Marilyn Monroe is widely recognized as a talented and successful actress of the 20th century, who passed away at a young age. Her death has been surrounded by rumors and speculation, with her official cause being suicide, but some believing she was poisoned. However, as a physician, I believe that her death could have been indirectly related to endometriosis.
Marilyn Monroe suffered from severe endometriosis for most of her adult life, causing her to experience severe pelvic pain, which she tried to relieve with painkillers. However, doctors in the 1940s and 1950s had limited knowledge about endometriosis and often recommended marriage and pregnancy as a solution. This was not a viable option for Monroe, and the connection between endometriosis and infertility and miscarriages was not widely known at the time.
Marilyn Monroe’s first pregnancy in 1957 was ectopic, likely due to adhesions caused by her endometriosis. She underwent a surgical procedure to remove the affected fallopian tube. The following year, she suffered a short-term miscarriage.
At the time, more aggressive surgical options were available for endometriosis patients, including hysterectomies with removal of the appendix. During one of her surgeries, Monroe wrote a note and attached it to her stomach, pleading with the surgeon not to remove her reproductive organs.
Unfortunately, saving her reproductive organs did not solve the problem of pelvic pain and infertility for Marilyn Monroe. The physical and emotional toll of these events took a toll on her mental health and she developed bipolar disorder, marked by fluctuations in mood between elation and depression. She was admitted to psychiatric hospitals several times and relied on higher doses of barbiturates to manage her pain.
On the night of August 4-5, 1962, Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her bed with an empty bottle of sleeping pills nearby. Initially, her death was thought to be a drug overdose, but upon autopsy, no drug residue was found in her stomach. The autopsy revealed discoloration of the colon and the Pathology Center concluded that the sedative may have been administered through a barbiturate enema, as Monroe likely sought to relieve her endometriosis-related pelvic pain.
Had Marilyn Monroe been born just a few decades later, she may have been able to manage her endometriosis and become a mother, potentially living a longer life. At the time, there were limited options for treating the disease, such as organ-preserving laparoscopic surgeries, progestin preparations, and GnRH-a, as well as a lack of health programs to support women in preserving their reproductive health. Diagnostic tools like ultrasound, CT scans, and MRI were also not available.
Today, however, we have the ability to help a much greater number of patients and improve their quality of life compared to 50-60 years ago.
Marilyn Monroe will always be remembered not only as a sex icon of the 20th century, but also as a symbol of the fight against endometriosis.
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