‘What are the chances of my passing this disease on to a daughter?’ a patient asks his doctor. At thirty-eight years old, Terri is pregnant for the first time after successfully battling endometriosis. A routine test— amniocentesis—has indicated she is carrying a girl. Terri fears that her child will suffer from the disease as she [...]

Herpes simplex—’cold sores’—is a common, blistering condition caused by the Herpes Hominis virus. There are two distinct strains of this virus. Type I is responsible for the more common lip or eye disease, while type II is responsible for the genital disease. The initial type I infection occurs mainly in infancy and childhood, when it [...]

Summary of main points. • Hunger is a strong physiological sensation regulated in the hypothalamus. • Appetite—physiological, psychological and social—influences eating behaviour. • Distinguishing between biological hunger and emotional hunger is important. • Nutrients in food vary in their ability to suppress hunger, and dietary fat has the least effect on decreasing total energy consumption. [...]

As I sat and listened to his words my whole life flashed before me. My only ambitions in life were to get a job, get married and have children. I had achieved the first two ambitions but the third one had caused me great pain. Now as my doctor’s words echoed inside my head it [...]

Your laparoscopy should be performed by a gynaecologist who is skilled and experienced in performing laparoscopics and diagnosing endometriosis — very few general practitioners have either the skills or the experience to perform laparoscopics. Some gynaecologists believe that a diagnostic laparoscopy for endometriosis is best done just before or during a period when the disease [...]