Dr. Tori Hudson lays out two treatment paths that are very different from each other. The first one is conventional medicine's way of dealing with endometriosis, using drugs and possibly surgery. The second one is a naturopathic treatment for endometriosis, using antioxidant vitamins, and herbs to deal with inflammation.
Dr. Hudson is a Naturopathic Physician with 25 years of experience in women's health. She is Program Director for the Institute of Women's Health and Integrative Medicine.
(Transcribed from video interview)
Dr. Hudson:
You know, a gynecologist is usually the one who is the one treating endometriosis in women and, the first line treatment is just pain relief, Ibuprofen, Vicodin, whatever it might take, is just for the pain relief of the day or that menstrual cycle, but birth control pills are the first medical management thing that the gynecologist would do, and for the majority of women that would work to keep them from having severe pain.
There are some drugs that kind of shut down the menstrual cycle, they’re called GNRH analogues, the common one is called Lupron, but that’s kind of a bigger drug and kind of puts you in the menopause so of course you won’t get that estrogen stimulation of the endometriosis and that can be effective but it’s not something that can go on long term.
And then of course the surgical options, where they what’s called laparoscopy. They go in with a little scope and either laser or cut out endometriosis tissue and then they might then likely put you on birth control pills or the Lupron short term after the surgery, versus a natural treatment program would be to use natural progesterone instead of the birth control pill to oppose the estrogenic stimulation.
But to use the antioxidants like the vitamins that are high in antioxidant value vitamin A, C, E that I mentioned earlier, herbal anti-inflammatories, herbs to affect the immune system so that our white blood cells do a better job of going around and dealing with these endometriosis lesions that are there and the inflammatory chemicals that were there.
So we have herbs that can do that, that help affect the immune system, do a better job of clearing the endometriosis and then we might also use herbs to dampen down estrogen pathways and help estrogen be cleared better and then we might use strategies to help the body recover from exposure to pesticides and solvents that are disrupting the immune system and disrupting the hormonal balance.
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Video:
https://www.empowher.com/endometriosis/content/how-do-conventional-and-naturopathic-treatments-endometriosis-differ-dr-hudson-video