Endometriosis is a distressing condition. Dealing with your emotional reactions can be as difficult as coping with the symptoms. Even before the diagnosis is made, women become anxious and frustrated. What is causing the symptoms? Is your doctor taking them seriously? Are you neurotic? Could it all be in your head? (No! It’s all in your pelvis!) Are your family and friends getting fed up with you because you’re so often unwell and out of action? Also, many women feel more restrained about telling people that they’re not well because of menstrual problems than because of, say, earache.
There’s often a sense of relief when diagnosis gives the symptoms a name, though further frustration soon follows when you discover that there’s no certain cure for the disease. You may feel anger (why me?) and guilt (have I done something to deserve this?), or depressed because the future seems bleak.
If pain makes you avoid sex you’ll be missing out on one of the good things of life, and you’ll also have to cope with your partner’s reaction: some men are wonderfully supportive but others feel rejected and the relationship can fall apart. And if infertility is a problem, there are all the complex emotional reactions to that disappointment.
One development in the past decade that can really help sufferers of endometriosis is the establishment of support groups. These groups can be found in the capital cities of every State and in some large country centers. They offer emotional support and counselling for women with endometriosis and their families, plus full information about services, treatments and research in endometriosis. Contact the Endometriosis Association (Victoria), 37 Andrew Crescent, Croydon, Vic. 3136 for information about groups in your district.
Understanding of endometriosis is growing, new hormonal treatments are on the horizon and surgical techniques are constantly improving. The prospects for relief of symptoms and improved fertility are very much better now than they were 30 years ago, and let’s hope that the future brings a cure.
*263/31/5*
No comments yet.