Endometriosis, PCOS, and Fibromyalgia: The Conditions Medicine "Cannot" Explain

An Essay

This essay grew out of conversations with Dr. Marizelle Arce, a naturopathic physician and author of Germs Are Not Our Enemy: Why the New Terrain Medicine Is Best for Optimal Health. The framework presented here—particularly the understanding of hypertrophy as the body’s response to toxic burden, the role of xenoestrogens in reproductive tissue malformation, and the critique of modern diagnostic categories—owes its best ideas to her. Any errors or overreach in applying these concepts are my own.

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Endometriosis affects one in ten women of reproductive age. Polycystic ovary syndrome affects a similar proportion. Fibromyalgia predominantly affects women. For all three conditions, mainstream medicine offers the same explanation: the cause is unknown, though genetics may play a role.

The phrase “genetics may play a role” appears in medical literature for conditions where environmental causation would implicate industries with significant economic and political power. This pattern—genetic uncertainty emphasized, environmental factors minimized—has documented precedent in tobacco, lead, and pesticide research.

The Standard Explanations

Endometriosis involves tissue similar to the uterine lining growing outside the uterus—on ovaries, fallopian tubes, bowel, and bladder. The Mayo Clinic states the exact cause “is not certain.” Proposed mechanisms include retrograde menstruation, cellular transformation, and immune system disorders.

PCOS involves ovaries developing fluid-filled sacs and failing to release eggs regularly. Symptoms include irregular periods, elevated androgens, and insulin resistance. Medical literature states: “The exact cause of PCOS isn’t known.”

Fibromyalgia presents as widespread pain, fatigue, sleep disturbances, and cognitive difficulties. The explanation offered: nervous system sensitization amplifies pain signals. Listed causes include genetic predisposition, trauma, and infections. No definitive cause has been identified.

Three conditions affecting millions of women share identical explanatory structure: unknown cause, genetic component suggested, no environmental factors identified.

The Diagnostic Maze

Women with endometriosis report average delays of seven to ten years between symptom onset and diagnosis. During those years, many experience dismissal by medical professionals, suggestions that pain is normal or exaggerated, and implications that symptoms are psychological.

Siobhan Donoghue’s experience illustrates the pattern. She began experiencing severe menstrual pain at thirteen, followed by mystery pelvic pain attacks at seventeen that sent her to hospital. Doctors labeled it “sensitive stomach” or irritable bowel syndrome without formal diagnosis. She accepted these explanations for years. “I followed their suggestions, thinking bloating and stomach discomfort were just things I had to live with—but I had no idea why.”

An Endometriosis Story

Jayne Evans experienced similar dismissal. She went to many different doctors for five years with severe menstrual pain, receiving no diagnosis except IBS—”a diagnosis given when nothing else can be determined.” The pattern repeated across decades: pain, dismissal, vague labels, pharmaceutical management.

Homœopathy

The diagnostic process often proceeds through escalating interventions. As Nora Coffey documents, women are told they have endometriosis and put on drugs to stop menstruation. Then doctors perform diagnostic laparoscopy. After laparoscopy, doctors commonly tell women they have stage 4 endometriosis—”It’s all over your organs, your bladder, your bowels, everywhere.” Hysterectomy follows.

But when women obtain their pathology reports, nine out of ten times they discover they didn’t have endometriosis. Their organs were normal. The diagnosis that justified organ removal was never confirmed.

The Streetlight Effect in Women’s Health Research

A parable describes a drunk searching for his keys under a streetlight. When asked if that’s where he lost them, he replies: “No, but the light is better here.” This has become known as the streetlight effect—the tendency to search where looking is easiest rather than where answers are most likely found.

The streetlight effect shapes scientific research in documented ways. Researchers disproportionately study topics where data is readily available, tools are established, and methods are conventional. Understudied but potentially high-value research domains remain in darkness because exploring them is difficult, unfunded, or professionally risky.

In women’s health research, the streetlight shines on genetics, hormonal panels, and pharmaceutical interventions. These are measurable. They fit existing methodologies. They lead to patentable products. Research funding flows toward them.

The darkness contains environmental causation. Studying how decades of cumulative toxic exposures produce reproductive disorders requires longitudinal research, faces industry opposition, and threatens powerful economic interests. The research tools are less developed. The funding is scarce. The professional incentives point elsewhere.

The medical consequences of this bias are documented. In the 1980s, anti-arrhythmia drugs successfully suppressed measurable heart irregularities—the illuminated metric doctors could observe. But the drugs doubled mortality risk, from 3% to 7.7% annually. An estimated 40,000 excess deaths occurred annually in the United States before researchers finally measured what mattered: survival rather than the suppression of easily observable symptoms. The drugs worked perfectly on the metrics being measured. They killed patients.

The parallel to women’s reproductive health is direct. Hormonal contraceptives suppress measurable symptoms. Hormone therapy manages measurable hormone levels. Surgical interventions remove measurable tissue growth. The illuminated metrics improve. Whether the underlying terrain improves—whether toxic burden decreases, whether elimination pathways function, whether the body moves toward health—remains in darkness.

When researchers study endometriosis, they examine genetic variants because genetic analysis tools exist. They study hormonal patterns because hormone assays are established. They test pharmaceutical interventions because drug trials have standardized protocols. What they rarely study: cumulative xenoestrogen exposure over decades. PFAS accumulation in reproductive tissue. Interactions between multiple low-dose endocrine disruptors. The synergistic effects of plastics, pesticides, synthetic hormones, and industrial chemicals acting together on the same organ systems over time.

This is not conspiracy. It is incentive structure. Researchers follow funding. Funding follows measurability. Measurability follows existing tools. Existing tools illuminate genetic and pharmaceutical domains. Environmental causation remains dark—not because it lacks evidence, but because looking there is hard, expensive, and opposed by industries whose products might be implicated.

The phrase “we don’t know what causes it” often means “we haven’t looked where the cause likely is.” The streetlight effect transforms “haven’t looked” into “don’t know”—and “don’t know” becomes the permanent scientific consensus.

Agnotology and Manufactured Uncertainty

Robert Proctor, a historian of science at Stanford, coined the term “agnotology” to describe the deliberate production of ignorance. His research documented how the tobacco industry manufactured uncertainty about smoking and cancer for decades. The strategy did not require proving cigarettes safe. It required keeping the question open.

The tobacco playbook: fund studies that complicate the picture, emphasize uncertainty, demand rigorous proof standards for harm while accepting lower standards for safety, ensure “more research is needed” remains the permanent conclusion.

Internal tobacco documents released through litigation revealed this was explicit strategy. A 1969 Brown & Williamson memo stated: “Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public.”

Chemical and pharmaceutical industries have access to the same strategic toolkit. When research threatens profits, competing research gets funded. Methodological objections get raised. Advisory boards get populated with sympathetic experts. Regulatory agencies get captured by regulated industries.

Industry-funded studies are more likely to produce favorable results than independently funded studies—a phenomenon documented across pharmaceutical, chemical, and food industry research. Publication bias ensures negative findings about profitable products often remain unpublished. Researchers dependent on industry funding face career consequences for producing unfavorable results.

The phrase “we don’t know what causes it” can represent genuine scientific uncertainty. It can also represent successfully manufactured uncertainty. Distinguishing between these requires examining research funding sources, publication patterns, and institutional incentives. When ignorance benefits specific industries, the ignorance warrants scrutiny.

Research Funding Patterns

Research funding flows toward genetic studies and pharmaceutical interventions for endometriosis, PCOS, and fibromyalgia. It flows away from environmental causation studies.

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are now detectable in virtually all humans tested. These compounds interfere with hormone signaling at doses far below traditional toxicological thresholds. Peer-reviewed research connecting EDCs to reproductive disorders exists in toxicology and endocrinology literature. This research rarely reaches clinical practice or public health policy.

The disconnect is structural. Medical education does not include environmental health as a standard component. Physicians receive extensive training in pharmaceutical interventions and minimal training in identifying environmental causation. Continuing medical education funded by pharmaceutical companies reinforces pharmacological approaches. A woman with PCOS who asks her doctor about environmental causes typically receives no information—the doctor was not trained to consider environmental factors.

The National Institutes of Health allocates billions annually to genetic and pharmaceutical research. Environmental health research receives a fraction of this funding. Private pharmaceutical funding dwarfs public research funding and directs attention toward patentable interventions. The pattern: genetic explanations receive funding and attention; environmental explanations do not.

Who Benefits from Genetic Framing

Plastics manufacturers produce polymers containing xenoestrogens—synthetic compounds that mimic estrogen. Bisphenol A (BPA) received public attention, prompting reformulation to BPS and BPF. Studies indicate these alternatives have similar endocrine-disrupting properties. The global plastics market exceeds $600 billion annually.

Plastics now appear in human blood, breast milk, and placental tissue. Microplastics have been detected in every human organ studied. Research that might establish causal links between plastic exposure and reproductive health conditions lacks funding priority.

Chemical companies produce pesticides and industrial compounds found in human tissue samples globally. Glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide, appears in urine samples across studied populations including those without direct agricultural exposure. Annual glyphosate application exceeds 250 million pounds in the United States alone. Research connecting agricultural chemicals to reproductive health remains underfunded.

Pharmaceutical companies generate revenue from chronic condition management. Endometriosis treatment involves pain management, hormonal interventions, and surgical procedures—often repeated over decades. PCOS treatment involves metformin prescriptions, fertility interventions, and ongoing symptom management. Fibromyalgia treatment involves antidepressants, anticonvulsants, and pain medications prescribed long-term.

A chronic condition with no identified cause produces long-term customers. A condition traced to environmental factors that can be removed produces recovery and lost revenue. The incentive structure does not require conspiracy—it requires only that each industry act in its financial interest.

The Surgical Industry

Hysterectomy remains the most frequently recommended treatment for severe endometriosis. Estimates suggest 150 million women worldwide have had a hysterectomy—a staggering number that would command attention if an equivalent number of men had undergone organ removal. The unrestricted removal of female organs for over a century constitutes what some researchers call a medical atrocity hiding in plain sight.

The surgical pathway follows predictable patterns. As Coffey and Schweikert document, doctors tell women their fibroids might turn into cancer, a condition known as leiomyosarcoma. But less than one percent of fibroids are cancerous. Doctors tell women fibroids will damage kidneys or bowels by pressing on them—also extremely rare. Women who develop fibroids often have no symptoms and don’t know they have them unless a doctor tells them.

The post-surgical reality often differs from pre-surgical promises. As one woman told Coffey: “That’s why I’m here! That’s why I’m back here! That’s what screwed me up! I keep coming back to get them to do something about this, but it’s not getting any better.” She was hysterectomized for endometriosis but was in more pain after the surgery than before.

When hysterectomy alternatives exist, they often go unmentioned. Myomectomy—surgical removal of fibroids while leaving the uterus intact—can be performed regardless of fibroid size, number, or location. But doctors commonly say a myomectomy cannot be performed due to these factors. What they should say, but rarely do: “I don’t have the skill to perform a myomectomy, so I’ll recommend you to a more competent surgeon who does.”

Uterine artery embolization (UAE)—renamed uterine fibroid embolization (UFE) for marketing purposes—emerged as another “alternative.” The procedure blocks blood supply to fibroids, theoretically shrinking them. But fibroids share blood supply with other organs, including the uterus, ovaries, and external genitalia. FDA maintains a database of hundreds of reported complications. Adverse effects include tissue necrosis, sepsis, loss of ovarian function, and death.

Siobhan Donoghue faced this surgical escalation. After multiple emergency room visits in Canada, she was told her only option was a twelve-inch incision, uterus removal, and likely ovary removal—with probable bowel perforation requiring a colostomy bag. She refused. “I thought: NO. That is not for me.” By persisting in seeking second opinions, she eventually found a laparoscopic specialist. The procedure was completed as day surgery with no bowel perforation. She kept both ovaries.

The difference between her initial recommendation and her actual outcome represents the gap between standard practice and what skilled, patient-centered care can achieve.

Sources of Poisoning: A Terrain Perspective

The terrain model proposes that symptoms represent the body’s responses to environmental conditions rather than random malfunctions or genetic misfortune. If this framework has explanatory power, it should direct attention toward identifiable sources of toxic burden—sources that conventional medicine’s streetlight does not illuminate.

Xenoestrogens and Plastics

Xenoestrogens are synthetic compounds that mimic estrogen in the body. They bind to estrogen receptors and trigger estrogenic responses. The human body cannot distinguish synthetic estrogens from endogenous hormones. The reproductive organs, rich in estrogen receptors, are particularly vulnerable to xenoestrogenic interference.

Plastics containing xenoestrogens now contact food and beverages continuously. Microwaving food in plastic containers accelerates chemical migration. Storing acidic foods in plastic increases leaching. Single-use plastic bottles release microplastics into drinking water. The cumulative exposure over decades is unprecedented in human history.

Birth Control: Prescribed Endocrine Disruption

While xenoestrogens enter the body unintentionally through environmental exposure, millions of women voluntarily consume synthetic hormones daily through hormonal contraceptives. The birth control pill works by flooding the body with synthetic hormones that suppress ovulation—effectively tricking the body into believing it is already pregnant.

The effects extend far beyond contraception. A massive Danish study tracking nearly half a million women found that those on hormonal contraceptives had a 70% higher risk of depression compared to non-users. For teenagers, the risk was higher—adolescent girls on the pill were 80% more likely to be prescribed antidepressants. The same researchers found that pill users had double the risk of suicide attempts and triple the risk of completed suicide.

Women on the pill report lower sexual satisfaction, decreased libido, and difficulty achieving orgasm. Research shows altered partner selection—women on the pill are attracted to different types of men than when cycling naturally. Women who meet partners while on hormonal contraception sometimes experience dramatic changes in attraction when they discontinue.

One in four women taking hormonal contraceptives is prescribed antidepressants. The connection between synthetic hormone consumption and psychological disturbance is documented in peer-reviewed literature but rarely communicated to women receiving prescriptions.

The reproductive health implications compound over time. Women are told they can delay childbearing indefinitely, that fertility is simply a switch they can flip when ready. But female fertility begins declining at 27, more sharply after 30, and dramatically after 35. Women who spend their twenties on hormonal contraception, suppressing natural ovulation for years or decades, sometimes discover when they finally try to conceive that their fertility window has narrowed or closed.

This creates what researchers call “unplanned childlessness”—women who always intended to have children but aged out of fertility while building careers or waiting for stability. Studies show only 10% of childless women actively chose that path; another 10% have medical issues; a staggering 80% are childless due to circumstances. Hormonal contraception enabled the delay that produced this outcome.

The terrain perspective asks: what happens to reproductive tissue bathed in synthetic hormones for fifteen or twenty years? What happens when natural hormonal cycling—the monthly rhythm of estrogen and progesterone that the body evolved to experience—is chemically suppressed throughout a woman’s most fertile years? What accumulates when the body’s feedback systems are continuously overridden?

These questions remain largely unasked because hormonal contraception is ideologically protected. It is framed as liberation rather than pharmaceutical intervention. Questioning it invites accusations of wanting to control women’s bodies—when the actual control is being exercised by the synthetic hormones themselves, restructuring brain chemistry, altering mood, suppressing libido, and potentially compromising long-term fertility.

HPV Vaccination and Reproductive Health

The HPV vaccine exemplifies another form of iatrogenic burden on reproductive health—harm caused by medical intervention itself.

The official narrative presents HPV vaccination as cancer prevention. But as researchers have documented, HPV vaccines have never been proven to prevent cervical or any other cancer. Manufacturers were not required to prove cancer prevention. They were allowed to use precancerous lesions as “surrogate endpoints” in clinical trials. Whether reduced precancerous lesions translate to fewer cancers decades later remains unproven.

The latency claim is striking: HPV infection typically occurs in women around age twenty, while cervical cancer strikes women in their forties through seventies. Proponents calculate a “latent period” of twenty to fifty years between infection and cancer. Molecular biologist Peter Duesberg called this latency claim “capital B Bullshit”—a virus supposedly sits dormant for decades before causing disease, yet ninety percent of HPV infections clear spontaneously without treatment.

Meanwhile, adverse event reports accumulated. Studies from Denmark found HPV vaccines associated with significantly increased rates of serious nervous system disorders, including postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) and complex regional pain syndrome. A Danish and Swedish study involving nearly 300,000 girls showed significant association between HPV vaccines and autoimmune disorders including Bechet’s syndrome, Raynaud’s disease, and type 1 diabetes. A French study found a 3.78-fold increased risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome among young girls who received the HPV vaccine.

The vaccines contain aluminum adjuvants—compounds used to stimulate immune response. Sodium borate, present in Gardasil and Gardasil 9, is used as a pH buffer. It is banned as a food additive in the United States due to potential reproductive harm. The presence of a compound banned in food being injected directly into teenage girls raises questions about regulatory consistency.

None of the clinical trial participants received true saline placebos. Control subjects received aluminum-containing adjuvants, other vaccines, or chemical mixtures. These “fauxcebos” masked the adverse effects of the vaccines, making them appear safer than they would have if compared to true placebos.

Dr. Diane Harper, a former Merck scientist and Gardasil researcher, stated: “In fact, there is no actual evidence that the vaccine can prevent any cancer.” She also noted that “the chance of Gardasil actually helping an individual is about the same as the chance of her being struck by a meteorite.”

In Australia, cervical cancer mortality stands at 1.8 deaths per 100,000 women—approximately 1 in 55,555, comparable to the risk of death from bee stings. The necessity of vaccinating 100,000 teenage girls to potentially save 1.8 lives forty years later represents a risk-benefit calculation that warrants scrutiny rather than automatic acceptance.

PFAS in Tampons: Direct Chemical Delivery

Perhaps the most direct chemical assault on reproductive tissue comes from an unexpected source: menstrual products. PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances)—known as “forever chemicals” because they persist indefinitely in the environment and human body—have been detected in tampons, including organic brands.

PFAS are used in tampons for absorbency, stain resistance, and odor control. They are inserted directly adjacent to the cervix, month after month, year after year, throughout a woman’s reproductive life. The vaginal mucosa is highly absorptive. Chemicals placed there enter the bloodstream efficiently.

PFAS are documented endocrine disruptors. They interfere with hormone signaling. They have been linked to increased cancer risk, including reproductive cancers. They bioaccumulate—each exposure adds to the body’s burden, and the body cannot eliminate them effectively.

What is more likely to cause cervical abnormalities: a virus that ninety percent of bodies clear spontaneously, lying dormant for forty years before somehow causing cancer? Or carcinogenic chemicals inserted repeatedly into direct contact with cervical tissue throughout a woman’s menstrual life?

The HPV virus theory benefits pharmaceutical companies selling vaccines. The PFAS causation theory implicates the manufacturers of consumer products used by billions of women. The streetlight shines on the virus. The chemical causation remains in darkness.

The Synthetic Clothing Shift

Two generations ago, women predominantly wore cotton undergarments and natural fiber clothing. Fabrics breathed. Materials derived from plants and animals—cotton, wool, linen, silk. The chemical load from clothing was minimal.

Currently, synthetic materials dominate women’s clothing. Athletic wear consists of polyester, nylon, and spandex. The athleisure trend has normalized synthetic clothing for daily non-athletic wear. These fabrics trap heat and moisture against skin. They do not breathe. They create microenvironments of elevated temperature and humidity against the body.

Underwear increasingly uses synthetic materials. Seamless construction requires synthetic fibers. “No-show” underwear designed for tight pants relies on thin synthetic materials. Cotton underwear has become less common, particularly among younger women.

Polyester is petroleum-derived plastic. When synthetic fabric contacts warm, moist skin for extended periods, chemical migration occurs. Manufacturing processes add antimicrobial treatments, flame retardants, dyes containing heavy metals, and finishing chemicals. These compounds contact skin continuously—from waking through sleeping, year after year.

The shift parallels diagnostic trends. Endometriosis diagnosis rates have risen substantially over fifty years. PCOS prevalence has increased. Fibromyalgia emerged as a diagnostic category in the 1980s and has expanded since. The timeline correlates with synthetic clothing proliferation. Correlation does not establish causation—but the correlation warrants systematic investigation. This investigation has not occurred.

Circulation and Sedentary Patterns

Reproductive organs require blood flow and lymphatic drainage. The pelvic region needs movement for fluid circulation. The body has no lymphatic pump equivalent to the heart—the lymphatic system requires muscle contraction to move fluid.

A typical contemporary pattern: synthetic underwear and tight synthetic pants from morning through evening. Sitting at a desk for four hours. Sitting through lunch. Sitting for another four hours. Driving home seated. Evening spent seated. Blood flow to the pelvis remains restricted throughout. Tight clothing compresses blood vessels. Prolonged sitting reduces circulation below the waist.

The average American sits for over ten hours daily. Office workers often exceed this. The pelvis remains compressed for the majority of waking hours. Reproductive organs exist in conditions of reduced circulation and elevated temperature continuously.

The uterus withstands monthly menstruation, expands dramatically for pregnancy, and recovers from childbirth repeatedly. The organ demonstrates remarkable resilience. For this resilient organ to malfunction at scale, something significant must overwhelm its compensatory capacity. Random genetic error seems insufficient explanation for millions of cases. Sustained environmental burden offers a more proportionate explanation.

Fibromyalgia as Systemic Indicator

Endometriosis and PCOS involve specific organs. Fibromyalgia involves the whole system.

The diagnosis applies when no organ-specific pathology can be identified. Widespread pain, fatigue, cognitive impairment, no localized cause. Doctors attribute the pattern to nervous system sensitization.

The terrain interpretation: fibromyalgia represents what happens when toxic burden exceeds the body’s capacity for local compensation. Liver function cannot keep up. Lymphatic drainage slows. Elimination pathways block. Pain becomes diffuse because the burden is diffuse.

The overlap with endometriosis and PCOS is notable. Many women receive multiple diagnoses—endo plus fibromyalgia, PCOS plus chronic fatigue. The conditions cluster. From a terrain perspective, this clustering makes sense: a body overwhelmed by environmental burden may manifest symptoms in reproductive organs, pain signaling systems, and energy production simultaneously. Different names for different expressions of the same underlying pattern.

Fibromyalgia as a diagnosis medicalizes suffering without explaining it. Seen through terrain logic, fibromyalgia communicates what endometriosis and PCOS communicate in localized form: the body cannot handle what is being done to it.

Alternative Approaches

Women who question conventional treatment sometimes discover alternatives that conventional medicine dismissed or never mentioned.

Jayne Evans found homeopathy after becoming immune to over-the-counter painkillers and being prescribed Voltaren. When her doctor mentioned she would need additional medication to protect her stomach from the pain medication, “the light bulb went off in my head to start looking at alternatives.” Homeopathy provided what pharmaceutical approaches could not—lasting relief without cumulative side effects. She eventually had a healthy pregnancy and child, outcomes conventional fertility interventions had failed to produce.

Evans notes the contrast between approaches: “Conventional medications are a materialistic method of blocking and suppressing symptoms but does not address the root cause of the condition. An energy imbalance has occurred in the body, the organism is trying to correct itself but unless the conditions are perfect, it will struggle.” Homeopathic approaches attempt to work with the body’s self-correcting mechanisms rather than against them.

The suppression principle matters here. Pharmaceutical medicine suppresses symptoms, causing the body to rebound against the intervention, requiring higher doses to maintain suppression. When medication stops, rebound may occur. The symptom was never resolved—it was masked.

Siobhan Donoghue managed her pain for the year before surgery with supplements rather than pharmaceuticals. “I was amazed that acute pain like mine could be managed without pharmaceuticals. I avoided addiction and the negative side effects.” Post-surgery, she practices circadian living—seeing sunrise daily to support hormone regulation—and maintains health without supplements or pain medication.

Both women emphasize what conventional treatment failed to address: gut health, stress management, environmental toxin reduction, and bodily awareness. Donoghue traces her endometriosis to leaky gut, initially compromised by long-term antibiotics and glyphosate exposure. “I had gut issues since being a small child, but after a year of taking antibiotics for acne and having a diet mostly made up of gluten, my pain attacks started.”

Evans points to the inflammatory nature of endometriosis and the importance of eliminating processed foods, reducing sugar, addressing toxin load from endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and limiting grains that metabolize to glucose and drive inflammation. Both emphasize breath work and meditation as central to their management—not as supplementary practices but as foundational ones.

These are individual stories, not clinical trials. But they illuminate what clinical trials rarely study: whether addressing terrain factors can produce outcomes pharmaceutical and surgical interventions cannot achieve.

The Diagnostic Function

A diagnosis provides psychological relief. Years of unexplained suffering receive a name. Medical legitimacy replaces dismissal. Many women have been told their pain was exaggerated or psychological. A diagnosis validates that something is genuinely wrong.

But a diagnosis also closes investigation. “Why am I in pain?” receives the answer “You have endometriosis.” The question of what to call the condition substitutes for the question of why the condition exists. Treatment follows diagnosis: manage symptoms, suppress inflammation, remove tissue surgically. The underlying cause remains uninvestigated.

Diagnoses often include prognosis: chronic, manage symptoms, possibly progressive. This becomes identity. The woman becomes “someone with endo.” Identity formation around diagnosis creates community and reduces isolation. It also creates limitations. If the condition is genetic and permanent, investigating environmental causes seems pointless.

Siobhan Donoghue reflects on this paradox: “Living with the label is both a curse and a helpful insight. If I’d been labelled with endo as a young girl, I might have limited my movement and never seen the world.” The label would have defined what was possible before she discovered what she could actually do.

The medical system provides few options. As Donoghue learned: “We are given few options when, in fact, there are more to choose from—even taking a different route from surgery and pharmaceutical treatments.” But discovering those options requires pushing back against medical authority, which requires knowledge and energy that women in pain often lack.

The pharmaceutical industry benefits from diagnostic identity formation. A woman who believes she has a chronic genetic condition remains a customer for decades. A woman who traces symptoms to removable environmental factors may recover and discontinue medication purchases.

Medical practice reinforces this structure. Doctors trained to manage chronic conditions do not investigate environmental causes. Patients trained to accept chronic diagnoses do not demand environmental investigation. The system produces long-term pharmaceutical customers through the diagnostic process itself.

Practical Directions

The terrain perspective provides a different relationship with the body and different questions to ask.

Fabric choices matter. Cotton underwear instead of synthetic. Natural fibers where possible. Allowing reproductive organs airflow.

Movement matters. Not exercise as obligation but movement as circulation. Blood and lymph flow through the pelvic region when the body moves. The lymphatic system relies entirely on muscle contraction. Walking, stretching, and position changes support fluid movement throughout the day.

Elimination matters. The body removes toxins through bowels, bladder, skin, and lungs. When these pathways are blocked, toxins accumulate. Adequate water intake, fiber consumption, regular bowel movements, sweating, and deep breathing all support elimination pathways.

Input matters. Food stored in plastic leaches plastic compounds. Water from plastic bottles contains microplastics. Produce with pesticide residue delivers pesticides into the body. Personal care products absorb through skin. Menstrual products containing PFAS deliver chemicals directly to reproductive tissue. Complete elimination of synthetic chemical exposure is impossible. Reduction of high-exposure sources may shift the balance.

Hormonal intervention warrants scrutiny. Women prescribed birth control for acne, cramps, or “cycle regulation” are accepting documented risks—depression, altered mood, changed partner attraction, potential fertility impacts—for conditions that often resolve naturally or respond to less invasive interventions. The decision to suppress natural hormonal cycling for years or decades deserves more consideration than it typically receives.

Stress matters. Both Donoghue and Evans emphasize breath work and meditation as central to their management. Not as moral failing but as physiological factor. Chronic stress alters body chemistry through hormonal pathways. Parasympathetic nervous system activation serves terrain function.

These are attention directions. They become visible when the question shifts from “what disease do I have?” to “what is my body responding to?”

Directions Available

Millions of women experience conditions mainstream medicine cannot explain. They receive diagnoses that name suffering without illuminating it. They undergo surgeries removing tissue without addressing why tissue grew. They consume synthetic hormones without understanding how those hormones affect their brains, their moods, their fertility, and their long-term health. They search for answers in sources structured to ensure answers remain unfound.

The numbers indicate the scale. Approximately 190 million women worldwide have endometriosis. An estimated 116 million women have PCOS globally. Fibromyalgia affects an estimated 10 million people in the United States alone, predominantly women. An estimated 150 million women have had hysterectomies. Hundreds of millions take hormonal contraceptives. The populations overlap. The burdens accumulate.

Explanations connecting industrial practices to bodily suffering exist. They cohere with women’s lived experience. They offer directions rather than dead ends. They appear in toxicology journals, environmental health research, and terrain-based medical traditions. Accessing them requires skepticism toward institutions that have systematically failed women while claiming expertise. It requires questioning not just individual diagnoses but the framework producing them. It requires recognizing that “we don’t know” can mean “we haven’t looked” or “we’ve been prevented from looking”—or that we’ve been searching under the streetlight while the answers lie in darkness.

Women who have found alternative approaches sometimes discover that “chronic conditions” were not as permanent as they had been told. A body burdened by toxins can become unburdened when toxin exposure decreases. Symptoms that appeared permanent sometimes resolve when the underlying terrain shifts.

This is not guaranteed. Not every woman who changes inputs will recover. Some damage may be irreversible. Some burdens may be too long-established. The terrain model offers direction, not promise. But direction differs from the dead end of “chronic genetic condition with unknown cause.”

The medical establishment will not lead this shift. Incentives point elsewhere. The research funding structure rewards genetic and pharmaceutical investigation. The regulatory system remains captured by regulated industries. The streetlight will continue to illuminate what is already well-lit.

What Siobhan Donoghue learned matters: “I really hope that I provide women with options. Knowing we can say NO is important when we are scared and weak. Knowing someone else said NO and overcame the perceived insurmountable challenge gives hope and inspiration.”

The evidence supporting environmental causation exists. The pattern of manufactured ignorance is documented. The practical directions are available. What remains is whether individual women will find their way to this information—and what they will do with it when they do.

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References

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Donoghue, S. (2024). It Started with Back Pain and I Overcame It: Perimenopause, Hormone Hell, Fibroids, Cancer or Endometriosis? Self-published.

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For those of you looking for practitioners who actually understand terrain medicine and the principles we explore here, I want to share something valuable. Dr. Tom Cowan—whose books and podcasts have shaped much of my own thinking about health—has created the New Biology Clinic, a virtual practice staffed by wellness specialists who operate from the same foundational understanding. This isn’t about symptom suppression or the conventional model. It’s about personalized guidance rooted in how living systems actually work. The clinic offers individual and family memberships that include not just private consults, but group sessions covering movement, nutrition, breathwork, biofield tuning, and more. Everything is virtual, making it accessible wherever you are. If you’ve been searching for practitioners who won’t look at you blankly when you mention structured water or the importance of the extracellular matrix, this is worth exploring. Use discount code “Unbekoming” to get $100 off the member activation fee. You can learn more and sign up at newbiologyclinic.com.

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Baseline Human Health

Watch and share this profound 21-minute video to understand and appreciate what health looks like without vaccination.