The Genie Rules of Endometriosis

A fresh perspective at the treatment playbook

You’ve probably watched Aladdin, the source to our lesson in Endometriosis treatment today. Even if you haven’t, you have some idea about how the story goes. That story is really important for today’s edition, so we are going to run over it real quick.

This poor lad Aladdin and his pet monkey Abu live in the desolate outskirts of the city of Agraba. Aladdin is kind, generous, caring, and affable, but poor. Has no parents, no family. Only his pet monkey Abu.

Aladdin is desperate to get out of poverty, so he agrees to help the king’s evil advisor Jafar with a task.

Somewhere far away in the desert is a cave that only a man with a pure heart can enter. This cave holds a treasure that Jafar is looking to get. An oil lamp.

Aladdin is confused but he has no other option so he agrees.

Aladdin finds the lamp. He looks at it closely, and then picks it up with both hands. That’s when all hell breaks loose.

The cave suddenly starts to rumble and break down. Aladdin tries to escape but fails and falls back down into the cave.

Tired, and defeated Aladdin rubs the silly lamp in his hand to clean it and see what it’s all about. This is the moment that he is greeted by Genie. An immortal, magical, and mystical creature with a silly sense of humour.

Genie introduces himself to Aladdin as a person who could make three of his biggest wishes come true, just with the snap of a finger. All Aladdin had to do was say what he wanted. He was the master. The once poor Aladdin could now be anything he wanted.

But

… there’s always a but…

Genie had some rules. His Genie rules. Rules around what you cannot ask for. The list wasn’t long, but it was important.

Rule 1 - No Killing

You can ask for a really strong weapon, but you couldn’t wish for someone to die. You’ll have to do the killing yourself.

Rule 2 - Can’t make someone fall in love

You can ask to. become beautiful or attractive, or muscular, or intelligent, but you can’t make someone fall in love with you.

Rule 3 - Can’t bring the dead back to life

That’s a big no, anyway.

And of course, you can’t wish for more wishes

There’s no cheat code here.

Do you see where we are going? No? Are you at least entertained? Ok, let’s quickly get to endometriosis now.

Doctors are like Genies to their patients.

“Endometriosis giving you pain?”
*Snap of a finger* (a little more than that)
”…and you’re better!”

And Genies must have…

So here are our Genie rules for treating endometriosis.

We’ve posted each as an image so you can download them if you want.

Treatment goals in Endometriosis follow a list of priorities that we must begin with and then customise to the patient’s need after appropriate counselling. Here’s the list in a decreasing order

1. Good quality of life

2. Decreasing pain scores

3. Decreasing GI symptoms

4. Decreasing Genito-urinary tract symptoms

5. Acquired Fertility - assisted if need be

You’re a surgeon not a wizard

Each case of endometriosis presents a different set of challenges and a different target. There’s only so much you know before beginning the surgery so don’t make promises you can’t keep.

Everyone’s under the pressure of more revenue, even those who look like they have it all figured out. It’s important to remember that we’re in the profession of care, not in the profession of upselling services.

In the end, when you do get to the surgery part, do it right. The first surgery in endometriosis is the most important surgery, and it’s crucial that you do a thorough, and complete job with it.

Surgery holds the power to give the body what nature cannot. Use it.

That’s it! Those are the Genie rules of treating endometriosis. We hope you had as much fun reading it as we had writing it. For those here for the hard core surgery content, we will be back with some deep dives very soon.

See you next week!