You look at the calendar and realize, with dread, that your period is coming up. No woman enjoys their periods, but yours seem to be far worse than what your friends are dealing with. Heavy bleeding, pelvic pain, abdominal bloating, and more, leave you feeling wiped out each month — and you want answers.
There are several gynecologic conditions that can lead to the symptoms we outline above, but Dr. Fernando Otero and the team here at Women’s Clinic of the Rio Grande Valley want to focus on just one in this blog post — adenomyosis.
While not terribly common — adenomyosis has an estimated prevalence rate of about 1% — it still affects enough women to label it a significant women’s health issue.
Your uterus features muscular walls that are lined with a special tissue called the endometrium. Each month, this endometrial tissue thickens with blood and nutrients in anticipation of receiving a fertilized egg. When this egg doesn’t appear, the thickened endometrial tissue sheds out, which is what creates your period.
When you have adenomyosis, the endometrial tissues grow into the inner muscular wall of your uterus, which is called the myometrium. These tissues behave as if they were located correctly, lining your uterus instead of growing into the organ, so they thicken and bleed out, adding to your regular period.
Most women who develop adenomyosis are between the ages of 35 and 50. Other factors that place you more at risk for adenomyosis include having previously given birth, especially multiple times, and having previous uterine surgeries.
If you know anything about endometriosis, which may affect more than 11% of women between the ages of 15 and 44, you might recognize this issue of displaced endometrial tissue. With endometriosis, the tissue grows outside the uterus, while with adenomyosis it grows inside. This similarity means that there’s a good deal of crossover between the two conditions — between 15% to 89% of women with endometriosis also have adenomyosis.
Now let’s get into some of the side effects of adenomyosis, which include:
We want to circle back to the top symptom on this list — heavy bleeding. This side effect of adenomyosis tends to worsen, and it can leave you more at risk for anemia thanks to the blood loss.
Since adenomyosis shares symptoms with other reproductive issues, our first goal is to correctly identify what’s going on inside your uterus. Using advanced imaging, we take a closer look at your uterus to determine whether endometrial tissues have invaded the uterine wall.
If we find this to be the case, we can get you started on a treatment plan that might include:
A nonhormonal medication we may use is tranexamic acid, which can lessen menstrual bleeding. In severe cases of adenomyosis, a hysterectomy may be the best solution for putting a swift end to your discomfort.
If you’d like us to get to the bottom of your heavy bleeding and pelvic pain, we invite you to contact one of our offices in McAllen or Edinburg, Texas, to schedule a consultation.
