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Uterine pain
Last reviewed: 04.07.2025
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With the onset of pregnancy, women are ready to put up with many painful factors that may stand in their way during this period. But what if the pain in the uterus does not appear against the background of pregnancy? How and why can the uterus itself hurt, and how does this affect the entire female body? We will try to answer these questions, as well as a number of related ones, and identify the causes of all possible uterine ailments.
[ What causes uterine pain?
Pathological processes in the uterus and their causes
The uterus is the central part of the female reproductive system. When pain occurs in the uterus, this symptom should be treated with caution. Especially for those women for whom motherhood is a matter of the future. Problems with the uterus or its surroundings are highly likely to lead to a decrease in the reproductive function. Therefore, a woman should always be especially attentive to the health of the genitourinary system.
Pain in the uterus can be a consequence of inflammatory diseases occurring directly in it, covering the uterine environment - tubes, ovaries, intestines. Provocation of pain is the result of tumor neoplasms in the thickness of the uterine muscle layers or in the uterine cavity itself, and pain is caused not only by malignant, but also by quite harmless, benign tumors, including fibroids, myomas of varying degrees of development and localization. Frequent causes of problems with the uterus are surgical interventions in its cavity, which are abortions and spirals that have a contraceptive effect. The infection that gets into the uterine cavity during these procedures will not be the only consequence of further complications.
Scarring and inflammation of the endometrium
Scar tissue that forms in places where a medical instrument has “passed” does not have the same properties as the natural lining of the uterus, which will subsequently affect the implantation of the embryo during pregnancy. When entering the uterine cavity, the fertilized egg must land on a loose, smooth surface of the endometrium in order to attach well to it. Scar tissue, however, is not smooth, loose, and elastic; when it lands on it, the egg will not be able to attach and pregnancy will not occur. The more scar tissue there is in the uterine cavity, the less likely it is that pregnancy will occur. Pain in the uterus does not occur when scar tissue forms.
Scarring of the endometrium, its compaction, foci of inflammatory processes occurring on its surface, together give rise to diseases called endometritis and endometriosis. These diseases differ from each other strikingly, although women do not know these differences and often mistake them for different names of the same disease. In fact, this is not so. Endometritis is an inflammatory process occurring on the inner surface of the uterus, and ultimately causes thickening and compaction of the endometrium. Endometriosis is a nodular pathology, that is, as a result of hormonal failure, nodules are formed, small, dense and can be located anywhere, both in the uterine cavity and in its thickness, or on the tubes. With such a lesion, the endometrium eventually takes on a thinner structure. These two diseases have one thing in common - they give pain in the uterus as one of the symptoms.
The pain is not constant. It begins to bother with the approach of the menstrual cycle. Its intensity is different for each woman, it depends on the presence of concomitant diseases and the stage of development of the inflammatory process itself. The pain is more like a pulling and aching sensation in the lower abdomen, the pain spreads to the lower back. Pain symptoms tend to intensify during physical exercise, jumping or sexual intercourse.
Pregnancy
A natural process that can cause uterine pain is pregnancy. Pain in the uterus indicates that the muscular apparatus of the uterus is in increased tone and you should immediately consult a doctor, otherwise there is a risk of premature birth. It is not difficult to correct this situation, it is usually caused by hormonal deficiency (lack of progesterone), when it is normalized, under the supervision of a doctor, the muscle tone will return to normal.
Other causes of uterine pain
Cervical erosion can cause minor pain in the lower abdomen, as well as pain and slight bloody discharge during and immediately after sexual intercourse.
Pain in the uterus also occurs in the late stages of the development of cancerous lesions of its walls, cavity or fallopian tubes.
Diagnosis of uterine pain
Every woman should be responsible for her own health and, depending on her age, visit a gynecologist at least once every six months, not allowing the moment when pain in the uterus occurs. However, the older the body becomes, the more often you need to visit a doctor, a quarterly examination will be enough to promptly identify ailments and quickly get rid of them. The very first visit to the gynecologist, with complaints of pain in the lower abdomen, will give him grounds to send the patient for an ultrasound examination of the uterus and appendages, a blood test for the content and level of all the necessary hormones, conduct a visual examination using gynecological mirrors of the vaginal cavity and assess the condition of the cervix. Smears will be taken from the walls of the vagina and vaginal discharge for microflora. All these methods will be enough to detect the cause and prescribe the correct course of treatment to eliminate it.
In cases where the above procedures are not enough, laparoscopy is prescribed - a diagnostic operation, as a result of which, using special instruments, they penetrate the abdominal cavity, assess the appearance of all organs, appendages, and, if necessary, check the patency of the tubes. In some cases, at the time of laparoscopy, the cause of uterine pain is removed, for example, a myomatous node or nodes, cysts.
How to treat uterine pain?
To treat uterine pain, you need to know its cause. Knowing the cause, it is impossible to limit yourself to only one method of treatment. As a rule, several directions are selected, and the treatment is carried out in courses. Surgical and conservative treatment can be carried out simultaneously. With the help of laparoscopy, diagnostics are made with the simultaneous removal of the root cause of the disease, and then the appropriate drug treatment is selected for this case.