What is Endometriosis?

Endometriosis. You know you've heard the word before and you're almost certain it's some kind of disease-certainly sounds like one, anyway-but if pressed to name a symptom or part of the body it affects, could you do it?

Endometriosis is a disease that receives its name from the fact that it affects the tissue that lines the uterus, also known as the endometrium. Good news and bad: The good news is that if you are man, you probably don't have to worry about contracting endometriosis. The bad news, of course, is that any women can potentially develop the disease after the onset of menstruation. What is endometriosis, then? It is a disease in which the endometrium, or lining, begins to grow on the exterior of the uterus. It is a particularly frustrating condition because as of yet, nobody is really sure why it happens.

The endometrium begins to grow somewhere else in the pelvic cavity, exterior to the uterus, either directly on or somewhere beneath the ovaries, or else behind the uterus. Sometimes the growth occurs on the bowels of the bladder. It has even been known to occasionally grow outside the pelvic cavity, though these cases are, thankfully, rare indeed. The result of endometrium growth outside the uterus is the development of large growths, often referred to as tumors, but which in fact are not usually cancerous. A better description of these growths would be lesions. Whatever they may be called, they can be incredibly painful, even if they aren't cancerous.