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Endometriosis
- Topic Overview
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Health Tools
- Cause
- Symptoms
- What Happens
- What Increases Your Risk
- When To Call a Doctor
- Exams and Tests
- Treatment Overview
- Prevention
- Home Treatment
- Medications
- Surgery
- Other Treatment
- Other Places To Get Help
- Related Information
- References
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Factors that raise your risk of endometriosis include:
- Being between puberty and menopause (around age 50). After estrogen levels drop at menopause, endometriosis risk disappears. In the past it was thought that women could only have endometriosis after many years of menstrual periods. But this is not true. Endometriosis has been found in girls before puberty and soon after their first menstrual period.
- Family history in a mother or sister (first-degree relative), which makes severe endometriosis more likely. This risk appears to be inherited through the mother.
- Menstrual cycles of less than 28 days.
- Menstrual flow of longer than 7 days.
- Menstruation that started before age 12.
- Never having given birth.
- An abnormal structure of the uterus, cervix, or vagina (usually present from birth) that blocks or slows menstrual flow.
| By: | Healthwise Staff | Last Revised: July 28, 2009 |
| Medical Review: | Sarah Anne Marshall, MD - Family Medicine Deborah A. Penava, BA, MD, FRCSC, MPH - Obstetrics and Gynecology | |
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