Endometriosis: Is it synonymous with infertility?

Endometriosis is a chronic gynecological disease about which awareness is still emerging because the symptoms are of unknown origin and are replaced by other complaints that prevent women from going to a specialist in time.

About 190 million women in the world suffer from endometriosis and many of them without an accurate diagnosis, says the World Health Organization.

Its main symptom is dysmenorrhea, or severe pain during menstruation, according to experts.

“Endometriosis is defined as a condition in which endometrial tissue, or the tissue that covers the inside of the uterus, develops outside of it,” says Dr. Saúl Barrera, medical director of IVI Panama.

It is written in detail: “The presence of endometrium is more common in organs such as ovaries, fallopian tubes, and even the abdomen”.

Due to the many symptoms that endometriosis presents, it is often difficult to diagnose and many patients with this condition are barely aware of it, which leads to a long time gap between the onset symptoms and diagnosiscausing major changes such as “infertility”.

It is often difficult for patients with this disease to have children, because depending on the type of endometriosis, it can affect fertility.

In cases eovarian endometriosis (endometrioma) There may be a decrease in the number of ovules, in adenomyosis, less embryo implantation, there are many mechanisms through which endometriosis causes infertility, although suffering from this disease is not synonymous with infertility.

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There is still no known cure for endometriosis, so goal treatment is usually symptom control.

For this reason it is important to know these signs and leave See a specialist if you have them.

Some signs or indications you might have endometriosis are: menses painful, pelvic pain that lasts for a long time, pain during or after sexual intercourse, pain when performing physiological needs, constant fatigue, depression, nausea and abdominal swelling.

“Some patients with visibly large lesions have mild symptoms, while others with few lesions are more severe. It occurs in patients from the first menstruation to menopause, sometimes asymptomatically. Therefore, for all women of reproductive age, gynecological monitoring must be the most important, and even more so, they should visit a specialist if they have the above-mentioned symptoms and want to have children,” says Dr. Barrera.