Archive for the “Women's Health” Category
HYSTERECTOMY: COMPLICATIONS
Monday, March 23, 2009 | 4:57 amDepression. This is more common after this operation than any other surgery. The reasons behind this may be related to a variety of factors, and psychiatrists and gynaecologists have theorised about it. Some factors which may be involved include expectations of surgery, particularly if the operation is being performed for a chronic problem, fears, anxiety, what losing a uterus means to the woman, whether the ovaries were removed, personality types, past history of depression, sexual problems before or after hysterectomy, and probably many more. It seems that careful explanation and discussion before deciding on hysterectomy tends to lessen the risk of depression following the operation. As women are becoming more vocal and assertive about their health care, and as more options become available, it may be that we see less problems of this kind associated with hysterectomy.
Sexual problems. These may or may not be directly linked with the physical and psychological complications but it is not easy to separate sex, psychological factors and physical factors. It is like a whole pile of chickens and eggs.
Sexual difficulties need to be addressed from both the physical and emotional sides, and specific treatment can be aimed at the factors likely to be contributing. Again, addressing these concerns before having a hysterectomy seems useful in preventing a disappointing outcome.
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(posted in Women's Health)
BREAST SELF-EXAMINATION (BSE)
Monday, March 23, 2009 | 4:48 amDoctors often ask women if they examine their own breasts. Sometimes the reply is that they don’t, because they don’t know what they are looking for.
It is not a sin not to examine your own breasts. The reason most doctors will encourage it is because if women can familiarize themselves with their own breasts, they may be able to pick up changes, which can then be investigated. Earlier detection of breast cancer seems to be associated with better outcomes.
Doctors stress to women that nobody expects them to diagnose anything they may feel. Breast self-examination is not meant to replace examination by doctors, or screening mammograms where these are available. It is an extra check which may be useful.
Breast specialists suggest that breast examination should start after the age of 25, as the chance of significant problems before this age is minuscule, and the breast is getting less dense, and easier to examine after this age. If you do happen to find a breast abnormality, don’t panic (if you can help it), but get a doctor’s opinion on it.
It is difficult to describe breast examination without actually doing it. It takes a bit of imagination, but here goes.
Have naked breasts. Some women try to do it through a bra, which is fine if you want to find lumps in your bra.
Position yourself. Most women find it easier to examine themselves while they are lying down on their backs. That way the breast tissue is flatter, and thinner, and more evenly spaced against the chest wall. Women with small breasts may be able to adequately feel their breast tissue standing up, in the shower for example, or wherever else you choose to have naked breasts. Whether you are lying down or standing up, it is easier to examine your breast with the opposite hand (the left hand examines the right breast, while the the right arm is held up, out of the way, perhaps with your hand behind your head).
Flatten your hand, keeping your fingers together, so your hand is like a ping-pong bat. Keep your fingers like this.
Using the fingers (not the palm) of your hand (bat), press down onto your breast, squishing your breast tissue between your straight fingers and your chest wall. Now move the bat around, using little circular movements. You will feel the breast tissue texture against your flat fingers as you move your hand.
After you have felt mat particular bit, lift your bat and place it down again, next to the place you last felt, squishing another bit of breast, and press again using a circular motion. Only use the flats of your straight fingers, not your fingertips.
As you do this, over and over again, try to examine the whole breast. You can work your way up and down your breast from left to fight, or divide it up like a pie, whatever you choose. The aim is to feel as much of the breast tissue as you can. Don’t forget the nipple area. Remember that the breast tissue extends up towards the armpit. If you want to you can have a feel in out armpit for hard or swollen lymph glands, but these are not that easy to find.
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(posted in Women's Health)
MALE STERILISATION (VASECTOMY): EFFICIENCY AND HOW IT IS WORKS
Monday, March 23, 2009 | 4:22 amHow does vasectomy work? There are two vas tubes, and they each connect to one of the testes or balls on each side of the scrotum. They carry the sperm away from the testes. Both vas feed into a single tube, called the urethra. The urethra passes through the prostate, the bladder and then the penis.
After a vasectomy the sperm cannot get past the blockage made by the operation, to mix with the semen which normally carries them from the man’s body to the woman s body when he ejaculates, or ‘comes’. If no sperm enter the woman s body, no egg can be fertilised and the woman cannot become pregnant.
How effective is vasectomy? Vasectomy is very effective. It’s probably one method of contraception for a year, only one or two of their sexual partners would become pregnant.
It takes a while for a vasectomy to become effective. That is because there are sperm already stored on the other side of the blockage and it takes several ejaculations before they are all used up. It is very rare, but it is possible for the tubes to join up again by themselves. If this happens then a pregnancy could occur even many years after the vasectomy operation.
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(posted in Women's Health)
BASIC FACTS ABOUT NATURAL FAMILY PLANNING
Monday, March 23, 2009 | 4:16 amWhat is Natural Family Planning? Natural Family Planning, or NFP, is based on the idea that if you understand your own menstrual cycle you can predict the times when you are most likely to be fertile. It is called Natural Family Planning because you do not use any artificial devices or chemical hormones. You just pay attention to the natural changes in your body and only have sex when you feel that all the signs tell you that you are very unlikely to become pregnant You may hear natural methods called Fertility Awareness Methods, or FAM. Being fertile means that you are quite likely to become pregnant if you have sex without using any contraception. Most women are fertile for up to eight days of each menstrual cycle. This may surprise you, because generally we think that women only get pregnant when they ovulate, but although the egg only lives from about 12 to 24 hours, sperm can live for several days inside a woman’s uterus and Fallopian tubes. In fact, it is possible for sperm to survive there for up to seven days, and if that happened, you just might become pregnant even if you had not had sex for nearly a week before you ovulated.
Are there different types of Natural Family Planning? There are four ways to work out when you are likely to be fertile. They are the Calendar method, the Temperature method, the ‘Billings’ (Mucus) method and a combination of these which is usually known as the Sympto-thermal method.
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(posted in Women's Health)
THE MINIPILL (THE PROGESTOGEN-ONLY PILL): EFFICIENCY
Monday, March 23, 2009 | 4:07 amThe minipill is 96 to 99.7 percent effective. That means that if 100 women used the minipill as their method of contraception for one year, somewhere between none and four of them would have an unplanned pregnancy. As with most other methods, if you use them correctly every day they will be much more effective. If you don’t remember to take the minipill at the same time every day, you will be very much at risk of having an unplanned pregnancy.
Women who are breastfeeding or women who are older, and don’t ovulate as often, generally find the minipill most effective.
Why would I want to choose the minipill?
The minipill could be a good choice for you if you are not able to take oestrogen, or you get side effects that worry you if you take oestrogen. An advantage of the minipill is that if you want to use oral contraception you can take the minipill even if you have some medical conditions that prevent you from taking, the combined pill, for example hypertension, migraines or liver disease. You can also take the minipill if you have had blood clots in the veins, if you have diabetes, or if you are over 35 and smoke.
You may want to choose the minipill if you are breastfeeding and yon want to use oral contraception, since progestogen does not reduce milk supply. You cannot take the combined pill if you are breastfeeding because the oestrogen in it would reduce your milk supply.
Some women will get brown marks on their face when they take the combined Pill and go out in the sun. This does not happen to women on the minipill, though if they have taken the combined Pill first, and got brown marks, the marks may still take many months to fade completely. Some women just like the idea of using a hormonal method of contraception that is fairly effective but has less hormones in it than a combined Pill.
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(posted in Women's Health)