On March 17, 2025, The Washington Post published an article titled: “Period pain isn’t normal. Many women have this illness but don’t know it.” The piece resonated worldwide because it highlights a painful truth: endometriosis remains an underdiagnosed condition, with delays that deeply affect women’s quality of life and fertility. 🔎 Key Findings from The …
On March 17, 2025, The Washington Post published an article titled: “Period pain isn’t normal. Many women have this illness but don’t know it.” The piece resonated worldwide because it highlights a painful truth: endometriosis remains an underdiagnosed condition, with delays that deeply affect women’s quality of life and fertility.
🔎 Key Findings from The Washington Post
According to the report:
Endometriosis affects one in ten women in the United States.
The average diagnostic delay is 8 to 10 years, during which patients often consult six or seven different doctors.
Symptoms such as debilitating menstrual pain, chronic pelvic pain, heavy bleeding, painful intercourse, and digestive discomfort are frequently normalized or misdiagnosed as other conditions such as IBS or recurrent infections.
Definitive diagnosis still relies heavily on diagnostic laparoscopy, an invasive procedure that delays treatment.
This prolonged delay not only extends physical suffering but also causes emotional and psychological consequences, including anxiety, depression, and feelings of being ignored.
New research suggests that endometriosis may be a neuroimmune disease, with genetic links to migraine. In animal models, blocking the neuropeptide CGRP reduced both pain and lesion size, offering a glimpse of promising future therapies.
This context underscores a global challenge: the normalization of pain and the lack of systematically applied diagnostic tools leave millions of women untreated for years.
🌍 The Contrast: Endoglobal Group’s Advances
At Endoglobal Group, we agree on the importance of raising awareness about endometriosis, but we also emphasize a crucial point: science already allows us to overcome many of the obstacles described by The Washington Post.
Our team has systematically developed and implemented advanced endometriosis mapping through imaging, combining:
Specialized transvaginal ultrasound, with bowel preparation and the use of vaginal/rectal gels.
High-resolution multiparametric MRI, using dedicated protocols for endometriosis detection.
📌 Scientific Evidence Supporting Imaging-Based Mapping
High Diagnostic Accuracy
Specialized ultrasound achieves 85–90% sensitivity and ~95% specificity for deep endometriosis (Guerriero et al., 2023).
Multiparametric MRI detects lesions in the bowel, ureters, rectovaginal septum, and uterosacral ligaments with accuracy comparable to diagnostic laparoscopy (Bazot et al., 2022).
Planned and Safer Surgeries
Radiological mapping allows patients to undergo surgery with a precise disease map, leading to safer excision procedures, fewer complications, and higher chances of complete resection.
Dramatically Reduced Diagnostic Times
While the U.S. average diagnostic delay is nearly a decade, at EndoGlobal Group the process can be completed within months from the first specialized consultation.
Improved Fertility Outcomes
Early diagnosis allows better patient stratification: candidates for excision surgery, assisted reproductive treatments (such as IVF), or combined approaches.
🌸 A New Paradigm
The Washington Post reminds us that endometriosis remains an unresolved issue worldwide. Yet at EndoGlobal Group, we show that the landscape can change:
From late diagnoses → to early detection.
From exploratory surgeries → to precisely planned interventions.
From “normalizing” pain → to recognizing that debilitating pain is never normal.
💡 Final Reflection
Endometriosis is a complex, systemic disease. What is still described in the United States as an unresolved problem—long diagnostic delays and reliance on invasive procedures—has already been transformed into a tangible advancement at Endoglobal Group.
Our mission is clear: to provide every woman with accurate, timely, and non-invasive diagnosis, restoring quality of life and safeguarding her fertility.
In a world where women are still told that “period pain is normal”, we affirm with conviction: debilitating pain should never be normalized, and science already provides the tools to detect and treat it in time.
📚 References
The Washington Post (March 17, 2025). Period pain isn’t normal. Many women have this illness but don’t know it. Washington Post Wellness.
Bazot, M. et al. (2022). MRI and deep endometriosis: the value of imaging in diagnosis and surgical planning. Human Reproduction Update.
Guerriero, S. et al. (2023). Ultrasound versus MRI in the diagnosis of deep endometriosis: evidence-based recommendations. Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Chapron, C. et al. (2024). Endometriosis as a systemic disease: pathogenesis, diagnosis and novel therapeutic approaches. Nature Reviews Disease Primers.
