The reproductive disorder endometriosis affects one in ten women. It can cause debilitating periods, pelvic pain and infertility. Endometriosis is most often treated with birth control pills or surgery. But this summer, the FDA approved the first ever medication formulated specifically to treat this disease. Elagolix, or Orilissa, suppresses the estrogen that fuels endometriosis, without putting the body into a full-blown menopausal state, as older drugs did. Yet expert disagree on its efficacy. And with a price tag of $1000 a month, is Orilissa worth it?

Interviews and reporting from the Endometriosis Association of America’s annual conference in New York City.

Interviewees:

Lucky Church, supportive husband of an endometriosis patient

Linda Griffith, PhD, Founder & Director, Center for Gynopathology Research, School of Engineering, MIT, and endometriosis patient

Serdar E. Bulun, MD, Chair Dept. OB/GYN, Northwestern Univ. & Prentice Women’s Hospital

Amy Jane Melhuish, patient and advocate launching the EndoGate™ portal, a "global information superhighway" for patients and practitioners

Marc Possover, MD, President of the International Society Of Neuropelveology and Director, Possover International Medical Center

Tamer Seckin, MD, Attending physician Lenox Hill Hospital and Founder, Endometriosis Foundation of America

This episode explores the mind-body connection from two very different angles. We hear Functional Medicine doctor and OBGYN Jessica Wei on how stress, hormones and the gut affect mental health and mood in women in particular.

Psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster speaks about how women diagnosed with hysteria changed the way we treat mental illness, and why that seemingly outdated diagnosis still matters today. Jamieson's new book is Conversion Disorder: Listening to the Body in Psychoanalysis.

Megan Assaf had extremely painful periods from the beginning. In her late 20s, she found out her uterus was upside down, folded in half, off to the left and stuck behind her colon. She didn’t learn this from a doctor, but from a holistic healer working in a tradition that comes from the Maya people of Belize. What’s more, Megan got her uterus repositioned, and learned how to do this very hands-on work herself. Megan Assaf is a massage therapist who works with women, and has moved hundreds of uteruses, including mine.

This interview was originally recorded in 2012 for the Sound Medicine Radio Hour. Listen to "Can Abdominal Massage Help Painful Menstruation?"