The famous swimming star Emily Seebohm, who is 24, admitted to the public that she had gone through a surgery in Brisbane for the treatment of endometriosis which she was diagnosed with this week before competing at the Rio Olympics.

She wrote to instagram, “Back in June I found out I had a disease called endometriosis and due to timing couldn’t do anything about it. Today I went in for my surgery and although I was nervous I came out feeling good as I had answer to why things weren’t right in my body.” The disease had brought great pain for her, and we can see from her story that endometriosis must be treated immediately or it will do great damage to the patients mentally and physically.

Why does the disease need to be treated timely? The cause of the disease is that the lining of the uterus grows outside of the uterus and this will cause serial symptoms such as extreme pain. Left untreated, the disease will get worse since the tissue spreads into other organs. The symptoms are very uncomfortable for them such as extreme pain or infertility.

Emily Seebohm chose to treat the endometriosis with surgery. The treatment is a good method by removing the diseased tissue. But there are deficiencies about the surgery treatment .First of all, doing surgery may develop certain complications because the treatment will impair the related organs. For instance, the females who receive surgery in the pelvis are more likely to get PID. What’s more, there may be a recurrence of pain over a period of time and patients may still need medical treatment or gynecological specialist. Furthermore, surgery cannot cure the diseased tissue completely if it spreads into other organs widely. So it is imperative to find a treatment which will not do harm to our body.

As far as TCM concerns, endometriosis is the result of the stasis of blood. For example, the symptom of pain is considered as consequence of the incapability of the vessel to carry the blood flow. And the stagnation of qi which is an imperative substance constituting the human body and can also be translated into ‘life energy’ in TCM theory is believed to the deficiency of the kidney. Therefore, when treating endometriosis, herbs will play an important part because it can break the blood clot and thus be helpful for the blood circulation. Fuyan pill is such kind of medicine.

Fuyan pill consists of many herbs that is helpful for the blood circulation. These herbs include Bupleurum falcatum L., poria cocos, radices scutellariae, Gardenia, Atractylodes ovata, Dioscorea Batatas, Atractylodes sinensis, Talcum, Angelica, semen persicae, saffron, liquorice. Each herb has its unique function. For example, chaihu regulates qi circulation, which, in turn, aids the circulation of blood, and another herb taoren breaks up static blood to relieve pain. Equipped with so many natural herbs, the medicine can treat the disease timely and effectively.