Beating Endo: How to Reclaim Your Life from Endometriosis by Iris Kerin Orbuch and Amy Stein
From the publisher: From two of the world’s leading experts in endometriosis comes an essential, first-of-its kind book that unwraps the mystery of the disease and gives women the tools they need to reclaim their lives from it. Approximately one out of every 10 women has endometriosis, an inflammatory disease that causes chronic pain, limits life’s activities, and may lead to infertility. Despite the disease’s prevalence, the average woman may suffer for a decade or more before receiving an accurate diagnosis. Once she does, she’s often given little more than a prescription for pain killers and a referral for the wrong kind of surgery. Beating Endo arms women with what has long been missing—even within the medical community—namely, cutting-edge knowledge of how the disease works and what the endo sufferer can do to take charge of her fight against it. Leading gynecologist and endometriosis specialist Dr. Iris Kerin Orbuch and world-renowned pelvic pain specialist and physical therapist Dr. Amy Stein have long partnered with each other and with other healthcare practitioners to address the disease’s host of co-existing conditions—which can include pelvic floor muscle dysfunction, gastrointestinal ailments, painful bladder syndrome, central nervous system sensitization—through a whole-mind/whole-body approach. Now, Beating Endo formalizes the multimodal program they developed, offering readers an anti-inflammatory lifestyle protocol that incorporates physical therapy, nutrition, mindfulness, and environment to systematically addresses each of the disease’s co-conditions on an ongoing basis up to and following excision surgery. This is the program that has achieved successful outcomes for their patients; it is the program that works to restore health, vitality, and quality of life to women with endo. No more “misdiagnosis roulette” and no more limits on women’s lives: Beating Endo puts the tools of renewed health in the hands of those whose health is at risk.
Ooooooof, y’all. The privilege that’s seeping out of every page of this book. Yikes.
I’ll preface this review with the fact that I had read some pretty horrible things about the author, her treatment of her patients and her general distain of people that can’t afford her treatments. I bought this book on eBay so as to not give her anymore money. But I still wanted to read it, because as an endo patient, good info is hard to come by.
This book had some good info about the long and frustrating paths that endo patients usually have to travel to get a diagnosis. It also shares some interesting info about the mechanisms of pain and what causes it. I like that it's broken down by chapter in the different ways endo can affect your life: mental health, sex, fertility, teenager years, bladder, intestinal health, etc.
However, it alleges a lot of stuff as fact and there’s only 31 cites in a book that’s over 300 pages. My biggest issue is this- the lifestyle changes they insist you make are impossible for anyone who isn’t rich. Apparently I’m supposed to eat vegan, gluten free and also avoid nightshade veggies. No caffeine, no alcohol, no sugar, and avoid chemicals. They hinted that I should be growing and catching my own food, which was a literal full time job back in the days when that was common. When they mentioned patients have pushed back on these suggestions, they retorted that people need to budget better. If the treatment plan you’re proposing isn’t accessible, it’s not going to do much good, is it? Their condescending tone was pretty disgusting and I feel awful for their patients.
Here are some quotes that illustrate what I mean: The cost would go well beyond what Elena’s insurance plan would cover; Elena calculated quickly and decided that the new sofa she was eyeing for the apartment could easily be put off.
For example, if you buy yourself a nice gluten-free, dairy-free meal but it is packaged in plastic, you might well be taking in some of those aforementioned endocrine disruptors as well as setting off an inflammatory response in your body. That would sort of cancel out some of the good you counted on with your choice of food.
About the only way to ensure absolute and complete protection from the possibility of dioxin exposure from food is with a strictly vegan diet, but of course, as noted, don’t eat your vegan meal out of plastic containers.
it can’t hurt to check those mattress tags we’re not supposed to remove “under penalty of law” to see if your mattress might contain flame retardants or PVC or polyurethane foam. You may want to replace it with an organic mattress one day.
FLAME RETARDANT EXISTS FOR A REASON. I AM NOT DYING IN A HOUSE FIRE BECAUSE OF PSEUDOSCIENCE WITHOUT CITATION.
Overall, this book was kind of disgusting and needed way more peer review studies and cites. But there is some good info occasionally sprinkled in. All of the other books in the photo are much better endo resources.
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