Symptoms and detection
Pain is one of the most common symptoms of endometriosis. Usually the pain is in the abdomen, lower back, and pelvis. The amount of pain a woman feels does not depend on how much endometriosis she has. Some women have no pain, even though their disease affects large areas; other women with endometriosis have severe pain even though they have only a few small growths. Symptoms of endometriosis include:- Very painful menstrual cramps
- Pain with periods that gets worse over time
- Chronic pain in the lower back and pelvis
- Pain during or after sex
- Intestinal pain
- Painful bowel movements or painful urination during menstrual periods
- Heavy and/or long menstrual periods
- Spotting or bleeding between periods
- Infertility
- Fatigue
If you think you have this disease, talk with your obstetrician/gynecologist (OB/GYN). Your OB/GYN has special training to diagnose and treat this condition. The doctor will talk to you about your symptoms and health history. Then she or he will do a pelvic exam. Sometimes during the exam, the doctor can find signs of endometriosis.
Usually doctors need to run tests to find out if a woman has endometriosis. Sometimes doctors use imaging tests to "see" large growths of endometriosis inside the body. The two most common imaging tests are ultrasound, which uses sound waves to see inside the body, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which uses magnets and radio waves to make a "picture" of the inside of the body
The only way to know for sure if you have endometriosis is to have a surgery called laparoscopy. In this procedure, a tiny cut is made in your abdomen. A thin tube with a light is placed inside to see growths from endometriosis. Sometimes doctors can diagnose endometriosis just by seeing the growths. Other times, they need to take a small sample of tissue, or a biopsy, and study it under a microscope.