Endometriosis Treatments

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - suppresseseoffrey Cly from Northeast OB/Gyn explains the treatments for endometriosis.

Laparoscopic surgery is one way to aggressively treat endometriosis. Surgery is the only way to know for sure that a woman has endo. But after surgery to remove growths, follow-up treatments need to happen to keep it from growing back too quickly.

"We try to do Depo Lupron as soon as possible after surgery so the endo doesn't have time to re-grow between surgery and Depo Lupron," Dr. Cly said.

If a doctor suspects a woman has endometriosis, she can be treated with hormone therapy like birth control pills to try to suppress the growth by limiting periods to only a few times a year. But, Dr. Cly added because Lupron is such a powerful medicine, doctors generally don't like to use it unless he or she knows for sure the patient does have endo. A surgical biopsy is the only way to know for sure.

Pregnancy is also a treatment of sorts.

"Pregnancy has high levels of progesterone, which suppresses the endometriosis, so during pregnancy, it gets suppressed," Dr. Cly said.

After my surgery I had three months of Lupron shots. The hormones in the shot "zap" the endo and keep it from growing. Dr. Cly uses an analogy of weeds to explain it. When you pull weeds, you may get the stems, but you still need to treat the roots. The surgery removes the growth, but the hormone treatments shrink the roots below the growth on the surface of the skin.

After the Lupron, Dr. Cly is treating me with birth control to limit periods.

"Without treating it and keeping it under control, it just keeps growing and getting more and the next month there's more," Dr. Cly said.

Dr. Cly said another surgery to "clean up" the endo again could be in my future because the endo will try to keep growing. I hope that will be a long time from now.