The ICI Experience:

Here are a few videos from the Blossom Ball this year.  Start each one individually because it really annoys me when a video starts as soon as I click on a site and won't stop.  They're all short and sweet.  Especially the one on the far right. Allison Williams' letter to endo for Lena Duncan.  Enjoy. Endometriosis Foundation of America from Endofound on Vimeo . In case you don't know who Allison Williams is, like I didn't: Allison Williams Actress Allison Williams is an American actress, comedian, and singer. She is best known for her role as Marnie Michaels on the HBO comedy-drama series Girls. Williams was born and raised in New Canaan, Connecticut, and is the daughter of former NBC Nightly News anchor and managing editor Brian Williams and Jane Gillan Stoddard, a T… Wikipedia IMDb Born: Apr 13, 1988 (age 28) · New Canaan, CT Height: 5' 6" (1.67 m) Spouse: Ricky Van Veen (m. 2015) I would like to post more s...

UPDATED:  March 21, 2016 - also World EndoMarch 2016 day 5/23/14 I just stumbled across this article/post about the nightmare of Lupron, on Pinterest.  I'm sharing it here because it is well written, factual, and it's a small sample of the insanity that has surrounded people with Endometriosis for decades.  And because I'm so glad I didn't take Lupron or any of the other useless but dangerous drugs that were being promoted for endometriosis back when I was first diagnosed.  (I have the Endometriosis Association , founded in 1980 by Mary Lou Ballweg, to thank for providing me with the knowledge and courage to buck the medical system from the beginning of my diagnoses.)  The nightmare is that doctors are STILL prescribing Lupron for Endo. Hidden Clinical Trial Data About Lupron

... I shall share with you this wonderful post about a surgery very similar to mine that happened this month.  But it's from the perspective of the waiting room, by Erin's friend, Marissa.  I'd say she's a very good friend.  The post is hilarious AND it made me cry.  It's great.  Sigh. Putting the ME in EndoMEtriosis-Part 1 ,  on Erin's Guide to Living Blog If you've read my blog at all, you know I like to put pictures in my posts.  This is a word picture, but I think it goes. Erin & Marissa, I hope you're new online friends.  And to all of you out there that I've met online (NOT just Facebook!) since I started blogging in 2007, I'm really, really thankful for you.  Especially since I moved in 2011 and had less than a year to make face to face friends in my new city before I had to start figuring what was wrong with me this time.  It's been a long hard road and I'm not at the end of it yet.  But I know al...

I noticed this as soon as I started reading Endo and Pelvic Pain websites and blogs, a few months after these new symptoms (yes, I'm going to write all about it; I just need to get into the swing of blogging again before jumping into the deep end) started in September of 2012:  Many of the people who write about these topics call themselves "sufferers." I started being diagnosed with ICIs  in 1989 (Endo, Fibro and multiple food allergies that year) and I quickly learned that I preferred to refer to myself and others as survivors or persons with chronic illness X .  Even referring to myself as a fibromyalgiac, for instance, tends to give the illness a feeling of power over me.  None of the ICIs I have define ME, so I don't use terms like that either.   Sufferer connotes a victim mentality to me.  It's OK to wallow in the pool of being a victim for awhile, but I don't think anyone will get out of that sucky, I-feel-sorry-for-me-so-you-should too plac...

**Public Service Announcement** by Laurel Wells Thompson (feel free to share this far and wide, with attribution)   HOW NOT TO BE A DICK TO YOUR INFERTILE FRIEND: CONVERSATIONAL EDITION About 11% of women are unable to conceive within one year of "trying," so if you are a person that breathes air, you have probably encountered one of us. It's very tempting to offer words of comfort or advice, or to ask questions, but very often there is a disconnect between what you're saying, and what your infertile friend (heretofore referred to as YIF) hears. Allow me to translate some of the most common attempts at sympathy: You: "Just relax!" YIF hears: This is your fault, if only you could be like everyone else you could make this happen. You: "Everything happens for a reason/it's all in God's plan" YIF hears: You're clearly not cut out to be a parent/God wants everyone to be happy except for you. You: "Why don...

I'm writing about the environment today, for Blog Action Day. Years ago, coal miners took canaries down into the coal mines with them, because canaries are more sensitive to the poisonous coal gases than human beings are. When a bird started acting sick, the miners beat a hasty retreat. The canary usually died. The following is an excerpt from "Canaries In A Coal Mine", by Kevin Gregg, DC, from the Chronic Syndrome Support Association site : "Have you ever considered that those of you experiencing FMS, CFS, MCS and GWS symptoms might simply be canaries down the collective mine shaft? What if, like those canaries, you were simply the early warning system for this culture. What if your experiences were exposing mounting health risks for everyone? You are, I suspect, at the far end of a continuum that all of us are on to varying degrees. Placement on this continuum depends only on the degree a person is stressed, starved and poisoned by their life and environm...

Don't claim to have a cure that you can't back up while this lady is around: Veronica Thomas will take you to task for it if you do! See her article "Claims For a “Cure”- The Truth About Pills and Potions." Cure Alicsalutice Rheumatic-UK , originally uploaded by Michael Till .

The Endometriosis Association has it down pretty darn pat in Toxic Link to Endo : As explained in books including Our Stolen Future, Dying from Dioxin , and "The Endometriosis Sourcebook", scientists have come to the realization that certain chemical compounds, such as dioxin, have profound immunological and reproductive impacts at exposures far below the level known to cause cancer. These chemicals are known as endocrine disruptors and can mimic hormones and interfere with many physiological processes. Scientists are still researching the mechanisms that are used, but they already know that these man-made chemicals persist in the body for years. PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) are a group of dioxin-like chemicals that were used in industry until they were banned in the 1970s. Some PCBs persist in the environment for more than one hundred years. I expect that one day everything that's wrong with me that's not strictly due to the aging process will be proven to hav...