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TREATMENTS FOR ENDOMETRIOSIS: MAKING A DECISION REGARDING TREATMENT
8 May 2009
by
admin
Filed under
Women's Health
Making the decision about which treatment you will have is often difficult. You should allow yourself time to explore the options to make the decision that is right for you. Do not allow yourself to be pushed by others into making a decision.
In order to make the best decision you need to consider your lifestyle, goals, values and feelings, as well as the severity of your disease and its symptoms, and the purpose of the treatment. You also need to weigh up all the potential advantages and disadvantages of each of the treatments against the possible relief that it will bring.
Get as much information as you can. Make an appointment with your gynaecologist to ask any questions that you may have.
Do not hesitate to get a second opinion if you have any concerns or doubts.
It helps if you discuss the issues with your partner, a friend or another woman with endometriosis.
How effective are the different treatments
No treatment offers a magical or permanent cure for endometriosis.
It is not possible to give reliable figures for the success rates of the different types of treatment because few large-scale studies have been carried out. Gynaecologists believe that, overall, success is related to the severity of your condition: the milder your disease the more likely that your treatment will be successful. Nevertheless, there is a wide variation in the way women respond to treatment and it is not possible to predict how you will respond.
Women react differently to each treatment and you may find that you need to try two or three treatments before you find one that works for you.
Regardless of the type of treatment used, some women will have a recurrence of their symptoms. It seems that approximately 20% of women will have a recurrence within 12 months and as many as 50% will have a recurrence within five years.
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