Time has not been with me recently, and when I am getting a sliver of down time, I am being walloped with fatigue, hence why this blog isn't getting updated very often.
March is Endometriosis Awareness month, and as someone who has been very affected by Endo, I always feel I should mark the occasion.
There have been some very interesting articles about this week in regards to periods. The one making the social media rounds has been about a Bristol based company that is going to offer 'period leave' to its female employees.http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/03/01/period-policy-company-bristol-coexist_n_9354208.html?ncid=fcbklnkukhpmg00000001
This, of course, has stirred up plenty of controversy. Amongst those with Endo, many have said how huge of a help this would have been to them. I keep wanting to know where I would fall into this policy. Being almost 7 years post-hyst, I don't technically have periods anymore, but I still have 'phantom periods' which can still be very painful. I suspect whoever came up with this policy hadn't thought of that one.
This article also caught my eye - http://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/my-health-story/my-period-is-more-painful-than-cancer/
The title pretty much says it all. Endo is bloody painful, yet people who don't understand it think it's 'just a bit of period pain'. It isn't. My old GP in Canada summed up Endo pain well when she said, 'I could swear it's like you're in labour every month with your periods'. Yup, why I had my uterus out. When I was in that huge Crohn's flare two years ago, the gastro clinic staff kept asking, 'Aren't you in pain?', and I kept saying, 'Comparatively? No.', because despite how very unhappy my guts were, they had nothing on my life pre-hysterectomy.
I also came across this really interesting article in The Atlantic this week.http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/02/when-doctors-should-say-i-dont-know/471222/
It's not specifically about Endo or IBD, but really sums up my view of how patients see the medical community, and how the medical community sees itself. Patients are often seeking answers from medical professionals, and medical professionals are trained from early on in their careers to think they have them. But the reality of medicine, and science generally, is that it often doesn't have the answers; what it has is (hopefully well done) research that is cobbled together on a balance of probabilities, which doesn't always give definite answers.
Endo is a perfect example of this. There is no definitive diagnostic test for Endo. The 'gold standard' in diagnosis is a laparoscopy, however it has many limitations, especially as it is down to the individual surgeon's skill in identifying it. So many women subject themselves to invasive surgery in hopes of answers and don't get any (or are told it is all in their head). However, they are still in pain, and pain doesn't come from nowhere. And even with a diagnosis, there still aren't answers. Although surgical removal of Endo is the 'gold standard' treatment, it again comes down to the skill of the surgeon and is no guarantee. So despite the hard science crowd screaming 'show me the evidence!', the reality is that with a lot of chronic illnesses, what there is isn't really hard evidence - it's just a balance of probabilities.
March is Endometriosis Awareness month, and as someone who has been very affected by Endo, I always feel I should mark the occasion.
There have been some very interesting articles about this week in regards to periods. The one making the social media rounds has been about a Bristol based company that is going to offer 'period leave' to its female employees.http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/03/01/period-policy-company-bristol-coexist_n_9354208.html?ncid=fcbklnkukhpmg00000001
This, of course, has stirred up plenty of controversy. Amongst those with Endo, many have said how huge of a help this would have been to them. I keep wanting to know where I would fall into this policy. Being almost 7 years post-hyst, I don't technically have periods anymore, but I still have 'phantom periods' which can still be very painful. I suspect whoever came up with this policy hadn't thought of that one.
This article also caught my eye - http://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/my-health-story/my-period-is-more-painful-than-cancer/
The title pretty much says it all. Endo is bloody painful, yet people who don't understand it think it's 'just a bit of period pain'. It isn't. My old GP in Canada summed up Endo pain well when she said, 'I could swear it's like you're in labour every month with your periods'. Yup, why I had my uterus out. When I was in that huge Crohn's flare two years ago, the gastro clinic staff kept asking, 'Aren't you in pain?', and I kept saying, 'Comparatively? No.', because despite how very unhappy my guts were, they had nothing on my life pre-hysterectomy.
I also came across this really interesting article in The Atlantic this week.http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/02/when-doctors-should-say-i-dont-know/471222/
It's not specifically about Endo or IBD, but really sums up my view of how patients see the medical community, and how the medical community sees itself. Patients are often seeking answers from medical professionals, and medical professionals are trained from early on in their careers to think they have them. But the reality of medicine, and science generally, is that it often doesn't have the answers; what it has is (hopefully well done) research that is cobbled together on a balance of probabilities, which doesn't always give definite answers.
Endo is a perfect example of this. There is no definitive diagnostic test for Endo. The 'gold standard' in diagnosis is a laparoscopy, however it has many limitations, especially as it is down to the individual surgeon's skill in identifying it. So many women subject themselves to invasive surgery in hopes of answers and don't get any (or are told it is all in their head). However, they are still in pain, and pain doesn't come from nowhere. And even with a diagnosis, there still aren't answers. Although surgical removal of Endo is the 'gold standard' treatment, it again comes down to the skill of the surgeon and is no guarantee. So despite the hard science crowd screaming 'show me the evidence!', the reality is that with a lot of chronic illnesses, what there is isn't really hard evidence - it's just a balance of probabilities.
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