How did I get endometriosis?” women want to know. “Why me?” “Why is one woman susceptible to the disease and not another?” doctors ask.
Endometriosis is not a disease with a single cause. Clinicians have long been attempting to find the key to the onset of endometriosis. Is it associated with a virus, a weakness in the immune system, a hereditary predisposition, or is it related to personality—especially in regard to coping with stress or numerous other environmental variables?
Further probing brings up other questions of why one woman will fall victim to endometriosis and not another: Is the susceptibility traceable to a balance, or imbalance, of some combination of factors? Can you accidentally give yourself endometriosis as the result of a fall or any other accident? How implicated are birth control pills or even intrauterine influences from before you were born?
Ingenious laboratory experiments and dedicated scientific observations over the last decade have added to a vast body of knowledge about the disease. We have solved a few intriguing riddles about this condition, although we are still puzzling through the many possible theories. Of them, a number have been scientifically validated; others are myths—or misinformation—but they tend to hold a certain power for believers.
There could be no better time than now to find the Cause and cure of endometriosis. Women understand their bodies and arc more informed partners in their health care. This is an extraordinary time in women’s lives. Contemporary pressures and biological nuances—such as high-pressure life-styles and the problems of delaying childbirth, in combination with abnormal menstrual bleeding—have significantly added to the number of victims of endometriosis. Overwork, worry, fatigue, and stress-related illnesses common to working women also contribute to the onset of the disease.
*19\43\4*
