Endometriosis: Rethinking Surgery for Diagnosis | Dr. Mike Armour
Fempower Health | A Women's Health Podcast
Is Endometriosis a Single Disease?
We don't know what causes the endometriosis. Leah Hittman is doing some of that in her work. It's likely to be quite a multi-factorial cause multiple pathways, you know, and multiple phenotypes. And so probably more similar to cancer, I guess, in a way where there's lots of causes for this one overarching disease.
Dr Mike Armour is heavily involved in research and treatment of endometriosis, and he was the invited complementary medicine expert on the endometriosis expert working group (EEWG) for the Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Gynaecologists (RANZCOG). Recently, he and his colleagues, Cecilia Ng and Mathew Leonardi, published an article You No Longer Need Surgery to be Diagnosed with Endometriosis: Here’s What’s Changed which created quite a stir on social media.
Our “meet and greet” call was powerful and luckily recorded, so we decided to publish it as an episode!
We discuss the following about endometriosis:
- Concerns about the disconnect between surgeons, patients and researchers.
- How social media impacts our ability to discern fact from fiction
- Whether endometriosis is a progressive disease
- The holy grail for endometriosis diagnosis and why it shouldn’t be laparoscopic surgery
- Whether laparoscopic surgery at an early age makes a difference is symptoms and recurrence as we age
- How one should prepare for doctor appointments and why this is key to optimal diagnosis and treatment
“We don’t know most things about endometriosis. We don’t even have evidence that it is a progressive disease.” - Dr. Mike Armour
Resources:
- Check out Lessons from Implementing the Australian National Action Plan for Endometriosis
Resources and episodes on Endometriosis
Resources and episodes on Pelvic Health
Resources and episodes on Women's Health-Related Pain
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About Dr. Mike Armour
Dr Mike Armour completed his honours degree in biomedicine at the University of Auckland before going on to study traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, and then completed his PhD in dysmenorrhea (period pain) in 2016 at Western Sydney University. Mike is a senior research fellow in reproductive health at NICM Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University where he is currently running several clinical trials on endometriosis and menstrual health.
Mike has published over 67 peer reviewed articles on various aspects of women’s health including menstrual health literacy, diagnostics, period pain, endometriosis and medicinal cannabis. Mike is also an author on several textbook chapters including a forthcoming chapter on the use of medicinal cannabis to treat endometriosis. Mike is heavily involved in research and treatment of endometriosis, and he was the invited complementary medicine expert on the endometriosis expert working group (EEWG) for the Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Gynaecologists (RANZCOG). Mike is also a World Endometriosis Society Ambassador, Chair of Endometriosis Australia’s clinical advisory committee, Chair of Endometriosis Australia’s research committee, Academic lead of the Menstrual Cycle Research Network (MCRN) at Western Sydney University and Chair of the Australasian Interdisciplinary Researchers in Endometriosis (AIRE).
**The information shared by Fempower Health is not medical advice but for informational purposes to enable you to have more effective conversations with your doctor. Always talk to your doctor before making health-related decisions. Additionally, the views expressed by the Fempower Health podcast guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.**
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