In the same way that injuries to the bladder may cause concurrent bladder symptoms, there is the risk of concurrent bowel symptoms in woemen with chronic pelvic pain with, or without, endometriosis (Zondervan, 2000).
From the autonomic denervation view it is important to recognise that pelvic nerves supply the bowel from the rectum to the spenic flexure of the colon i.e. to the level of your ribcage on the left of your abdomen. Women often suffer from “bloating” and altered bowel habit – the latter is an important symptom and requires careful and urgent evaluation, which is urgent is complicated by bleeding.
Abnormal nerves in the rectum cause particular irritation. A recent paper in The Lancet (Chan, 2003) demonstrates abnormal nerves in women with rectal hypersensitivity. Many of these women had prior hysterectomies (and presumably prior difficult deliveries). Further studies will be necessary in this sphere of interest.