Michael Vernon - Endometriosis - A Key to Healing Through Nutrition

The other common complaint I hear is that sufferers feel restricted by the inability of many doctors to explain, using language that can be understood, the nature of the disease and the treatment options available. It is clear from recent research in Oxford that the failure to meet the information needs of sufferers leads to disillusion and a sense of disempowerment.

I believe that it is vital to provide women with high quality information, especially about treatment, to enable them to make the kind of important decisions that may potentially have a profound effect upon their lives. The reality, however, is that the treatment options are limited and the medications currently available rarely provide a cure. Therefore it is understandable that sufferers should seek complementary therapies that allow them to take control over their own bodies.

This book is unique because, for the first time, a highly respected scientist has teamed up with a nutritionist who uses complementary medicine, to give women a better understanding of the scientific basis for the use of nutritional therapies that many women around the world have found helpful. It should give encouragement to those in despair because conventional treatments have failed or produced unacceptable side effects. Eating healthily produces only good side effects.

The authors provide considerable evidence illustrating the role of basic nutrients in metabolic pathways involved in the normal menstrual cycle and pain-associated inflammation. Generally speaking, the medical profession has been slow to appreciate the importance of nutrients in the prevention and treatment of disease. For example, it has only recently been accepted that folic acid should be given to all women planning to conceive, so as to prevent neural tube defects. Much of what is said in this book, however, is common sense: eat well and your body will benefit. What is new is that Dian Mills and Michael Vernon provide the rationale for doing so in a condition that traditionally has been treated only with hormonal drugs and surgery. A holistic approach to endometriosis is vitally important because of the limitations of conventional medicine, and the authors are to be congratulated for providing the reader with a number of novel strategies for coping with this debilitating condition.

Stephen Kennedy

SENIOR FELLOW IN REPRODUCTIVE MEDICINE

UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

The body has a miraculous capacity to heal itself.

Live and Learn and Pass it On, quote from the Central Baptist Hospital 1997 calendar

You have a key to good health. Your body wants to be well, that is its natural state.

Endometriosis is a jigsaw puzzle of symptoms. You need to fit all the pieces together to provide clues as to what is happening within your body. This book will try to give you some of the pieces of the jigsaw, but you have to put them together yourself. This book will guide you to a truth. As you will read in the following chapters, some pioneering women have taken this path before and they share their success with you. Let them lead the way. They have found that, by giving the body the building blocks it needs, health can be regained.

That is the key, which you must always remember. Your body wants to be well. If you cut or burn your hand, you heal. If endometrial cells are growing in the wrong place, rest assured the body is trying to heal that area by whatever means it has available. Many women try drug and surgical treatments, and for some women they suppress some symptoms, but do not heal. Some people do get well, but many need other remedies or treatments.

Endometriosis is the second most common gynaecological complaint recognized by reproductive endocrinologists, affecting two out of every ten women. Endometriosis is everywhere and does not discriminate between women, race, colour, social status, body size, or colour of hair (although some women with red hair may have a greater incidence of endometriosis as they are more inclined to have allergies). It is possible that many women may have symptoms of endometriosis at some point in their lives, as every woman has the potential to develop endometriosis, but they do not always get a correct diagnosis. You are never alone with this disease – it is shared by many other women.

The term ‘endometriosis’ means that some of our body cells are growing in the wrong place, like weeds in a garden. Instead of staying inside the womb where they belong, to form the womb lining, these cells have spread outside the womb to infiltrate the ovaries and other areas of the body. If we knew exactly why these cells move around, it would be easier to find a cure. The endometrium normally grows only inside the womb. It is a nutrient-rich tissue designed to act as a food source and ‘nest’ for a fertilized egg. It also sets the stage for building the placenta which protects the baby as it develops in the womb.

For some unknown reason these endometrial cells migrate in endometriosis and seek other areas to grow. These areas are known as ‘endometriotic implants’ in medical terms, as they appear to seed themselves onto other organs in the peritoneal cavity (the abdominal area). Only cells from the spleen and endometrium in the human body are known to behave like this and migrate to other areas, and we need to understand why this happens in order to find a cure.

Women with endometriosis often ask ‘Why me?’ when they look around at their seemingly healthy friends. Endometriosis can be very distressing, and self-confidence may evaporate, but good health is not an impossible dream.

If you understand what is happening to you, it is easier to fight endometriosis and win. This book will look at how endometriosis manifests itself, how the body behaves, and how to approach drug and surgical treatments. It is important to look at how women as individuals can work with their bodies to help themselves heal, and to strengthen the immune and reproductive systems naturally using the nutrients which we ingest daily. The aim is to get the feel better factor!

We are all unique. No other person in the known universe is like you. People are meant to be different. Just look around in the street or your place of work at all the variables of face, hair colour, eyes, noses, height and weight. These differences are what make the strong gene pool of humankind. Orthodox medical and infertility treatments treat women as though they are all exactly the same. They take no account of your uniqueness. A 7-stone woman will be given the same dose tablet as a 14-stone woman. Treatments which work perfectly for you may not work as well for someone else because his/her body is slightly different. Moreover, many illnesses keep evolving, like the symptoms of ovarian/vaginal endometriosis, increasing levels of anxiety in those who suffer from them.

The purpose of this book is to outline the steps you can take to maximize your body’s ability to fend off endometriosis. Although there is no known proven medical cure for endometriosis, nutrition may suppress the symptoms which are perceived as being due to endometriosis, and thus help to prevent them from interfering in your daily life. The book will review some of these options, especially the benefit of proper nutrition in the battle against endometriosis. Women who have tried these options and succeeded in combating endometriosis share their experiences.

Nutrition is not an alternative approach like herbal medicine or homeopathy. It is essential to life. Eating is something we do every day. It sustains us and keeps us healthy, or it can make us unhealthy. Unfortunately nutrition is no longer taught in schools. It is now assumed that we have a good choice of foods in the shops. But it is the quality of the foods you choose to eat which can make all the difference to your body’s ability to heal itself. Nutrition is certainly very low on the list of doctors’ priorities, many of whom may have had only a few hours of lessons in nutrition, and do not understand how nutrients relate to body biochemistry. It is a rare doctor who shows any interest in your food intake.