Endometriosis: A Key to Healing Through Nutrition

Thorsons

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 1999 by Element Books Limited This edition published by Thorsons 2002

Copyright © Dian Shepperson Mills and Michael Vernon 1999

Text illustrations: Janice Sharp

Photography: R.S.A. Photography Ltd

Note: the information contained in this book is true and complete to the best of the authors’ knowledge and is given for the purpose of helping people who suspect or know that they suffer from endometriosis. This book is not to be used as a substitute for professional medical treatment. The ultimate decision concerning care should be between you and your doctor. The information in this book is general and is offered with no guarantees on the part of the authors or Element Books. The authors and Publisher disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

Dian Shepperson Mills and Michael Vernon assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007133109

Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2017 ISBN: 9780007386420

Version: 2017-01-24

Praise

Praise for

Endometriosis:

A Key to Healing and Fertility Through Nutrition

‘Many women with endometriosis have found that nutrition can play a major role in overcoming some of the most debilitating effects of the disease. Dian Mills has studied the role of nutrition in treating endometriosis and, together with Michael Vernon, has made this information available in an understandable and compassionate way in this very helpful book.’

Mary Lou Ballweg, President

INTERNATIONAL ENDOMETRIOSIS ASSOCIATION

‘The book is simple, easy to comprehend and will be embraced by a large majority, particularly those afflicted with endometriosis. It will be essential reading for scientists and the general public interested directly or indirectly in endometriosis.’

Dr O A Odukoya

DEPARTMENT OF OBSTETRICS AND GYNAECOLOGY

JESSOP HOSPITAL FOR WOMEN SHEFFIELD

‘Endometriosis has an effect on all aspects of the life of a woman who suffers from this debilitating and perplexing condition. Modern medicine has made great strides in bringing help and relief to many women. Unfortunately, to date, there is still no known cure.

‘During my years as Chair to the NES it became obvious that women are more than willing to help themselves. Regrettably, the tools to do this have been few and far between. With the publication of this book women will now have the opportunity to try to help themselves without resorting to powerful drugs and/or surgery, or to use the information as complementary alongside orthodox medicine. I welcome a book that will give women a choice.’

Diane Carlton, SRN, D/N Cert

SENIOR PRACTICE NURSE

CHAIR TO THE NATIONAL

ENDOMETRIOSIS SOCIETY 1983–97,

FOUNDER AND CHAIR OF THE SHE TRUST

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Foreword

1 What’s happening to me?

2 How endometriosis affects your body

3 Ovaries, ovarian cysts and syndrome X

4 Coping with the pain of endometriosis

5 Why is my fertility threatened?

6 Many treatments, few cures?

7 The holistic approach to endometriosis

8 The nervous system and low moods

9 Strengthening the immune system

10 Digestion and the reproductive system

11 Nutrition for endometriosis and fertility

12 Food – the best choice for health

13 Furthering research: let’s find the cure

14 Colour the body healthy: key steps to recovery

15 The keys to wellness are in your hands

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Appendix D

References

Glossary

Recommended reading

Useful addresses

Acknowledgements

About the Authors

About the Publisher

I would like to emphasize maternity as the frontier of human welfare and that the defence of mothers is the defence of nations. There is no place in the public health field that offers greater opportunity for service to mankind and the welfare of the human race than the application of newer and ever increasing knowledge of nutrition at the human frontier.

Ina May Hobbler, 1952

This human body, at peace with itself, is more precious than the rarest gem. Cherish your body, it is yours for this one time only. The human form is won with difficulty; it is easy to lose. All worldly things are brief, like lightning in the sky. This life you must know was the tiny splash of a raindrop. A thing of beauty that passes away even as it comes into being. Therefore set your goal, and make every day and night a time to obtain it.

Lama Tsong Khapa

14th century Tibetan scholar and yogi

Nuchi gusui – may your food and lifestyle heal.

The Okinawa Way Book

If you try, you might. If you don’t, you won’t.

W Pickles

Foreword

Women with endometriosis commonly complain that doctors do not take their symptoms seriously. There is a feeling that if doctors did listen and if only doctors knew more about endometriosis, women would not have to suffer years of pain without a definitive diagnosis. The frustration is justified as recent research has shown that it usually takes about ten years from the onset of symptoms for the diagnosis to be made.

I think that this apparent indifference to symptoms, such as painful periods and painful sex, merely reflects the lack of interest shown by society in general to health problems that are specific to women. I also think that sufferers themselves should be trying to raise awareness about endometriosis among both the medical profession and the general public. Endometriosis should be as well known as asthma or diabetes given how many women it affects and how much misery it creates.

The principal problem, however, is that not enough is known about the condition. Despite over 20 years of intensive research, we still do not understand what causes endometriosis; why there is such discrepancy between the intensity of symptoms and the severity of disease, or how best to treat patients. When doctors struggle in the dark because they do not comprehend a condition, it is inevitable that patients will receive care that they perceive to be unsatisfactory.

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

1 What’s happening to me?

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.

The 52 known nutrients in our foods are vital to all of us; they make our bodies work as nature intended. Vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids and the actions of phytochemicals in plants are the body’s building blocks to produce healthy new cells and to renew damaged tissue. For example, the mucous membrane which lines the digestive tract is renewed rapidly every 72 hours. New tissue can be formed very quickly on damaged organs, given the right building blocks of life. So the food you eat each day can help heal endometriosis.

Good quality, nutrient-rich food can improve the functioning of the body cells. This book will guide you through the selection of foods which will increase your intake of much-needed nutrients, especially those required by the reproductive and immune systems. It will give advice on which nutritional supplements may be helpful in the short term to boost body cells and correct hormone production, while you assess and improve your dietary intake.

The digestive system is the key to your healthy intake of nutrients, and improvement in this area can be a major factor in recovery from endometriosis. The gut flora and membranes must be healthy in order for all the nutrients from foods to be absorbed, so that they can reach the cells via the bloodstream. If your digestion is poor, it must be corrected before you can begin to get well. This is another key to your healing process. Once your digestion works efficiently, then the body can begin to heal itself.

Endometriosis can cause terrible pain, and adhesions which can stick organs together, possibly causing infertility in some women. The authors will inform you how the phytochemicals and nutrients in foods and herbs may work to reduce inflammation and pain. The known reasons for pain and infertility will be discussed, to help demystify endometriosis.

By understanding and improving the workings of your immune system, you can help to heal the reproductive system and improve fertility naturally, and the book looks at how assisted fertility works when endometriosis is present.

• CASE STUDY •

Gwenneth B of Sussex

The nutrition path was absolutely brilliant. I was so well while continuing it. Unfortunately I stopped. I have to go camping and go away with other groups from time to time. It then becomes impossible to follow the diet. I wish I had more self-control so that I could do it all over again. Any chance of a new start with some supplements again? Thank you for all your help in the past.

The incidence of endometriosis is high and many women may never even have heard of the condition, let alone be aware that their abdominal pain is due to it. Much of our society remains blissfully ignorant of endometriosis and of all its ramifications. All those with endometriosis need to teach everyone around them to understand this disease. The word endometriosis itself is disconcerting and cumbersome: ‘endo-metree-osis’. This book will attempt to explain exactly what endometriosis is, and how you can try to reduce its symptoms by using the body’s natural healing ability.

Furthering research is a main aim of the endometriosis groups all over the world, in America, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, India, Poland, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore and Brazil. Women in the international endometriosis associations are pulling together around the globe to encourage governments to provide more funding for studying this disease, while also trying to raise money for research from their supporters. Research into endometriosis should continue apace to help improve diagnosis and treatment. Future research into how cells behave and how their basic physiology relies upon nutrients should lead to new ideas about endometriosis treatments. All women suffering from endometriosis should encourage new research in both orthodox and complementary fields to find a cure, and to prevent the next generation having to endure this disease and its traumatic treatments. We can all see hope for a future cure. Drugs and surgery are not the only answer, as we shall see. Healing from within is an important concept.

If you use this book wisely, it may help you to find the real you again – minus the symptoms of endometriosis. Feeling like a shadow of your former self is not a pleasant experience. Endometriosis leaves you with no energy to do anything. You feel so very tired from fighting the pain. You hope that the pain will just go away, but it doesn’t. The body needs help in order to attempt to rid itself of the ‘rogue’ tissue of endometriosis. Seeking such help requires information and understanding, and in this book the authors hope that everyone will find the support they need to help them begin their healing process. Understanding is the key. Once you properly understand what you are fighting, it becomes easier. It helps to have all the information at your fingertips. If information is withheld from you, always be suspicious. Where your own body is involved you have a right to know what is being done and why. Always ask questions and only act when you feel satisfied with the answers. Truth is important to developing trust between practitioner and patient, so if information is withheld it prevents healing. When lies are told, trust is lost between the patient and expert.

Everyone wants to be happy and healthy and to enjoy life. Endometriosis hurts our lives. It stops us in our tracks. It prevents us living the life we want to lead. The pain associated with endometriosis can at times be so intense that women grow desperate to find a cure. When the body suddenly lets us down, the shock of feeling disabled is stunning and frightening. One feels out of control. Suggestions for treatments are made and you try them all. You just want to be well again; but fighting illness day in, day out causes despondency and great sadness for the lost time.

The medical profession has no absolute cure for endometriosis. It can support the patient and suppress the disease symptoms, but often the drug and surgical treatments do not get to the root of the problem and promote healing. Research shows that symptoms usually return within 18 months, after drug treatments are stopped. It is not uncommon for women to have taken five or six different drugs, one after another, and to have had several operations and still be in pain. Once all the reproductive organs have been removed, some members of the medical profession assume that endometriotic implants can no longer grow and women’s symptoms can be dismissed and even ridiculed. Your local endometriosis group can advise you who is the right practitioner for you, and who is the most caring and compassionate.

• CASE STUDY •

Barbara B of Kent

The first benefit was the mental boost from feeling that I was actually taking control, doing something about my endometriosis. Within a very short time I had more energy and people stopped telling me how dreadful I looked! I also lost weight, which was great. I took the vitamin supplements and generally worked hard to improve my diet. My endometriosis was extremely severe and yet, even now, four years after a laparoscopy to remove cysts and reposition my womb, I remain totally free from endometriosis. My surgeon finds it unbelievable and constantly tells me how lucky I am. Thank you for all the support at the worst time in my life.

So what is this book going to do for you, the reader? Hopefully it will inspire you to know how magical your body can be. Both authors want to help you to find ways to let your body begin to heal itself. If you can give it the tools and the fuel it needs to fight the disease, that is a good start. Chapters 8, 9, 10 and 12 are a basic guide to the practical steps you can take as you attempt to heal yourself.