### If your period pain feels like a knife twisting in your gut, it's not just in your head - it could be adenomyosis, a hidden disease that doctors often miss.  adenomyosis symptoms causes natural treatment ### STORY AT-A-GLANCE - Adenomyosis is often mistaken for bad period pain or endometriosis, but it involves tissue growing into the uterine muscle, causing swelling, heavy bleeding, and knife-like cramps - Many women suffer for years without a diagnosis because doctors misinterpret symptoms or rely on outdated assumptions that the condition only affects older women - Research shows adenomyosis leads to serious complications like infertility, miscarriage, preeclampsia, and dangerously low hemoglobin levels requiring emergency transfusions - Estrogen overload is the main driver of adenomyosis, and it’s made worse by birth control, plastics, vegetable oils, and hormone-disrupting chemicals found in everyday products - You can start reversing estrogen dominance naturally by cutting synthetic hormones, avoiding xenoestrogens, restoring metabolism with the right carbs, and using natural progesterone  Advertisement If your period pain feels unbearable — like a deep, throbbing ache or stabbing cramps that knock the wind out of you — it's not something to brush off. Pain that severe isn’t normal. For millions of women, it’s the body’s warning signal for something deeper that’s often misunderstood or completely missed. You’ve likely been told that heavy bleeding, pelvic pressure, and fatigue are just part of being a woman. But what if those symptoms point to a disease that's quietly hijacking your uterus and flooding your body with inflammation? That’s the reality for countless women who are dismissed, misdiagnosed, or left in the dark for years, sometimes decades. This condition, known as adenomyosis, doesn’t always show up clearly on a scan. It’s not taught well in medical school. And it’s rarely mentioned in mainstream conversations about women’s health. But it’s there, silently reshaping lives, month after month. I want to walk you through what the research now shows — why it happens, who’s at risk, and what your options actually are. The science is evolving fast, and the data is clear: you don’t have to live like this. Let’s take a look at the overlooked patterns and newest discoveries about this underdiagnosed disease. <iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/uiJOCfPtYPk?rel=0&amp;autoplay=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;enablejsapi=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen="true" width="728" height="409"></iframe> ## Most Women Are Told Their Pain Is Normal — It Isn’t From the women suffering through debilitating cramps to the doctors mislabeling it as "just a bad period," an article in The Hearty Soul pulls back the curtain on how widespread yet invisible **[adenomyosis](https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2024/06/26/what-is-adenomyosis.aspx)** is.[^1] It presents differently from endometriosis and takes a devastating toll on a woman’s social life, mental well-being, and ability to function day to day. - **Symptoms often mimic other conditions, which causes many women to go undiagnosed —** Unlike endometriosis, adenomyosis causes the uterine wall itself to thicken and expand, sometimes doubling or tripling in size. Women describe the pain as knife-like cramping that strikes during menstruation, along with painful sex, bloating, pelvic pressure, and severe bleeding that disrupts quality of life. There’s a cultural normalization of these symptoms, but just because menstrual pain is common doesn’t mean it’s normal. - **Doctors often dismiss or misinterpret these symptoms, further delaying diagnosis —** Gynecologist Dr. Shamitha Kathurusinghe, who points out that many doctors are themselves misinformed: “There’s a lot of misinformation because there’s a lot of misunderstanding that comes from messaging that doctors are getting.” That means women aren’t just being ignored — they’re being actively misled into thinking their symptoms don’t warrant investigation. - **The lack of awareness creates a cycle of isolation and suffering —** Many women miss work, cancel plans, and lose relationships because of the unpredictability and severity of their symptoms. Yet they often remain silent out of embarrassment or fear of being labeled “dramatic.” - **Adenomyosis doesn’t always come with symptoms, making it harder to catch early —** The condition is often silent for years, only showing up after other reproductive complications arise. But when it does cause symptoms, it mimics endometriosis or fibroids, which complicates diagnosis and treatment decisions. ## Younger Women Are Now at Risk — and Doctors Aren’t Catching It A review published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine revealed just how often adenomyosis is missed or misunderstood in clinical settings.[^2] The paper compiled data from dozens of high-quality studies to explore how adenomyosis affects everything from fertility to miscarriage risk. The review focused on women of reproductive age and made clear that current diagnostic and treatment approaches are still not consistent, even among specialists. - **Adenomyosis is now being found in much younger women than previously thought —** The conventional view has been that this condition primarily affects women in their 40s or 50s, especially those who’ve already had children. But the paper highlighted that focal forms of adenomyosis — where lesions are isolated rather than spread throughout the uterine muscle — are now increasingly being diagnosed in women in their 30s and even younger. These women often present with fertility problems or abnormal bleeding, but their symptoms are dismissed or misattributed to something else. - **There’s a strong link between adenomyosis and pregnancy complications —** Women with adenomyosis have a much higher risk of miscarriage, preterm birth, preeclampsia (dangerously high blood pressure during pregnancy), and delivering babies that are smaller than normal for their gestational age. These risks are especially pronounced when the adenomyosis is diffuse, meaning it spreads across a wider area of the uterus rather than being confined to one spot. This type of tissue growth interferes with the placenta’s ability to attach and develop normally. - **Even though diagnostic tools exist, global guidelines are still not aligned — so your doctor’s advice may depend on where you live —** While some countries are adopting advanced classification systems based on imaging criteria, others still lack a formal system to define or grade adenomyosis severity. That means two women with the exact same symptoms often get completely different diagnoses and treatments depending on which clinic or country they visit. - **The biological explanation lies in how the tissue invades the uterine muscle and disrupts its structure —** Researchers believe that tissue from the uterine lining becomes embedded in the muscle wall either through mechanical injury — such as from surgery — or through a faulty junction between the endometrium and the myometrium — the inner and outer layers of the uterus. Once this tissue is inside the muscle, it thickens and swells with each menstrual cycle, causing inflammation, scarring, and impaired uterine function. - **Several theories explain how adenomyosis starts, but most point to a breakdown in your uterine architecture —** One theory, called tissue injury and repair, suggests that repeated damage to the uterine lining causes abnormal healing responses, leading to invasion of the muscle by uterine lining cells. Another theory proposes that stem cells in the uterus misfire and turn into the wrong kind of tissue, embedding themselves where they don’t belong. In either case, the result is the same: a uterus that’s constantly inflamed, structurally compromised, and metabolically inefficient. ## Adenomyosis Isn’t Just Painful — It Leads to Emergency Room Visits An overview from Johns Hopkins Medicine highlights how adenomyosis becomes medically dangerous, not just inconvenient or uncomfortable.[^3] While the condition is often brushed off as a heavy period, the article makes clear that some women bleed so much they end up severely anemic, requiring blood transfusions just to restore basic function. Gynecologic oncologist Dr. Mildred Chernofsky explains that adenomyosis involves tissue that grows into the muscular wall of the uterus and bleeds every month like normal uterine lining. But because it’s trapped in the muscle, it causes inflammation, swelling, and massive blood loss. - **The most severe cases involve hemoglobin levels dropping to life-threatening lows —** According to Chernofsky, “I may see patients that bleed until they have a hemoglobin level of 7 grams per deciliter and are extremely anemic.” Normal hemoglobin levels for women range from 12 to 16 g/dL. When blood levels drop this low, women often experience fatigue, dizziness, fainting, shortness of breath, and lightheadedness. - **Most women don’t even realize their uterus has enlarged until the symptoms are advanced —** The uterus becomes spongy, heavy, and balloon-like. This bloating feels like constant pressure in your lower abdomen or a sense of fullness that doesn’t go away. Yet during physical exams, doctors often don’t recognize the warning signs unless they specifically palpate the uterus and check for size, shape, and density irregularities. - **Diagnosing adenomyosis still depends heavily on imaging, and MRI remains the most accurate tool —** While an ultrasound is usually the first step, it’s not always sensitive enough to pick up on deeper tissue invasion. “MRI provides incredibly high-resolution images and shows us the thickness of the endometrial-myometrial junction,” says Chernofsky. That junction — the boundary where the uterine lining meets the muscle — is usually where the disease starts. - **Adenomyosis often gets confused with two other conditions: endometriosis and fibroids, but the treatments are different —** While all three cause pelvic pain and heavy bleeding, they originate in different tissues and require different approaches. **[Endometriosis](https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2024/02/23/endometriosis-fusobacterium.aspx)** involves tissue outside the uterus. **[Fibroids](https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2023/01/02/vitamin-d-for-uterine-fibroid-reduction.aspx)** are benign tumors. Adenomyosis, on the other hand, is diffuse tissue growth inside the uterine wall, and can’t simply be “cut out” the way fibroids sometimes are. - **Surgery is often used as a last resort —** Unlike fibroids, adenomyosis tissue spreads throughout the uterus and often has fingerlike projections that invade the muscle. That makes it difficult to remove piece by piece. This means that for women with severe, unrelenting symptoms, removing the uterus becomes conventional medicine’s go-to permanent solution. ## How to Stop Feeding the Root Cause of Adenomyosis If you’ve been dealing with symptoms like heavy bleeding, intense cramping, or a constantly bloated abdomen — and you suspect or know you have adenomyosis — then it’s time to focus on the root of the issue: excess estrogen. **[Estrogen dominance](https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2025/04/12/menopause-and-influence-of-estrogen-dominance.aspx)** fuels this disease.[^4] That includes both the estrogen your body produces and the synthetic or food-based estrogens you’re exposed to without realizing it. You’re not powerless here. You can start taking control today. The goal is to block what’s driving this disease while rebuilding your energy and restoring balance. If you’re looking to avoid hormonal treatments like **[birth control pills](https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2024/07/22/opill-birth-control-pill.aspx)** or you’re looking for alternatives to surgery, these five steps will help you move forward. 1. **Cut off the estrogen at the source —** If you’re on birth control or hormone replacement therapy, and you're dealing with adenomyosis symptoms, those drugs are likely making things worse. Synthetic estrogens increase tissue growth inside your uterus.[^5] You’ll also want to stay far away from **[plastics](https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2024/10/03/how-microplastics-can-affect-reproductive-health.aspx)**, conventional cleaning products, and chemical-laden beauty products — these all contain **[xenoestrogens](https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2024/03/25/estrogen.aspx)**, which mimic estrogen in your body. Switch to glass containers, and use natural or homemade personal care and cleaning options. 2. **Use natural progesterone to block the damage —** Natural progesterone is your anti-estrogen. It doesn’t just relieve symptoms — it actually blocks the effects of both estrogen and cortisol. That’s a powerful combination. But don’t rush into it. If your diet is still holding you back from making energy at the cellular level, progesterone won’t have its full effect. First, rebuild your metabolic foundation. Once your diet supports mitochondrial energy production, introducing a natural progesterone, as described below, makes a noticeable difference. 3. **Fix your metabolism with the right carbs — not fewer —** If you’ve been doing keto or low-carb, stop. Shift toward 250 grams of carbs per day, and more if you’re very active. This is what your cells need to make adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the fuel that powers everything from brain function to hormone balance. Start with white rice and whole fruit. Add well-cooked root vegetables next. Hold off on raw greens, whole grains and beans until your gut is healthy, meaning your bowel habits, **[bloating](https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2025/05/20/over-half-americans-think-stomach-issues-normal.aspx),** and overall comfort are under control. 4. **Filter your toxins, especially vegetable oils —** **[Linoleic acid (LA)](https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2023/07/17/linoleic-acid.aspx)**, the dominant fat in vegetable oils, mimics estrogen, contributing to estrogen dominance. As a result, LA disrupts hormonal balance along with mitochondrial function. Cut out all forms of vegetable oils, including from processed foods, restaurant meals, and even nuts and seeds. Replace them with tallow, grass fed butter, or ghee. 5. **Know your prolactin level —** Many people believe they're low in estrogen due to bloodwork, when they actually have high levels in their organs. This is because serum estrogen levels are not representative of estrogen that's stored in tissues. Estrogen is often low in plasma but high in tissues. Prolactin levels serve as a reliable indicator of estrogen activity, as estrogen directly stimulates your pituitary gland to produce prolactin. When prolactin levels are elevated, it signals increased estrogen receptor activation, whether from your body's own estrogen production or environmental exposures to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in microplastics and other pollutants. This relationship is particularly significant when combined with low thyroid function, making prolactin an important marker for identifying hormonal imbalance. ## How to Use Progesterone Before you consider using progesterone, it is important to understand that it is not a magic bullet, and that you get the most benefit by implementing a Bioenergetic diet approach that allows you to effectively burn glucose as your primary fuel without backing up electrons in your mitochondria that reduces your energy production. My new book, "Your Guide to Cellular Health: Unlocking the Science of Longevity and Joy," covers this process in great detail. Once you have dialed in your diet, an effective strategy that can help counteract estrogen excess is to take transmucosal progesterone (i.e., applied to your gums, not oral or transdermal), which is a natural estrogen antagonist. Progesterone is one of only three hormones I believe many adults can benefit from. (The other two are DHEA and pregnenolone.) I do not recommend transdermal progesterone, as your skin expresses high levels of 5-alpha reductase enzyme, which causes a significant portion of the progesterone you're taking to be irreversibly converted primarily into allopregnanolone and cannot be converted back into progesterone. ## Ideal Way to Administer Progesterone Please note that when progesterone is used transmucosally on your gums as I advise, the FDA believes that somehow converts it into a drug and prohibits any company from advising that on its label. This is why companies promote their progesterone products as "topical." However, please understand that it is perfectly legal for any physician to recommend an off-label indication for a drug to their patient. In this case, progesterone is a natural hormone and not a drug and is very safe even in high doses. This is unlike synthetic progesterone called progestins that are used by drug companies, but frequently, and incorrectly, referred. Dr. Ray Peat has done the seminal work in progesterone and probably was the world's greatest expert on progesterone. He wrote his Ph.D. on estrogen in 1982 and spent most of his professional career documenting the need to counteract the dangers of excess estrogen with low-LA diets and transmucosal progesterone supplementation. He determined that most solvents do not dissolve progesterone well and discovered that vitamin E is the best solvent to optimally provide progesterone in your tissue. Vitamin E also protects you against damage from LA. You just need to be very careful about which vitamin E you use as most supplemental vitamin E on the market is worse than worthless and will cause you harm not benefit. <iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/tWvuzzVw1DA?rel=0&amp;autoplay=0&amp;showinfo=0&amp;enablejsapi=0" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen="true" width="728" height="409"></iframe> It is imperative to avoid using any synthetic vitamin E (alpha tocopherol acetate — the acetate indicates that it's synthetic). Natural vitamin E will be labeled "d alpha tocopherol." This is the pure D isomer, which is what your body can use. There are also other vitamin E isomers, and you want the complete spectrum of tocopherols and tocotrienols, specifically the beta, gamma, and delta types, in the effective D isomer. As an example of an ideal vitamin E, you can look at the label on our vitamin E in our store. You can use any brand that has a similar label. You can purchase pharmaceutical grade bioidentical progesterone as Progesterone Powder, Bioidentical Micronized Powder, 10 grams for about $40 on many online stores like Amazon. That is nearly a year's supply, depending on the dose you choose. However, you will need to purchase some small stainless steel measuring spoons as you will need a 1/64 tsp, which is 25 mg and a 1/32 tsp, which is 50 mg. A normal dose is typically 25 to 50 mg and is taken 30 to 60 minutes before bed, as it has an anti-cortisol function and will increase GABA levels for a good night's sleep. If you are a menstruating woman, you should take the progesterone during the luteal phase or the last half of your cycle, which can be determined by starting 10 days after the first day of your period and stopping the progesterone when your period starts. If you are a male or non-menstruating woman, you can take the progesterone every day for four to six months and then cycle off for one week. The best time of day to take progesterone is 30 to 60 minutes before bed as it has an anti-cortisol function and will increase GABA levels for a good night's sleep. This is what I have been personally doing for over a year with very good results. I am a physician so do not have any problems doing this. If you aren't a physician, you should consult one before using this therapy, as transmucosal progesterone therapy requires a doctor's prescription. ## FAQs About Adenomyosis **Q: What is adenomyosis and how is it different from other conditions like endometriosis or fibroids?** **A:** Adenomyosis is a condition where the tissue that normally lines your uterus grows into the muscular wall of the uterus itself. This causes the uterus to swell and leads to intense cramps, heavy bleeding, and chronic pelvic pain. Unlike endometriosis (where tissue grows outside the uterus) or fibroids (benign tumors), adenomyosis spreads through the uterine muscle and can’t be removed surgically in the same way. **Q: Why do so many women go undiagnosed with adenomyosis?** **A:** Doctors often misinterpret adenomyosis symptoms or attribute them to other conditions. Symptoms like painful periods, bloating, and fatigue are frequently dismissed as “normal,” especially in younger women. Additionally, imaging tools like ultrasound don’t always catch the disease. MRI is more accurate but less commonly used, so many women are left undiagnosed or misdiagnosed for years. **Q: What are the long-term risks of untreated adenomyosis?** **A:** Left untreated, adenomyosis often leads to severe anemia from chronic blood loss, requiring emergency care or blood transfusions. It also increases the risk of pregnancy complications, including miscarriage, preeclampsia, and preterm birth. Over time, the ongoing inflammation and uterine damage leads to reduced fertility and significant declines in quality of life. **Q: What is the root cause of adenomyosis and how do I address it?** **A:** The underlying driver of adenomyosis is excess estrogen, including both natural estrogen and environmental estrogens from plastics, chemicals, and synthetic hormones. To lower your estrogen load, cut out vegetable oils and processed foods, reduce chemical exposures and birth control pills, use natural progesterone and support your metabolism through strategic dietary shifts and mitochondrial repair. **Q: What steps can I take today to start feeling better?** **A:** Start by eliminating hormone disruptors like synthetic birth control and chemical-laden products. Shift to a higher-carb, whole-food diet to rebuild your mitochondrial function. Add natural progesterone and monitor prolactin levels to get a more accurate picture of your true estrogen burden and hormonal balance. ***Disclaimer**: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Mercola, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked.* *The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Mercola and his community. Dr. Mercola encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. The subscription fee being requested is for access to the articles and information posted on this site, and is not being paid for any individual medical advice.* *If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your health care professional before using products based on this content.* [^1]: [The Hearty Soul May 8, 2025](https://theheartysoul.com/adenomyosis/) [^2]: [Journal of Clinical Medicine. 2024 Jul 9;13(14):3996](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11277467/) [^3]: [Johns Hopkins Medicine, Adenomyosis](https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/adenomyosis) [^4]: [Journal of Clinical Medicine. 2022 Aug; 11(15): 4407](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9369051/) [^5]: [Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2022 Feb 28;13:827724](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8920307/)