Endometriosis by Alison Andrews

Endometriosis is a dis-ease where the lining of the uterus has migrated to other areas of the pelvis. This means that once a month when the endometrial lining gets the signal to shed, this tissue builds up, breaks down and bleeds, just like the tissue inside the uterus.

For the tissue inside the uterus, at least the blood has somewhere to go - out of the body! For the bleeding tissue that has migrated outside of the uterus, the blood has nowhere to go. The result is internal bleeding, breakdown of the blood and tissue from the lesions, and inflammation. This can cause excruciating pain, infertility, scar tissue formation, adhesions and bowel problems.

Endometriosis Symptoms

Strangely, the amount of adhesions one has does not have bearing on the symptoms. Many women have endometriosis but are completely unaware of it as they have no symptoms. Frequently the first time they hear of this dis-ease is when they find themselves unable to fall pregnant.

Conversely, a woman may have very little endometrial adhesions but may suffer excruciating pain and a range of symptoms. There is no relationship between the severity of the pain experienced and the endometriosis stages, whether it is at an early or late stage of the illness, and how widespread it is.

Typical symptoms are: pelvic pain and swelling; pain before and/or after menstruation; severe menstrual cramps; painful intercourse; painful orgasms; heavy or irregular menstrual bleeding; painful bowel movements; cycles of diarrhea and constipation; infertility; intestinal distress such as bloating, vomiting, nausea; infertility; lower back pain; painful urination; bladder pain; fatigue.

Endometriosis Treatment and Diagnosis

Treatment and official diagnosis may take place at the same time. In order to officially determine whether someone has endometriosis a laparoscopic surgery is usually performed.

The doctor may be able to remove some of the endometrial lesions during this procedure. In many cases diagnosis just takes place based on symptoms. This is also why endometriosis is frequently misdiagnosed as Irritable Bowel Syndrome or Spastic Colon.

Endometriosis surgery is either conservative or definitive. Conservative surgery refers to laparoscopic surgery where the endometrial implants may be removed with laser.

Definitive surgery would be the removal of the uterus - hysterectomy.

In most cases the surgery is only able to remove some of the lesions, many are not visible.

Non surgical endometriosis treatment involves birth control pills or other hormone treatment.

However, it is generally accepted in the medical community that endometriosis is incurable.

Enough With The 'Facts'

Okay so this completes all the fact building on endometriosis. Now I’m done with the facts and I can move on to my own personal story and my own personal beliefs.

In my view, the medical options are particularly unappealing. So you may undergo hormone treatment and completely stuff up your natural balance which may lead you to all sorts of other problems, OR you can have your entire uterus taken out or poked and prodded under laparoscopy and YOU WILL STILL HAVE ENDOMETRIOSIS. What is the point of that?

There must be something better right? I firmly believe there is!

Endometriosis Diet

When I first looked into a diet for endometriosis I discovered that there were various things suggested, such as eliminating dairy products, soy products, wheat products, caffeine, alcohol, all the usual suspects.

At the time I was consuming quite a lot of wheat and soy products. I wasn't surprised at this list of no-no's. Nothing can mess up your hormone balance quite as much as dairy, and soy and wheat products are common allergens which lead to digestive disorders.

Anyone who has suffered with endometriosis knows that the WORST thing that can possibly happen at the same time as your poor body is struggling to deal with the assault of all this internal bleeding and inflammation, is a digestive disorder! Holy Cow you have enough of a disorder going on already!

So it makes sense that while you’re in the midst of an endometriosis attack you should only eat foods that are going to digest really easily and not cause any irritation of the stomach lining (alcohol, caffeine etc).

I find that the less I eat the better. My stomach swells up enormously and is crazily sensitive. If Jaye just brushes against me I’ll scream in pain. If I need to pee I cry the pain is so bad, so I don’t want to tell you what it feels like if I need to do anything else!

I also vomit and suffer from nausea during an attack so the best thing for me is to fast or at least to eat very simple small mono meals, such as a few oranges. The less going on in your stomach during an attack the better.

But what about an endometriosis diet for the rest of the time?

The body has enormous healing powers. We do not heal our bodies with what we put in them, our bodies heal themselves. All we have to do is get out of their way. Anything that we are doing that is causing acid in the body is getting in the body’s way and only delaying healing.

In order to heal the body needs to be in an alkaline state. Raw fruits and vegetables are alkaline (even acid fruits like citrus and pineapple etc are still alkaline, they may be acid on the tongue but they are alkaline in the body).

Animal products, alcohol, caffeine, medications (any medications at all, even just an aspirin) are acid forming. So when you want to promote the most alkaline environment possible for your body so that it can begin to heal itself, it makes sense to consume the most alkalizing foods: fruits and vegetables.

An Emotional Component

My last period was very bad. It was strange as the one before that had me rejoicing and thinking that maybe it was the end of my worries as it wasn’t nearly as bad as usual.

So I got a shock this time. I had 2 days of solid agony. I had just learned some EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique, I definitely need to learn more about this technique) where you rub your pressure points and say a mantra. I was saying this:

'Even though my stomach is in so much pain, still I choose to heal and integrate this part of myself.'

You repeat this mantra three times while rubbing the side of your hand and then you do seven deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth, and imagine that you're breathing in with positivity, out with negativity. Then you place your hands on your heart.

Well it gave me something to do, which I was grateful for, and it seemed to bring the pain from a 10 down to a 4 sometimes for a few blessed minutes, but then it would go right back up to a 10 again, if not a 12 or a 15.

I didn’t get any sleep and spent the first night practically rubbing all the skin off my pressure points I was so desperate for this EFT to work.

A couple of days ago my husband Jaye had an amazing insight. He turned to me and said:

‘I wonder if part of the reason you may be suffering from endometriosis is because in the past you focused your self hatred onto your stomach area.’

Well bingo! It made so much sense.

From puberty onwards I hated my stomach. It was never flat enough for my tastes and no matter how thin I ever got, there was always a little roll (from puberty and until very recently sports and me had nothing in common, so it's no surprise really).

I would always look at this little roll of flab with disgust and self hatred. Many many years of disgust, anger at my body and self hatred has been directed at this particular area of my body. When I have gained weight it has always been primarily centered on my stomach, which just gave me another reason to focus some more hatred there.

Is it any surprise that when something DID go wrong in my body that it was in this area?

Jaye and I have been listening to a lot of inspiring audio recordings lately, the I Can Do It by Louise Hay and Get the Edge: A 7 Day Program to Transform Your Life by Anthony Robbins and The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.

Everything in our lives we have created. We have created it through our thoughts and our emotions. Those thoughts and emotions led to certain choices, dietary, lifestyle, career, relationships, and all of those choices have led us to exactly where we are now. We cannot look at anything in our lives currently and believe it came out of nowhere. We created it.

Nothing good can come out of hating any part of ourselves.

Just after Jaye had had his insight, I was listening to the I Can Do It audio again and lo and behold Louise talks about how you must NEVER direct any negative emotion onto any part of your body. If you want to heal your body, LOVE your body. Cover your body with love and gratitude and acceptance.

I have been working very hard the last couple of years to rid myself of any negative cycles, but there were times when I just wasn’t sure exactly what to do. So that is why I am so glad that now I have Louise Hay, Abraham Hicks, Anthony Robbins and all these other great teachers to show me the way.

I am convinced that positive affirmations, lots of self love and positive visualizations of a perfectly healthy pain free body, together with a healthy lifestyle can kick endometriosis in the butt.

Hell, Louise Hay made a complete recovery from vaginal cancer, with absolutely NO medical intervention. Instead she worked on things like nutrition, love, forgiveness, affirmations, visualizations and gratitude for the healing taking place.

So often when we have an illness, we focus all our attention on the ILLNESS. We tell all our friends, we moan and complain, we talk about it endlessly. But this is focusing on what we DON’T WANT!

We need to focus all that power on what we DO WANT. Which is healing. So I will not be whining anymore about this illness, as I am now focusing all my energy on the healing that is taking place.

I have been sending so much love to my stomach lately, I am rubbing it lovingly and telling it I love it! I am also doing positive visualizations and whenever I think of it I affirm:

‘Thank You For My Healing.’

About The Author

Alison Andrews is a full time author, blogger, vlogger and musician. She is also the author of the book Desperately Seeking Jude: Confessions of a Sex-Mad Beauty Queen. She lives in Dubai with her husband Jaye, and spends her time creating content for her websites http://www.loving-it-raw.com/index.html and http://www.alison-andrews.com/index.html

The author invites you to visit:
http://www.loving-it-raw.com