Bowel Endometriosis Diagnosis Endometriosis impacts 10%-12% of women of childbearing age. Doctors tend to diagnose it in women who are in their 30s. Your doctor will start by asking about your symptoms and medical history. Then they'll examine your pelvic area.
Endometriosis can happen in any girl or woman who has menstrual periods, but it is more common in women in their 30s and 40s. You might be more likely to get endometriosis if you have: Never had children. Menstrual periods that last more than seven days.
Less commonly, endometriosis can affect the bowel in the abdomen and pelvis. The endometriosis can be superficial (on the surface of the bowel) or deep and invade into the bowel wall and surrounding tissue. The most common site for deep endometriosis is in the space between the rectum and vagina.
What does surgery for bowel endometriosis involve? If pain and bowel symptoms are severe, and/ or where fertility is a major consideration, surgery for removal of the affected bowels may be advised.
Diagnosing bowel endometriosis typically begins with an overall physical exam, including a manual check for growths in the vagina or rectum. It also frequently requires one or more imaging tests, including ultrasound, MRI, colonoscopy, laparoscopy, or barium enema.
Bowel Endometriosis Diagnosis
Endometriosis impacts 10%-12% of women of childbearing age. Doctors tend to diagnose it in women who are in their 30s. Your doctor will start by asking about your symptoms and medical history.
Of interest, diagnosis of intestinal endometriosis by colonoscopy was obtained in all 2 cases of mucosa involvement, in 3 out of 8 cases (37.5%) of submucosa involvement, in no cases of muscularis layer involvement and in 1 out of 38 cases (2.6%) of serosa involvement.
Patients with endometriosis experiencing irregular bowel movements often describe their pain as sharp, like “cuts with razor blades.” Painful bowel movements, along with symptoms of constipation during menstruation or pain during sex, are significant signs that endometriosis is located in the large bowel.
As mentioned, colonoscopy is a very poor tool for diagnosing bowel endometriosis. This is because a colonoscopy looks on the inside of your bowel. However, the majority of bowel endometriosis growths occur on the outside of the bowel and only rarely penetrates beyond the bowel's mucus layer (inner layer).
Lifestyle factors such as alcohol/caffeine intake, smoking, and physical activity influence estrogen levels in the body and, therefore, may impact development of endometriosis.
Endometriosis can affect women across all ethnic backgrounds and at any age, but it most commonly affects women during their reproductive years between the ages of 25 and 35. It is believed that there are an estimated 10% of women suffering with the condition in the United States, but many women remain undiagnosed.
The Risks of Postponing Treatment of Bowel Endometriosis
“Small lesions on the bowel can eventually progress and become full thickness lesions that cause obstruction and may require major bowel surgery,” adds Seckin.
Endometriosis is not a fatal condition. However, experts do associate it with certain conditions and complications that may be life threatening. These include ectopic pregnancy, mental health concerns, and small bowel obstruction.
No treatments cure the disease. A range of medications can help manage endometriosis and its symptoms. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and analgesics (painkillers) like ibuprofen and naproxen are often used to treat pain.
It may take you up to four weeks to recover from the operation. You may feel very tired during this time, so it is important that you rest. It may take up to six months to see any improvement in your symptoms.
Untreated endometriosis can cause significant pain, bloating, excess menstrual bleeding, and digestive distress. Over time, it can also affect a person's fertility.
There is no cure for endometriosis. Hormone therapy or taking out tissue with laparoscopic surgery can ease pain. But pain often returns within a year or two. Taking out the ovaries (oophorectomy) and the uterus (hysterectomy) usually relieves pain.
Chronic pelvic pain, often more severe during menstruation or at ovulation, is the most common symptom associated with endometriosis. Rectal involvement may result in alterations in bowel habits such as constipation, diarrhea, dyschezia, tenesmus, and, rarely, rectal bleeding.
In endometriosis, tissue similar to the uterine lining grows elsewhere in the body. This can cause severe pain as well as bleeding between periods. Conversely, IBS is a disorder of the digestive system that can cause abdominal pain, bloating, and changes in bowel habits.
Ultrasound findings in intestinal endometriosis have been described as hypoechoic masses with irregular and sometimes hyperechoic margins presenting in the mucosa, submucosa, muscular wall layer, serosa or other surrounding structures in close attachment to the intestinal wall.
If obstruction of the bowel or urinary tract occurs due to infiltration of endometriosis, urgent surgical management plays a vital role in minimalizing the loss of organ function. Blood tests such as serum CA125 level are not sensitive and specific for endometriosis.
IBS and endometriosis are both painful conditions that affect many women. Many of the symptoms overlap, but if you have bleeding between periods, intense pre-menstrual pain and severe bowel symptoms before your period, it's best to talk to your doctor to determine if the issue is gynecological and not gastrointestinal.
Irritable bowel syndrome and endometriosis have a significant overlap in symptom presentation due to chronic inflammation thus leading to chronic pelvic pain (10). Endometriosis may even masquerade as irritable bowel syndrome in some patients (11).