Endometriosis Books

This book was wonderful. Not everything applied to my situtation but it was very helpful in knowing what to expect. There were even some great tips that I shared with my husband. We even had some interesting chats regarding specifics of the book.

My wife and I purchased "Bearing the Big H", at one of Pattis' book signings. I was the first to read it. I was pleasently surprised and read it in a couple of nights. The " big H", is not something a man is normally knowledgeable about but it can drastically affect your relationship with loved ones. Ignorance is defenitely not bliss. My review? I've decided to purchase additional books for my parents(in their 80's), sister, and brother for Christmas gifts. Loved the book Patti!

Wanna laugh?..READ THIS BOOK! Wanna cry?.....READ THIS BOOK!
This author's wit and humor are both hilarious and heart tugging! This is not a medical journal on Hysterectomy, this is a very real and funny account of a very real and funny woman's journey through the BIG H. Laugh at her, laugh at yourself, but READ IT and be encouraged. Honest feelings and earthy humor make this book a delight!

As a retired nurse, I think the vast number of women who undergo removal of their uterus are usually well informed of the surgical procedure, the possible risks, and anatomical changes, but only a rare few are prepared for the hormonal frenzy that follows. Patti Pfeiffer's humorous--and sometimes heartbreaking--account of her surgery and the weeks that followed is a must read, not only for those who have had, or will have, a hysterectomy but for their spouses, too. Even those not involved in this medical dilemma will be amused by Ms. Pfeiffer's journey.

This book was both entertaining and enlightening! I would wholeheartedly recommend it for anyone facing the surgery, or anyone who just wants a good Venus/Mars laugh!

I'm at something of a loss as to what to say about this book. I couldn't decide if I should give it five stars or one, so I cut the difference and gave it three. This book is bizarre. If you can wade through the sections of repetitive, juvenile, slang-ridden, poorly written diatribe there is a lot of very helpful medical information which every endometriosis sufferer should know. I learned so many useful and helpful things about reproductive endocrinology, the immune system, the digestive system, and endometriosis itself. Yet the authors could easily have gotten the same amount of information into the book using half the words. Some parts of this book are clearly and concisely written and very helpful, while other sections of the book read as if the authors wanted to make the details understandable to a five-year old. I was definitely annoyed and somewhat insulted, as I think the authors ought to assume that the people reading it are going to be adults with functioning brains. However, I cannot help but recommend this book. The information in there is good, if you can put up with the useless junk and find information in the midst of verbosity.

After three years of infertility due to endometriosis, we had given up hope. After eight months on this diet we were expecting our first child with no medical intervention. Even if you aren't trying to conceive, this diet DOES help you feel a lot better.

As a stage IV endometriosis sufferer, the diet recommendations dramatically alleviated menstrual cramps and especially bowel pressure and pain through the removal of wheat/wheat gluten, minimizing red meats, and maximizing vegetables, fruits and nuts. I found that starting this diet within a few months post-laparoscopy was most helpful.

I've been reading this book since before I had surgery last week and am going to give the diet a try. The explanations of unbalanced hormones and lack of certain vitamins/minerals causing my symptoms and horrific PMS make alot of sense. I dropped out of biology in college because it seemed to be over my head, but this book explained body chemistry and cell production in a way that I can relate. Through the nutritional advice in this book, I am hoping to get pregnant and not have to have surgery again.

This book is written in a friendly and easy to read manner. It has a lot of information to absorb, but is what every woman with Endo should know. If you want to learn more and want to follow the guidelines provided then I strongly recommend this book. In only three months my life has changed. I understand my body like never before and am excited that following the suggestions in this book will lead me to my dream - pregnancy. After having purchased numerous books on Endo, it was nice to have one that finally answered my questions and was enjoyable.

Mrs. Steward shares and intimate view of faith, love, and tribulation as her family navigates a health care system that fails to listen or understand her daughters debilitating illness. This story spans a painful fourteen year search for answers in an often rushed or hostile health care system. In this system women are quickly labeled depressed or hysterical if diagnoses are not easily found and patients easily cured. This nightmare journey of multiple physician visits, painful tests, and ineffective treatments eventually takes Karen and her daughter Melissa to Germany. At last the elusive cause of much suffering was determined to be multiple adhesions and effective surgical care was provided, thus returning quality of life to a bright young woman and her family.

The story of Melissa's victory over pain and illness and her mother's determination to not give up are certainly inspirational. This book not only sheds light on a medical condition that is often not considered on list of differential diagnoses, but also sheds light on a fractured and rushed health care system. The descriptions in this book of various physicians visits range from hysterical to infuriating. Mrs. Steward's impressions of physicians from the patient's point of view are so insightful and well written that I believe all physicians should be required to read this book. In the words of Robert Burns "Oh what a powerful gift to give us, to see ourselves as others see us."

It is my hope that this book will bring awareness of ARD to both patients and health care providers as well as remind us all to treat others with the same respect and kindness that we would like to be treated with.

Powerful, enlightening, inspiring! This mother's completely committed journey to find relief and the answers to her daughter's suffering is nothing short of awesome. In doing so she has given, in her book, the help and the hope so desperately needed by those also suffering from adhesions. Help for those who may not even know, until now, what they are suffering from and the hope to know that their pain can come to an end.

This is one of the most informative and well written books I have picked up in a long time. She knows her topic, she has lived it! The heart and sole that is poured into the book comes through very clear. If you know nothing of the disease you will be well informed when you finish the read. It is not boring and info packed it is info packed and interesting. Edna Summers

When I saw the book my first thought was: finally a book about ARD, a much neglected subject. It is not only a story about an ARD victim and her courageous mother, it is literature, very well written, captivating, devastating, funny. A book that fills a gap-it was time!

As I read this book, I was reminded of being a teenager with a blood pressure of 180/110 and a resting heart rate of 130 beats per minute. My mother and I consulted with a top cardiologist who couldn't figure out what was wrong with me and wanted to put me on tranquilizers. When my mother and I refused the medicine, he called her in and read her the riot act. This was particularly challenging because the cardiologist was one of my father's best gardening service customers. After shopping around with my mother to 12 more doctors, I finally found one who did the obvious and gave me a test to see if I had an overactive thyroid . . . which I did. Within a few days, I was better with medicine to slow down the thyroid production. Without my mother's obstinate pursuit of a proper diagnosis and cure, I probably wouldn't be alive today.

The same is true for Karen Steward and her daughter, Melissa. Unfortunately, Melissa was suffering from complications brought about by adhesions (where one organ is attached to another so they cannot move freely), a condition for which there is no simple blood test as there is for an overactive thyroid. These two brave women suffered through what my mom and I did for fourteen years rather than fourteen weeks, as was the case for me. I feel sorry for them.

Today, the better medical schools (such as the University of Massachusetts) teach physicians to listen to patients and take what they say seriously. The Stewards mostly found physicians who believed that teenage girls and women usually lie about their conditions . . . and just need something to bring down the swelling (cortisone-based steroids and to calm their nerves (antidepressants).

Research in the internet eventually led Ms. Steward to realize that her daughter could have adhesions. Even with that realization and recommendations from enthusiastic patients who suffered from adhesions, the Stewards found two dishonest physicians who operated on Melissa before finding one who was honest and had the right methods to help her . . . in Germany, far from their home in Texas.

If you have adhesion-related ills, you should read this book. If you have mysterious pains in your abdomen and pelvis, are nauseous a lot, have constipation, and have been told that your bowels are narrowed, you should be checked out by a professional who knows this area. The Stewards had success with Dr. Kruschinski, using a method for keeping surgery from causing new adhesions (surgery is the number one cause of adhesions). You can read information about Dr. Kruschinski and words of advice from him at the ends of the book. You'll also see vivid color photographs of what adhesions look like.

In young women where there have been no surgeries, adhesions can also occur due to endometriosis (growths like the lining of the uterus outside of the uterus). In Ms. Steward's case, she was prone to cysts that grew and dissolved. Each time that happened, there was a risk that adhesions would occur. But each physician they consulted said that there was no chance that Ms. Steward could have her symptoms based endometriosis. Right.

Undoubtedly due to concerns about libel suits, the physicians who did a poor job are described with pseudonyms. I would hope someone would open an investigation into those physicians. Several of them need to have their licenses yanked.

The book also points out the poor way that churches, Christians, friends, and neighbors can behave in dealing with someone suffering from a chronic illness. Even if you or your family doesn't have this problem, you can learn a lot about how to be a better person by seeing how the Stewards reacted to poorly considered words and behavior among those they considered friends and fellow Christians.

The Stewards kept going, in part, based on their faith in God. This book is testimony to the kinds of suffering that can be part of God's plan, just as it was with Job.

Bravo, Ms. Steward! You are a good mom and a good Christian.

Though others have released "natural approach" publications dealing with alternative remedies for the illness in the past, this is the first book that truly offers an all-encompassing guide to many (if not all) of the multifaceted therapies available to those suffering from the disease. The information is comprehensive, validating, empowering and interactive, as well as accurate. Well-written and easily understood by all audiences, this book is an invaluable resource and a welcome addition to any Endo patient's library.

I love this book! I have almost every endo book written in the past few years and this is one of my favorites. It is full of a lot of great info and ideas of natural treatments to try. The only complaint is that info on one subject can be found in a lot of different places in the book. Overall I highly recommend this book for those suffering with endo. I talked to a woman at an essential oil store who knew the writer and said she is well respected and knowledgable in the field of essential oils. I highly recommend this easy to read and very informative book.

Becky

The book was very helpful and informative. I recomend it to anyone who is sufering with this disease.

i found this book to be very helpful and educational. i appreciated the way it was organized and laid everything out in plain language which was easy for me to understand. there were some topics which weren't elaborated on as much as i would have liked, but at least they gave me a direction to research online. but for the most part, everything was explained well enough that i didn't need to research it further. i especially appreciate that it included portions on combating infertility, which was a great concern of mine.

While I have only read a handful of books and papers on the topic, I found this to be the most accessible and fun resource among them. As with all the "For Dummies" books, the organization flows easily from one topic to the next, making the book as useful for someone looking for a specific or even random tidbit on the topic, or one looking for a more comprehensive summation of the disease, its treatment, and its outcomes. It covers the basics (symptoms, theories on causes, what it is, comparisons to normal reproductive functioning versus what happens with endo, etc.), and also covers different treatments (mainstream, surgical, drug, and alternative) and what to look for in a doctor. It also helps patients think of what to discuss with the doctor and which questions to ask, which is great, since diagnosis is often delayed 8-15+ years.

While it may not go incredibly in depth on any one aspect of endometriosis or get too deep into the scientific nitty gritty, it gives the reader a wide enough breadth of knowledge to lay the groundwork for further research into serious medical texts and studies. It was, of course, detailed enough for most people and didn't leave me with any unanswered questions. On it's own, it also serves the purpose of educating oneself on the disease and finding ways to approach it and deal with it. This was a fantastic book to read, and I recommend it for both personal and academic research.

When the Dr. told me she thought I had Endo, I went out and got a book to explain what endo was. This book is really wonderful, it is very easy to read and taught me a lot about what endo was and what the different ways to treat it are. I found this book to be really informative.

Endometriosis is the type of gynaecological disease that many women will only hear of when they are diagnosed with it. Some women will experience relatively few symptoms, others will be extremely unwell much of the time. For some women, though, the disease can impact on fertility.

Ros Wood and Lorraine Henderson have written a great book (this is the second edition) which provides a wealth of information to both sufferers of the disease and their families and friends as well as to health carers.

Back in 1980, when I had my first definitive diagnosis of this disease, there was very little 'plain English' information available to sufferers. This book is amongst the best I have read on this topic.

Highly recommended to all who either suffer from endometriosis or know someone who does. It would also make a useful inclusion on the bookshelves of groups concerned with women's health.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

After hearing my wife's gynecologist mention more Lupron shots, Gonadotrophins and a second Laroscopy, I was desperately seeking more information on Endometriosis. That's when I bought this book. And our lives have changed for good, forever. This book lead us to a doctor practising Homeopathy. After starting treatment, my wife's cyst is gone, her periods are totally painless, and guess what - she got pregnant too! Can't thank the authors enough.

I found this book very useful and informative in that it explained cancer in simple terms for non-medical readers. It is a topic that can be very frightening, but Fred Stephens manages to be truthful and dignified in this book. He also discusses not only cancer treatments, but also preventative measures, so it is a book that everyone concerned about maintaining their health and lifestyle should read.

I have endometriosis and have read a lot of books on the subject but this is without doubt the best one. It is very easy to read and covers all the important issues. I even gave it to my gynaecologist to read and she gave it the thumbs up. I just wish more of the doctors I have seen over the last few years had read this book too!! Dr Evans, thanks for writing such a wonderful book - it has really been a huge help to me.

A highly valuable little book, not only for sufferers and their family members (and caretakers), but also for general medical practicioners, nurses, med students, and students of physiology, biology, anatomy, chemistry and other fields of science related to humans and human diseases. This little book is probably the most thorough to be found on this subject matter.

It should be studied more commonly, WORLDWIDE, than it has been up to now. (Non-English speaking countries, med students, medical establishments, and researchers, in particular, should have discovered this valuable, concise, material by now, yet it remains a fairly rare little book. It might also be sent as a gift to those programs, institutions, and libraries abroad.)

CHAPTERS: Definition, Morphology, Etiologies, Prevalence and Heredity, Clinical Presentation and Symptoms, Clinical Signs, Diagnostic Studies, Differential Diagnosis, Malignant Transformation, Classification, Anatomic Distribution (Peritoneal), Extra Abdominal/Extra Pelvic, Medications for Pain Control, Surgical Treatment, Infertility Hormonal Changes, Peritoneal Fluid Studies, Immunologic Factors, Abortion, The No Treatment Option, Medical Therapy, Surgery for Endometriosis Associated Infertility, Infertility-Superovulation, Assisted Reproduction, Recurrent Endometriosis, Summary, Bibliography.

Highly recommended on this subject.