You’ve probably heard of endometriosis, but did you know it can occur in other parts of the body beyond the pelvic cavity?
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Endometriosis affects 176 million people worldwide, with one in 10 women of reproductive age in the UK suffering from the condition. In recent years, celebrities such as Molly-Mae Hague, Sophie Kasaei and Emma Bunton have opened up about their own diagnoses.
“Endometriosis is a disease where cells similar to those lining the womb grow elsewhere in the body. Normally that’s within the pelvic cavity,” says Emma Cox, CEO at Endometriosis UK. “Symptoms of endometriosis include chronic pelvic pain, severe pain that interferes with your day-to-day life, bowel and uterine problems, painful sex and difficulty getting pregnant.”
But endometriosis isn’t just something that is found within the pelvic cavity. In fact, it’s believed that up to 12% of those with pelvic endometriosis may have it elsewhere in the body, according to the British Society For Gynaecological Endoscopy and the Royal College Of Obstetricians And Gynaecologists.
“Thoracic endometriosis on the diaphragm, within the thoracic cavity or around/in the lungs is the most common form of endometriosis outside of the pelvic cavity,” says Emma. “It behaves in the same way that endometriosis does, which is it reacts to the monthly hormone cycle. The endometriosis cells will sort of swell and shed, but there’s no exit point for them.”
While Emma stresses the condition is “not massively common” among the general population, with estimates suggesting that around 180,000 people in the UK suffer from endometriosis outside of the pelvic cavity, awareness is crucial.
“It’s about making sure people are aware of symptoms,” she says. “If you’re coughing up blood every now and then, that’s scary. But you’re not going to think, ‘I better keep a record of this and see if it links with my menstrual cycle,’ because who would think that?”
So, with that in mind, here are five things to know about thoracic endometriosis…
1 SYMPTOMS
With thoracic endometriosis affecting the chest cavity, symptoms can range from breathing problems to chest pain. “Some of the more common symptoms are things like right shoulder pain because there’s a nerve in your diaphragm that it
