Endometriosis: Symptoms, Complaints, Signs

The following symptoms and complaints may occur together with endometriosis:

Leading symptom

  • Lower abdominal discomfort, cycle-dependent or (later) cycle-independent.

Associated symptoms

  • Blood in the stool (melena, hematochezia) – occurs cyclically in the case of endometriosis).
  • Bleeding disorders – hypermenorrhea (increased menstrual bleeding; usually the affected person consumes more than five pads / tampons per day), spotting.
  • Dyschezia, cyclic (disturbance of defecation (defecation)).
  • Dysmenorrhea – painful menstrual bleeding.
  • Dyspareunia – pain during sexual intercourse.
  • Dysuria, cyclic – pain during urination (occurring cyclically).
  • Hematuria – blood in the urine (occurs cyclically in the case of endometriosis).
  • Sterility – inability to reproduce.
  • Nonspecific cycle-associated gastrointestinal (gastrointestinal-related) or urogenital (urinary and genital-related) symptoms

In addition to the aforementioned symptoms, there are also many cases of the disease in which there are hardly any symptoms or none at all. In addition, it is noticeable in endometriosis that there is no correlation between the size of the finding and the severity of symptoms. For example, some women with small endometriosis lesions have very severe symptoms, whereas women with more pronounced findings hardly complain of any symptoms.

Note

  • For dysmenorrhea (painful menstruation) caused by endometriosis genitalis interna (= adenomyosis uteri), persistent heavy painful cessation bleeding during hormonal therapy with combined oral contraceptives (COCs) in cyclic mode should be considered a warning sign.