproductive system, it's just horrifying when you think about it. Especially, since no one has ever informed us about this.
Why isn't endometriosis taken seriously? First and foremost it only affects women, and we live in a male dominate world, with a male dominated and male created medical system. The male population can look at pictures of vaginas all they want, that doesn't mean they'll ever know anything about menstruation or what it means to be a woman. On top of that menstruation is still something that is very taboo to talk about. Women can be very embarassed about this, because we've been taught that it is something that is dirty and shameful, and in most cultures girls aren't even told that they will someday have periods. This illness also affects women's reproductive systems, another taboo topic, and also involves topics of sex and sexuality, once again not something openly discussed. It leaves women feeling very alone, and also it's almost been ingrained in us that menstruation is suppose to be painful. It's a curse, that we have because we're women, right? This couldn't be further from the truth your period should NEVER hurt and more importantly menstruation used to be a time of extreme celebration, and something that the male population was in awe of. This was of course under the matriarchy, when it was seen as beyond remarkable that as women we can bleed for a week out of the month without dying and without pain.
Overall, I would tell every woman that she needs to put her own health first and foremost, because no one will ever care about you as much as you care about yourself. I would also tell her, that when a doctor says something is "incurable" what he/she is really saying is that "they do not have the tools to help you heal from it, but that doesn't mean that other people don't have those tools." I met a lot of powerful, amazing healers on my journey who help people heal from every illness imaginable. If doctors aren't giving you the answers you like, then go elsewhere, and find someone who will tell you what you want to hear. Also, always be 100 percent in charge of your health, never give your power over to someone else, just because they might have more degrees than you. When it comes down to it, do your own research. The only reason I'm still alive, is because I spent hours upon days and months researching this illness, in order to find out as much information as I could, so that I could find someway to heal from it. Overall, my health today is much better than it was. I still feel like I'm healing on some level, but I am no longer in massive amounts of pain, and I know that for the most part the endo is pretty much gone.
This site teaches you how to make cloth sanitary pads, I just really liked the first comment which was by a teenage girl who is going to cut up one of her brother's t-shirts so that she can "recycle" it.
http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/sanitarypads.htm
This is a link to Natracare the products that I use that do NOT contain dioxins.
http://www.natracare.com
This is a link to the Endometriosis Association they are the leading researchers in the world, and have a lot more information about this illness.
http://www.endometriosisassn.org/
