DW Documentary

Endometriosis

190 million women around the world suffer from endometriosis, a chronic disease of the abdomen. For a long time, medicine didn’t take these women’s complaints seriously. But now, the taboo issue is finding a wider audience. Women are breaking their silence. It takes an average of seven years to get a diagnosis - a long time for women to be left suffering. Their periods are extremely painful, but the pain can also come at any time during the menstrual cycle, sometimes affecting the entire body. This is often accompanied by heavy menstrual bleeding, bowel problems, exhaustion, pain during sex and sometimes problems conceiving. The pain is caused by uterus-like cells that colonize areas outside the uterus, for example the ovaries, intestine or peritoneum.