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Every month, hormones cause the lining of a woman's uterus to build up
with tissue and blood vessels.
If a woman does not get pregnant, the uterus
sheds this tissue and blood.
It comes out of the body through the vagina as her
menstrual period.
Patches of endometriosis also respond to a woman's monthly cycle.
Each month
the growths add extra tissue and blood, but there is no place for the built-up
tissue and blood to exit the body.
For this reason, growths tend to get bigger
and the symptoms of endometriosis often get worse over time.
Tissue and blood that is shed into the body can cause
- inflammation,
- scar tissue,
- pain.
Infertility
The main complication of endometriosis is impaired fertility.
Approximately 1/3 to 1/2 of women who have difficulty
becoming pregnant have endometriosis.
For pregnancy to occur, an egg must be released from an ovary
and travel through the fallopian tube to the uterus (womb),
where it can be fertilized by a male's sperm and then attach to
the uterine wall to begin development.
As the misplaced tissue grows, it can
cover the ovaries and block the fallopian tubes.
Endometriosis can produce
adhesions that can trap the egg in its way towards the ovary.
It may inhibit
the mobility of the fallopian tube and impair its ability to
pick up the egg.
In most cases, however, endometriosis probably
interferes with conception in more complex ways.
This can make it
hard for women with endometriosis to get pregnant.
Despite these possible complications, many women with
endometriosis are still able to conceive.
It may take them a
little longer to get pregnant, but most women with mild to
moderate endometriosis can become pregnant.
Doctors advise women with endometriosis not to
delay having children because endometriosis tends to worsen with
time.
The longer you have endometriosis, the greater your chance
of becoming infertile.
During pregnancy,
most women have no signs or symptoms of endometriosis.
Other organs
The growths can also cause
problems in the intestines
and bladder.
Cancer
Having endometriosis doesn't
increase your risk of uterine cancer or ovarian cancer.
Growths of endometriosis are almost always benign or not cancerous, but still
can cause many problems.
Although cancerous changes may occur in endometrial implants,
the rate of cancer in this tissue hasn't been shown to be higher
than that in other tissues.
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