When you have endometriosis, it can be hard enough to navigate the added pain that often accompanies your periods, but this common condition can also invade your sex life.
To give you an idea about how common pain during sex is when you have endometriosis, consider this: More than 11% of women ages 15-44 have endometriosis in the United States, and research shows that 90% of women with endometriosis encounter pain during sex.
One of the reasons Dr. Ulas Bozdogan and our team at Advanced Endometriosis Center focus on endometriosis is because this condition can cast such a wide net over a woman's health and wellness. And there’s no better example of this than painful sex caused by endometriosis, which can cause no small amount of stress and discomfort.
To understand why endometriosis can lead to painful sex, it’s helpful to step back and paint a broader picture of this common gynecologic issue.
With this condition, endometrial cells and tissues, which typically line the inside of your uterus, grow outside the organ instead. These misplaced tissues can grow in any number of places in your pelvis, such as:
Endometrial tissues have even been found in the abdominal and chest cavities of some women, but they mostly stay localized in the pelvis.
The reason these growths are problematic is that, in normal circumstances, when the endometrium inside your uterus thickens each month, it sheds out of your vagina via your periods if there’s no fertilized egg to take care of.
When these endometrial tissues can’t shed because they're stuck inside your pelvis, they can form adhesions, or scar tissue, that pave the way for functional and comfort issues.
The medical term for painful sex is dyspareunia, and it’s an incredibly common side effect of endometriosis. Of the 90% of women with endometriosis who develop this symptom, slightly more than 20% reported severe pain during intercourse, while around 35% reported moderate pain, and another 35% reported mild pain.
The reason for this pain is the adhesions we just talked about, which often develop in an area called the cul-de-sac, which is located between your uterus and rectum and is designed to keep these organs separate.
If endometrial tissues develop inside your cul-de-sac (and they often do), they can adhere your vagina to your rectum. When this happens, the upper part of your vagina may not expand to accommodate intercourse, leading to pain.
Many women describe the discomfort as a deep pain, and, as you might imagine, the pain can vary with sexual position. Other words women use to describe the pain they encounter during sex include:
No matter where you are on the scale, when pain like this enters your sex life, it can affect your mental, emotional, and physical health.
At our practice, Dr. Bozdogan has helped scores of women reclaim their sex lives by laparoscopically removing the tissues causing the pain. The reality is that, once these endometrial adhesions form, they won’t go away on their own.
The good news is that Dr. Bozdogan is a leading expert in minimally invasive, robot-assisted surgery, which has proven to be a great tool for removing painful endometrial adhesions. This minimally invasive approach means your recovery is much improved, and you can get back to an active and pain-free sex life in no time.
If you’d like to learn more about resolving painful sex due to endometriosis, we invite you to click here to set up a consultation at one of our conveniently located offices in New York City or Paramus, New Jersey.
