The first time I read the report of my pelvic MRI and saw that I suffered from deep grade-IV endometriosis. I was scared. I was 32 years old at the time. Even though I am a medical doctor and practicing as an integrative doctor, I hadn’t ever stopped to learn more about endometriosis.
As I studied at medical school for my degree, the subject of gynecology was more focused on pathologies such as breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and more. The textbooks and professors mentioned endometriosis at some point. However, I do not remember that it ever caught my attention because they clearly did not explain the reality of suffering from this condition.
After reading the report, I had to search for exactly what deep endometriosis was, how it affected the lives of girls with it, what the prognosis was, and what possible treatments were available. I didn’t know a lot about it!
I did not like what I found. It even scared me a lot, especially seeing so many opinions about the difficulty that patients had in achieving a viable pregnancy. I had always wanted to be a mother. Now that I had decided to try for it, I saw everything further and further away.
Once I had the diagnosis, the pilgrimage began with visits to different specialists. I remember the first one. I went alone, thinking well, now he will tell me that I have to take oral contraceptives. I would have to accept it since I saw no other way to approach this disease, and my endometriosis was already very advanced.
To my surprise, the first doctor said he could operate on me. Why was I surprised? I didn’t know that surgery was even an option. It means a stay at the hospital and a specialized team with a gastroenterologist since part of the surgery is a resection of the rectum. I was totally shocked! Every time I remember the moment, I get goosebumps.
I was there alone. I assumed that I would simply have to accept the pill. Instead, I had a doctor with a sad face as he knew the reality of my situation. He told me that not only will the surgeon need to remove the endometriomas from my ovaries, but the bowel was involved. The surgeon would need to remove a section of my rectum. It hit me at that moment of how serious my situation was, and how advanced my disease was.
I began to cry. I entered the doctor’s office with all the information I had found, with a medical background, with all the information about health and treatments, and suddenly I felt more alone and more scared than I had been in my whole life.
I thanked him and left. called my boyfriend and cried again. From then on, I made many visits to various gynecologists. They all recommended that the best thing to do was to operate. At that time, my endometriosis affected my left ovary with 3 endometriomas with a maximum of 3cm, my left ovary had one of 10cm, involvement of the vagina, adhesions between the two ovaries, involvement of more than 50% of the circumference of the rectum, and a fibroid to finish the devastating diagnosis.
My OBGYN informed me that I could not get pregnant because it would be a risky pregnancy for both me and the baby. We both would be at a very high risk of complications.
My world stopped for a few seconds, everything I had planned and my short-term goals had to be canceled.
How can a disease change your whole life in a few seconds? Receiving news like this feels like your entire life has been voided, then the negativity surfaces.
Suddenly, you think that you will never be a mother. The system isn’t helpful in that area either. You think that you will never be cured, and the disease will get worse and worse.
I felt enormous pressure from the medical establishment to simply accept the operating room. They do not consider any other option to help you improve apart from the contraceptive pill.
While you are suffering from all the bad news you just received, you are also being affected by the disease, how active it is, and how it prevents you from thinking clearly. Normally, you might experience this only during ovulation, but with endometriosis, the reality is that the impact is extended throughout the entire month. You don’t have a moment of peace of mind to think calmly.
At one point, I wanted the doctors to operate and remove my uterus, ovaries, and everything they could, to stop the constant pain I suffered from.
The pain from endometriosis had begun 2 years earlier when I stopped taking oral contraceptives. I did this as I studied Integrative Medicine and learned how bad oral contraceptives were and their side effects. I was 30 years old, and I was aware that if I wanted to be a mother, I had to prepare my body and mind beforehand to be as healthy as possible.
It was also during that time when I moved to a new house made primarily of wood. It appeared to be a very nice and beautiful house! How wrong was I…
My period began as usual without pain or any problems. However, pain began to occur month after month and intensified during those two years. After the 2 years, the pain was present for 30 days a month. Sometimes, I had about seven “good” days a month and was asymptomatic.
The pain was in the lumbar area of my back. It was so bad that I bought a new mattress thinking that it was the cause of the pain. I also got sick every month before my period came, which was like a cold with a fever. I was very tired. I didn’t sleep well. I woke up 5 times a night to urinate.
I was sad, depressed, and my character changed, I didn’t want to see anyone, and I didn’t feel like myself. I didn’t recognize myself.
I went to work in so much pain that even some patients could tell. Sometimes, I cried just having to take the bus to go to my workplace. At work, they made it easier for me by allowing me to work remotely to avoid traveling when the pain was worse. My life had changed and I was totally limited.
At that point, I decided that the lesser evil would be my best solution, and I started taking contraceptive pills without any breaks. But when I started this regimen, it made the pain much worse. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I went to the emergency room due to a suspected intestinal obstruction. I couldn’t go to the bathroom, and my belly was very swollen. I had horrible pain.
Then I had an “aha” moment. I had a realization. How could I be an Integrative Doctor helping people improve their health more naturally by getting to the root causes, but I wasn’t doing that for myself? I took a SIBO test that was super positive. I started with a super strict diet and natural treatment. In just 15 days I felt like a new woman.
The coffee enemas helped a lot to recover my energy and regularity. Every day with endometriosis in the rectum meant that I couldn’t go to the bathroom naturally. Then my body reabsorbed the toxins in a never-ending vicious cycle.
And from there I continued with more natural solutions. I removed 100% of the gluten from my diet. I began deworming treatments. I went to an Ayahuasca ceremony along with other natural supports. I improved so much that after a few months, even the gynecologists were amazed at my results.
The endometriomas of the left ovary had disappeared, the one on the right side of 10cm had been reduced to 3cm, and the lesion in the rectum had decreased by 20%. Since it no longer reached 50% of the circumference, they did not have to do any resection of the rectum. I was no longer a candidate for the operation.
What was one of the most important steps during this whole process? Discover that my new home had mold, bacterial overgrowth, and most likely construction chemicals like formaldehyde that I had been absorbing non-stop for 2 years.
I don’t need to tell you how stressed I was during the time that my endometriosis was getting worse. I worked in the ER, and in addition to the high demand and responsibility of the work I did, the night shifts eroded my health significantly. I wasn’t happy.
Making these changes has been a difficult, complicated process. Each day I discovered more and more.
I had many questions like “why is my gut never healthy?” I can eat super clean, but why is there something that never gets better? That’s when my odyssey with oral health began. Even after a year of making changes, inflammation was still showing in my tests. My ESR, CPR, and cortisol were through the roof, and I didn’t understand why.
I also had headaches that lasted more than 24 hours two or three times a week. And when I started searching and reading on the subjects, I discovered that I might have cavitations. I was especially suspicious of one in particular, a tooth that had been removed two years earlier, which was a year before the headaches began.
When I studied the data, which was tough to find because Europe has very few biological dentists, I decided to investigate. My dentists found 5 cavitations and an abscess in a tooth that had bothered me for at least 15 years! But they always told me that it was perfectly fine.
My tooth was dead, and the infection had already affected the nerve so much that it was not possible to save it.
I had to make a decision. I was looking at surgery to cure the 5 cavitations, a root canal, or removal of the tooth and installing a ceramic implant. It was not an easy decision because it was a front tooth. But I said to myself, if I have come this far, then I need to be brave and make the decision that I think is best for my health, even if it costs me.
If I had a root canal and the endometriosis did not improve, I would always think that it is because of this. I will always have doubts, I am aware of all the health problems that having an infected root canal can cause, so I decided to go with the ceramic implant.
I do not regret any of my decisions. Even more, I am proud that when I faced difficult decisions, I went ahead without hesitation and showed courage that I did not even know I had inside.
Finally, 2 months ago I decided to stop taking the pill, and I have already had two periods with practically no pain. They were fairly normal periods. I know I have to continue taking care of myself, but I am happy that the efforts have been worth it to reach the goal of improving my quality of life, improving my endometriosis, and being able to stop the pill and continue enjoying a great quality of life.
This story is for all those women who are suffering, who are perhaps still in that phase that I went through of negativism, of seeing everything black, so that they know that within them there is great willpower. They are warriors, and they can handle every hard moment life throws at them.
We are powerful!