She MUST Use Instead for Her Health!
A reader from New York City comments about how the Instead
menstrual cup is the only thing she can
use:
Instead is currently the ONLY menstrual protection that I can use.
I underwent recurrent urinary tract infections
for a year triggered by pad use (those nasty perforated plastic liners
that always feel wet to the touch are great breeding grounds for bacteria,
especially "Always"). A latex allergy means that the "Keeper"
is out of the question. Tampons are undescribably painful to use. Instead is messy (it helps to have a non-latex glove on
the withdrawing hand and then invert it over the whole thing) but it is
extremely comfortable and toxic-shock free. The benefits outweigh
the problems. I wouldn't use anything else.
Using Instead is very much like using a diaphragm, which is equally messy
but much used.
See the comment about Instead last week
and the able of contents at the top of the page for more items about Instead
(listed under "cup, menstrual").
Read About the Latest in Endometriosis
Donna Laux of the Endometriosis Care Center e-mails that
you folks - and me, too - might want to read about a topic that afflicts
millions of women of menstruating age.
Thanks, Donna!
Menstruation Benefits
Men!?
What man would want to mate with a woman who
did not menstruate? Lack of menstruation indicates either that she is pregnant
by a rival or that she is not healthy enough to bear children.
Why monthly? Anything as predictable as the moon
provides a reliable measure for controlling a woman's behavior.
In England, the banns must be read for three
weeks in the church before a wedding can take place. Surely in this amount
of time the bride would demonstrate that she is not pregnant before the
church sanctions the union. Perhaps I am extending my precepts too far
here, but as your article mentions, the religious taboos surrounding this
subject are extensive.
Dioxin Affects Fish, and You
and Me
Again and again we read about the effects of the class of chemicals
called dioxins, found almost everywhere, and produced in part from the processing
of wood - this means it's found in many menstrual products, since many pads
and tampons contain wood pulp.
Read about the effects on fish, and probably the people that eat them,
in the 17 May edition of Science
News.
"Traumatic Grief" is
Dangerous
People whose spouses were a "Band-Aid"
- they helped them with their very inadequate skills in relationships -
suffer a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder when these partners die.
Damage to their immune systems can be worse than that experienced by severely
depressed people, and can probably trigger grave physical illness, such
as cancer. Psychotherapy can help.
Finding Lobular Breast Cancer, NOT
with Mammography
In contrast to the cancer 85% of women afflicted with breast cancer
get, a cancer which affects the ducts which carry milk to the nipple, lobular breast cancer, which affects the milk-producing
glands themselves, cannot be detected by mammography.
Carol Shattuck, now undergoing chemotherapy for this latter cancer,
writes in the Washington
Post Health section (20 May), "No matter what your age, mammography
is not always the answer. At least 10 percent of breast cancers are not
picked up on mammograms . . . . We must . . . become knowledgeable about
about cancer and the limits of technology, such as mammography . . . . [M]any of our doctors, along with the general public, place
far too much reliance on mammography."
This Post section also talks about clotting problems with birth control pills.
Does Estrogen Reduce
the Risk of Alzheimer's Disease?
In a fabulous article on the pioneer of geriatric research, Dr. Caleb
E. Finch, of the University of Southern California, Science Times (New
York Times) from 20 May reports that "women who take estrogen
replacement therapy after menopause appear to have a reduced risk
of developing the disease [Alzheimer's], and early studies have suggested
that the hormone can ameliorate the symptoms and slow
the progress of mental decline in those already afflicted."
© 1998 Harry Finley. It is illegal to
reproduce or distribute any of the work on this Web site in any manner or
medium without written permission of the author. Please report suspected
violations to hfinley@mum.org
|
