Michael Vernon - Endometriosis: A Key to Healing Through Nutrition

Dian Shepperson Mills, CertEd (Nutrition), BA (Education and Psychology), DipION, MA (Health Education Nutrition), is the Director of the Endometriosis and Fertility Clinic based at The Hale Clinic in London. As a clinical nutritionist, she holds clinics at The Institute for Optimum Nutrition (ION), in London and in Sussex, where she sees clients on a one-to-one basis for nutrition counselling. She can be contacted at www.endometriosis.co.uk, www.nutrition.us.com or www.makingbabies.com for consultations. In a link with the USA, she works with Total Wellness Inc. based in San Francisco. Her research interests include womens health issues, endometriosis, subfertility in both men and women, premenstrual syndrome, endocrine disorders, polycystic ovary syndrome and the menopause. She has published several papers, abstracts and book chapters, and has given lectures to scientific societies in Europe, the USA, Asia, Australia and South America.

A past trustee of the British Endometriosis Society, she is now a founder member of the SHE Trust (Simply Holistic Endometriosis), a charity that supports women with endometriosis who wish to use both orthodox and complementary therapies on their road to wellness. Dian has researched the relationship between endometriosis and diet, and works closely with doctors and consultants in the UK, USA and Europe. She is an active member of The European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE), the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), The She Trust (Simply Holistic Endometriosis) charity, founded to help women with endometriosis obtain unbiased information, and is an advisor to the International Endometriosis Association whose headquarters are in the USA.

As an advisor to the International Endometriosis Association, head-quartered in the USA, Dian has links to groups in the USA, Japan and Brazil, and the Nordic and other European countries, as well as to independent EA groups in Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. Dian holds nutrition clinics for one-to-one consultations in The Hale Clinic, London and at The Institute for Optimum Nutrition, London and in Sussex, England. Contact her via the web pages

In addition to Dians professional understanding of endometriosis, she has personal experience of the condition. During 19811982, she was bedridden for six months due to severe abdominal and leg pains that left her unable to walk. Endometriosis was written in her notes, but the gynaecologist did not believe that it could cause such pain and she was never told. She saw eight different specialists at this time and was even, for two weeks on a geriatric ward, placed on traction with a nine-pound weight hung from her left leg, and then fitted in a full-body plaster cast!

In the end, she was helped by herbs and homeopathy, and returned to fulltime teaching. In 1987 she was extremely ill again with ruptured ovarian cysts and excrutiating pain. The drug treatments given for pseudomenopause and pseudopregnancy made her even more ill. Laser surgery removed one cyst, but it returned within two weeks. The only treatment offered was a total hysterectomy with ovaries removed. Not wishing to have major surgery, Dian opted to look into complementary treatments. Her motto and philosophy has always been: Lets try the least harsh method first and work up. The optimum nutrition route was a major part of her healing process. She consulted a clinical ecologist and closely followed his advice. By 1989, she began to be symptom-free and has remained so ever since. Having lectured in home economics and nutrition for 18 years, Dian has since retrained, for a further six years, in nutritional medicine, and has worked with thousands of women suffering from endometriosis and fertility problems worldwide.

Nutrition is not magical; it is logical. While following a healthy eating plan, women with endometriosis have seen a regression of their symptoms, and regained their energy and vitality. Improving quality of life is a key factor in regaining your health. There is no failure except in ceasing to try, as teachers say. Dian will go on researching to find the cause of endometriosis. Her quest is to eradicate period pain from the face of the planet. Dian now also works with Foresight the Charity for Preconceptual Care helping couples who have suffered miscarriage and fertility problems to conceive at The Endometriosis and Fertility Clinic, ION, London (tel: 020 8877 9993) and The Hale Clinic, London (tel: 020 7637 3377).

Michael W Vernon, PhD, HCLD is a reproductive physiologist and scientific director at the Womans Hospital of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA. He previously held the post of Associate Professor at the University of Kentucky where he lectured on medical endocrinology. His research areas are uterine physiology, endometriosis and ART (assisted reproductive technology). He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, abstracts and book chapters, and has given plenary lectures to scientific societies in the USA, Europe, Asia and South America. Dr Vernon is an ad hoc member and past chair of the National Institute of Health (NIH), Washington, DC, in the field of reproductive biology.

He is an active member of several societies, including the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM), the Society for Gynecological Investigation (SGI), the Society for the Study of Reproduction (SSR) and the Endometriosis Association of the USA.

Dr Vernon has an extensive background in in-vitro fertilization treatment (IVF). He was part of the first research team at the Wisconsin Primate Center that successfully performed IVF in the rhesus monkey. He was the embryologist for the first babies born in Kentucky through IVF, GIFT, ZIFT, micromanipulation and cryopreservation.

I would like to emphasize maternity as the frontier of human welfare and that the defence of mothers is the defence of nations. There is no place in the public health field that offers greater opportunity for service to mankind and the welfare of the human race than the application of newer and ever increasing knowledge of nutrition at the human frontier.

Ina May Hobbler, 1952

This human body, at peace with itself, is more precious than the rarest gem. Cherish your body, it is yours for this one time only. The human form is won with difficulty; it is easy to lose. All worldly things are brief, like lightning in the sky. This life you must know was the tiny splash of a raindrop. A thing of beauty that passes away even as it comes into being. Therefore set your goal, and make every day and night a time to obtain it.

Lama Tsong Khapa

14th century Tibetan scholar and yogi

Nuchi gusui may your food and lifestyle heal.

The Okinawa Way Book

If you try, you might. If you dont, you wont.

W Pickles

Women with endometriosis commonly complain that doctors do not take their symptoms seriously. There is a feeling that if doctors did listen and if only doctors knew more about endometriosis, women would not have to suffer years of pain without a definitive diagnosis. The frustration is justified as recent research has shown that it usually takes about ten years from the onset of symptoms for the diagnosis to be made.

I think that this apparent indifference to symptoms, such as painful periods and painful sex, merely reflects the lack of interest shown by society in general to health problems that are specific to women. I also think that sufferers themselves should be trying to raise awareness about endometriosis among both the medical profession and the general public. Endometriosis should be as well known as asthma or diabetes given how many women it affects and how much misery it creates.