March is Endometriosis Awareness Month, a time to bring attention to a condition that affects roughly 1 in 10 women worldwide. Endometriosis is a painful disorder where tissue similar to the tissue that normally lines the inside of your uterus — the endometrium — grows outside your uterus. This can lead to severe pain, especially during menstrual periods, and can sometimes cause fertility problems. There is no known cause, there is no cure (yet!).

Despite its prevalence, endometriosis is often misunderstood and misdiagnosed. Many women with the condition suffer in silence, unaware that their pain is abnormal and treatable. Not to mention that an endometriosis diagnosis takes on average 10 years to obtain. This month, we want to break through the silence and start a conversation about endometriosis.

Firstly, it's crucial to understand the symptoms, which can include painful periods, pain with intercourse, pain with bowel movements or urination, excessive bleeding, and infertility. If you or someone you know is experiencing these symptoms, please consider speaking to a healthcare provider.

Secondly, we need to dispel the myths surrounding endometriosis. No, it's not just "bad periods." No, it's not a condition that only affects older women. And no, it doesn't mean you're infertile. These are just some of the misconceptions about endometriosis that we need to challenge.

Endometriosis Awareness Month is about educating ourselves, spreading awareness, and supporting those who suffer from this condition. It's about ensuring that no woman has to face the pain and frustration of endometriosis alone.

A common misdiagnosis of endometriosis is IBS - Irritable Bowel Syndrome. This can be because some of the symptoms are broad and similar - pain when going to the bathroom (for a number 1 or a number 2), constipation or diarrhoea (or both), bloating and gastritis pain. Speaking to your doctor about these symptoms with further investigations is crucial.

A nutrition approach to endometriosis is an anti-inflammatory diet. Of course, management is individual and there can be no blanket approach for every endo warrior - but these nutrition tips can be useful for lowering inflammation, and as an inflammatory condition, this may in turn help with endo management.

• A diet rich in anti-oxidants: rainbow plates, lots of different colours of fruits and vegetables. Berries and colourful produce like pumpkin, carrots, broccoli, beetroot, tomatoes and all the deep coloured fruits and veggies contain the most antioxidants.

• Using extra virgin olive oil as the primary oil in the diet

• Eating enough fibre: this really helps with bowel symptoms like painful poos and constipation.

• Consuming healthy fats like avocado, nuts and seeds, extra virgin olive oil and fatty fish.

While everyone has different dietary needs, high iron foods are especially helpful with anyone with endometriosis or adenomyosis, as you may be losing iron every month with your bleed.

High iron foods include foods like:

— red meat, chicken and eggs, with the best vegetarian sources from dark leafy greens like kale, silverbeet and spinach.

We have compiled all our endo friendly recipes that are high in antioxidants, high in iron and may help reduce inflammation in our endometriosis collection. This is a public collection any health professional that is an Umami member can assign to their clients. You don’t have to search far and wide for endo-friendly recipes, simply assign your clients this collection and they will have access to 29+ recipes to explore immediately.

For more information on becoming an Umami member, please click here.

For more information on endometriosis visit Endometriosis Australia.