QC: Why Surgery Alone Isn’t Enough For Endometriosis And How Functional Care Fills The Gap

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We break down why expert excision is essential and why it must be paired with functional, whole-body care to unwind years of inflammation from endometriosis. Dr. Iris Kerin Orbuch explains how gut health, immune balance, and nervous system support accelerate real recovery.

• excision surgery as the gold standard
• inflammation as a body‑wide driver of symptoms
• gut dysbiosis and food restriction cycles
• endocrine and autoimmune cross‑talk
• why standard labs miss key markers
• lessons from Lyme on systemic care
• phased recovery beyond the operating room
• coordinated support with nutrition, pelvic floor, psychology, and acupuncture

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Life moves fast, and so should the answers to your

(00:02):
biggest questions.
Welcome to Indo Batteries QuickConnect, your direct line to
expert insights.
Short, powerful, and right tothe point.
You send in the questions, Ibring in the experts, and in
just five minutes, you get theknowledge you need.
No long episodes, no extra timeneeded.
And just remember, expertopinions shared here are for

(00:22):
general information and not forpersonalized medical advice.
Always consult your provider foryour case-specific guidance.
Got a question?
Send it in and let's quickly getyou the answers.
I'm your host, Alana, and it'stime to connect.
Today I am honored to welcomesomeone who has truly shaped the

(00:45):
landscape of endometriosis care,Dr.
Iris Karen Orbuck.
Dr.
Karen Orbuck is the founder ofIris Wing Sanctuary for
Endometriosis Surgery andWellness in Los Angeles, where
she provides compassionateindividualized care rooted in
both advanced surgical expertiseand whole body healing.
She is a board-certified OBGYNand fellowship-trained

(01:06):
endometriosis excision surgeon,having trained under pioneers
like Dr.
C.Y.Loo and Dr.
Harry Rich, names synonymouswith the evolution of minimally
invasive surgery.
Beyond the operating room, Dr.
Karen Orbuck is known for herblending Western medicine and
functional healing bycollaborating with
nutritionists, pelvic floortherapists, psychologists, and

(01:28):
acupuncturists to help herpatients truly heal, not just
manage symptoms.
She's also a co-author of thewidely acclaimed book Beating
Endo, How to Reclaim Your Lifefrom Endometriosis, and her
advocacy work extends beyond theclinic.
She has served on the AAGLFoundation Board, helped lead
the endometriosis specialinterests group, and contributed

(01:51):
her voice to the groundbreakingdocumentaries like Endo What and
Below the Belt, which havehelped bring this disease into
the public conversation andpolicy spaces.
Please help me in welcoming thebrilliant Dr.
Iris Karen Orbeck to the table.
What does functional medicine inthe context of endocare mean?
How is it different from theWestern medicine traditionally

(02:13):
approached in chronicconditions?

SPEAKER_00 (02:15):
Yeah, I do think that functional medicine needs
to be paralleled withendoexcision surgery.
And it's because the implants ofendometriosis are inflammatory.
So what's being released to thewhole body are these
inflammatory meteors that aregoing systemically to the body,
making us feel so fatigued andexhausted.
Inflammatory meteors are goingto the gut, causing like a quote

(02:38):
unquote, if you use an Instagramterm, like leaky gut, right?
So small intestinal dysbiosisand a large intestinal, also
overgrowth and dysbiosis, it'sgoing to the endocrine system.
Like that's where our we developautoimmune disease.
It's going to the endocrinesystem.
The inflammation is throwingthose off, causing our body to

(02:58):
start attacking ourselves.
So when you think of theimplants and then you think of
like a 10-year diagnostic delay,so, and typically once you have
symptoms, those implants havebeen firing away, releasing
inflammatory meters for a verylong time.
But if you just think about dayone of symptoms until, you know,
10 years of a diagnostic delay,there's 10 years of an

(03:21):
inflammatory environment thatour bodies have been living in.
So if you go to the internist,right, like who works for a
hospital, they're going to sendoff a panel of labs, they're
going to tell you everything'snormal, you look fine, and
you're going to be like, but Idon't feel fine, right?
Because they're not even testingfor the right things, right?
They're not, they're not evenunderstanding what to look for
or testing.

(03:42):
They're not looking at the gut.
So I think it's the inflammatoryeffect of endometriosis.
And when I wrote my book, whatdrove me to really think about
endo differently is because Iwas in New York and there was a
lot of Lyme disease in New York,right?
Because I'm not far fromConnecticut, Lyme, Connecticut.
A lot of my patients would be onthe Long Island shore, out in

(04:05):
the Hamptons, where there was alot of tick-borne illness.
And I started to have like a lotof patients who were educating
me about Lyme disease.
And I'm like, this is sofascinating.
So I started doing a deep diveinto Lyme, and I realized that
it's an inflammatory, like theticks cause this whole
inflammatory cascade in ourbody.

(04:27):
And I'm like, this is how I haveto approach endometriosis.
And that's sort of what drove meto then further go from the
inside out in terms of treatingendometriosis.
Obviously, coupled with excisionof endo.
Excision of endo is still thegold standard.
We need excision, but whenyou're 10 years into anything,

(04:48):
right?
I don't care if you're 10 yearsinto not exercising, right?
You can't work with a trainerfor four weeks and expect to
like have a habit of exercising,right?
If you ate poorly andorrestricted your eating for 10
years, right, because you hadtummy aches or food hurt, you
thought that you're allergic toa lot of things.

(05:08):
That restriction has led to suchmicrobiome imbalances that it's
going to take time to fix thesethings.
So we need to cut out theimplants and we need to treat
the um to undo the inflammatorycomponent of the disease.

SPEAKER_01 (05:25):
That's a wrap for this quick connect.
I hope today's insights helpedyou move forward with more
clarity and confidence.
Do you have more questions?
Keep them coming.
Send them in, and I'll bring youthe expert answers.
You can send them in by usingthe link in the top of the
description of this podcastepisode or by emailing contact
at Indobattery.com or visitingthe Indobattery.com contact

(05:50):
page.
Until next time, keep feelingempowered through knowledge!