The Difference Between Adenomyosis and Endometriosis

When a woman experiences painful periods, heavy bleeding, and chronic pain in the pelvic region, this constellation of symptoms could suggest endometriosis, a condition in which endometrial tissue spreads and implants beyond the uterus. During every menstrual period, this misplaced endometrial tissue can shed blood into the pelvic region and beyond, causing cysts, scar tissue, and adhesions to form over time.

But if the endometrial tissue burrows deep into the muscle of the uterus, and not outside the uterus, the diagnosis is actually adenomyosis, a condition that is related to endometriosis but has a few key differences.

In endometriosis, the endometrial tissue escapes from the uterus and might implant on the surface of the bladder, bowels, or other organs throughout the body. In adenomyosis, the endometrial tissue gets pushed into the myometrium muscle of the uterus, which is located between the inner and outer layers of the uterus organ. Once embedded in the muscle, this endometrial tissue sheds when the rest of the endometrium sheds during a period, which causes extra bleeding, pain, and cramping.

Adenomyosis vs. endometriosis symptoms

Both diseases can cause pain, Sanjay Agarwal, MD, director for the Center for Endometriosis Research and Treatment at the University of California, San Diego, tells Health. But women with adenomyosis generally tend to have pain related to their periods, while women with endometriosis might also feel pain with bowel movements and at other times in the cycle.

“With adenomyosis, the main impact on quality of life is a painful period,” Dr. Agarwal says. “Perhaps this is because endometriosis goes further afield.”

These two conditions don’t cause symptoms for everyone, however. It’s estimated that about one-third of women with adenomyosis experience no symptoms at all. And when it comes to asymptomatic endometriosis, it’s estimated that as many as 43% of women who end up undergoing sterilization for other reasons also show signs of mild endometriosis and were completely unaware of it.

Diagnosing adenomyosis vs. endometriosis

While more doctors are beginning to treat endometriosis based on symptoms like pelvic pain and painful periods, the most definitive diagnosis is made during a surgery called a laparoscopy, which is when doctors insert a thin tube with a light and camera into a small incision in the abdomen. With the tube, they can see endometrial lesions, cysts, and adhesions that make up endometriosis.

Diagnosing adenomyosis is much less invasive. Magnetic resonance imaging can help doctors see whether the myometrium is thicker than normal—one sign of the condition. MRIs and transvaginal ultrasounds can also help doctors identify cysts in the walls of the uterus, as well as myometrium with an abnormal texture. If the growths are limited to just a few cysts, the adenomyosis is classified as focal, while abnormal myometrium throughout the uterus is called diffuse adenomyosis.

Infertility in adenomyosis and endometriosis

Both conditions can also raise the risk for impaired fertility, or the inability to either conceive or carry a pregnancy to term.

When it comes to adenomyosis specifically, embryos can struggle to implant in the enlarged and “hard” uterus. Pregnancy losses are also more common. One study showed that women with adenomyosis undergoing in vitro fertilization had double the rate of miscarriages compared to women with both adenomyosis and endometriosis.

Adenomyosis also puts women and their babies at a higher risk of preterm birth and the premature rupture of the amniotic sac, as well as intrauterine growth restriction, pregnancy-related hypertension, and uterine infection.

If IVF doesn’t work, doctors might suggest a drug protocol called a gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist, which suppresses the production of reproductive hormones like progesterone and estrogen in order to reduce the size of the uterine growths. Doctors may also attempt a surgery to remove the growths, known as adenomyomas, and reconstruct the uterus. These two alternative treatments have been shown to increase the chances of spontaneous pregnancy among women with adenomyosis, while the drug protocol may also help make IVF more successful.

However, depending on the size and spread of the condition, women with extensive adenomyosis might end up needing a surrogate to carry their pregnancy, Dr. Agarwal says.

Adenomyosis vs. endometriosis treatment

Treatment options for both conditions are similar and escalate in intensity from birth control pills to suppress the release of reproductive hormones to surgery to remove endometrial cysts, scar tissue or implants, adenomyomas, or even the entire uterus.

In between those two ends of the spectrum, women can try other hormonal medications to drive down the production of estrogen, a hormone that makes both adenomyosis and endometriosis worse. These drugs, delivered through injections, hormonal IUDs, or pills, have been shown to reduce menstrual cramping, pain during sex, and chronic pelvic pain in both conditions.

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     

https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com. one can see my crochet creations  
https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes    
https://kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com. for info on knee replacement

Brain blood flow finding gives hope for Alzheimer’s therapy

You know that dizzy feeling you get when, after lying down for an extended period, you stand up a little too quickly?

That feeling is caused by a sudden reduction of blood flow to the brain, a reduction of around 30 percent. Now imagine living every minute of every day with that level of decreased blood flow.

People with Alzheimer’s disease don’t have to imagine it. The existence of cerebral blood flow reduction in Alzheimer’s patients has been known for decades, but the exact correlation to impaired cognitive function is less understood.

“People probably adapt to the decreased blood flow, so that they don’t feel dizzy all of the time, but there’s clear evidence that it impacts cognitive function,” said an associate professor.

A new study  offers an explanation for this dramatic blood flow decrease: white blood cells stuck to the inside of capillaries, the smallest blood vessels in the brain. And while only a small percentage of capillaries experience this blockage, each stalled vessel leads to decreased blood flow in multiple downstream vessels, magnifying the impact on overall brain blood flow.

The paper’s co-lead authors said, the study is the culmination of approximately a decade of study, data gathering and analysis. It began with a study in which one of the author was attempting to put clots into the vasculatures of Alzheimer’s mouse brains to see their effect.

“It turns out that … the blockages we were trying to induce were already in there,” she said. “It sort of turned the research around – this is a phenomenon that was already happening.”

THIS IS ONLY FOR INFORMATION, ALWAYS CONSULT YOU PHYSICIAN BEFORE HAVING ANY PARTICULAR FOOD/ MEDICATION/EXERCISE/OTHER REMEDIES.                                    PS- THOSE INTERESTED IN RECIPES ARE FREE TO  VIEW MY BLOG-                                                                                           https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com/    

                                                                                                                                                     FOR INFO ABOUT KNEE REPLACEMENT, YOU CAN VIEW MY BLOG-                                                  https:// kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com/  

                            FOR CROCHET DESIGNS                                                                                                                                                                                                  https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com

The researchers, determined that only about 2 percent of brain capillaries had “stalls” (blockages), but the cumulative effect of that small number of stalls was an approximately 20 percent overall decrease in brain blood flow, due to the slowing of downstream vessels by the capillaries that were stalled. Recent studies suggest that brain blood flow deficits are one of the earliest detectable symptoms of dementia.

To test the effect of the stalls on performance of memory tasks in Alzheimer’s mice, they were given an antibody that interfered with the adhesion of white blood cells to capillary walls, which caused the stalled capillaries to start flowing again and thus increased overall brain blood flow. Memory function was improved within a few hours, even in aged mice with more advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

The authors are quick to point out, however, that the antibody is not something that can be used in humans. Also, of course, interfering with white blood cell adhesion would render an individual immunocompromised.

“What we’ve done is identify the cellular mechanism that causes reduced brain blood flow in Alzheimer’s disease models, which is neutrophils [white blood cells] sticking in capillaries,” the author said. “We’ve shown that when we block the cellular mechanism [that causes the stalls], we get an improved blood flow, and associated with that improved blood flow is immediate restoration of cognitive performance of spatial- and working-memory tasks.”

“Now that we know the cellular mechanism,” he said, “it’s a much narrower path to identify the drug or the therapeutic approach to treat it.”

The team has identified approximately 20 drugs, many of them already government approved for human use, that have potential in dementia therapy. Some of them, however, were designed to be taken in high doses for short periods of time to treat sepsis, or in the immediate aftermath of a heart attack or stroke. “They weren’t really intended to be something that you take for the rest of your life,” the author said. Nonetheless, the lab is screening these drugs in Alzheimer’s mice now. 

The author said he’s “super-optimistic” that, if the same capillary-blocking mechanism is at play in humans as it is in mice, this line of research “could be a complete game-changer for people with Alzheimer’s disease.”