Dear Aunt Flow,

It’s over. I hate you. You’re no longer a part of the family. We’re breaking up. BYE.

Sincerely,

Disgruntled Monthly Bleeder

It might sound unnatural or even impossible, but thanks to modern medicine, ditching your period for months, years or even permanently is definitely within reach for certain women wanting to part with Mother Nature’s monthly “gift.” Sure, periods were great back when pregnancy scares were a real issue – because let’s be honest, we’ve all been there before – but if you’ve currently got a full house, an empty uterus and are just plain tired of menstruating, why not get rid of your period all together? For those seeking to part with their period, we’ve got some awesome news you should be privy to. But first – a fun facts about women’s most hated time of the month:

According to the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals, the average woman has an estimated 450 periods in her lifetime – three times the amount of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. There are several factors that have induced these elongated cycles, including less years pregnant or nursing, environmental factors and hormonal changes associated with modern lifestyles.

While periods are much more manageable with the onslaught of modern birth control options for single and married women, it still leaves many questioning the safety and overall normality of no longer having a menstrual cycle. In fact, over 80% of menstruating women are afraid that suppressing or stopping their period could cause long-term health effects later on down the road. But like we said, there’s awesome news.

Thanks to recent medical research and comprehensive studies, 99% of female OB/GYNs agree that menstrual suppression – the daily use of oral contraception to stop monthly bleeding – is actually safe for their patients, according to a Gallup poll. If this isn’t music to the ears of women with debilitating periods, it should be. These gynecologists are literally saying that there is no medical reason why women who don’t want to conceive should ever have or need a period. Ever. Again.

It’s a natural response for skeptical women to question the physical and biological harm of not having a period. What happens to the blood? Will it back up into my uterus? Will I develop cancer? Here’s the truth: if a woman is taking the Pill on a continuous cycle without breaks, the combination of estrogen and progesterone in the birth control will actually keep the womb wall thin, so no blood is being lost. There is, however, a chance that women can experience breakthrough bleeding – an episode of light menstruation due to the womb lining building up an excess of blood (not to be confused with the typical bleeding during monthly periods.)

Yet with all good news must come the bad. Sure it’s easy to get rid of your period through the deliberately daily use of birth control pills, IUD implants (Mirena) or injections (Depo- Provera), but just like with most every other medical application, there’s always a downside. Most women have heard horror stories from others about the consequences of using lab-created medicine to suppress periods, all of which should be taken into account and assessed based on individual use. Implants and injections have faced the brunt of skepticism due to their varying responses from users, some even blaming the product for causing cysts, blood clots and rare cases of strokes. In contrast, the nonstop use of the Pill has been found to reduce the risk of ovarian and endometrial cancer by nearly 50% due to the suppression of cell division per month.

The New England Journal of Medicine’s landmark study published in 2013 did, however, find that intra-uterine devices that released hormones actually improved health outcomes for women with heavy bleeding more than taking oral birth-control pills. These women were suffering from periods that were beyond the normal inconvenience or discomfort; these women’s periods were debilitating and unendurable.

It’s not coming up roses for certain women, sad to say. Ladies over the age of 35 and those who smoke are not encouraged to take the Pill back-to-back in order to suppress or stop her period. The same applies to women who are in jeopardy of or prone to heart attacks, heart disease, blood clots, high blood pressure or diabetes as this could cause serious irreparable damage to your internal lady parts and overall health.

If you’re considering putting an end to your period, talk to you OB/GYN about your options before making any changes to your established birth control routine.

The post Do Women Really Need a Period? appeared first on AKAMom Magazine.

(BPT) – Every woman knows that in the world of fashion, there’s no such thing as “one size fits all.” Yet for decades, American women have seemingly accepted the “one size fits all” approach when it comes to dealing with reproductive health issues. This one-size approach has meant that each year, thousands of women undergo hysterectomies that they may not need.

About 600,000 women have hysterectomies each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet many of these highly invasive surgeries are medically unnecessary. And as more women realize they have options besides a hysterectomy, more women are seeking alternative solutions by consulting with their own doctors, tapping online medical resources, and discussing their experiences and options on websites like ChangetheCycle.com.

In 2003, the most recent year for which statistics are available, more than 90 percent of hysterectomies were performed for benign conditions; just 10 percent were done to treat cancer of the ovaries, uterus or cervix, according to a study published in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology. Among the most common benign conditions treated were fibroids (35 percent), heavy periods (30 percent), endometriosis and pelvic pain. The CDC notes that from 2000 to 2004, fibroid tumors, endometriosis and uterine prolapse were the three most common conditions associated with hysterectomy.

“If a patient does not feel comfortable with a recommendation for surgery, they should seek a second opinion,” says Dr. Jessica Shepherd, assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology and director of minimally invasive gynecology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. “As a woman, I feel it is imperative that we feel we have options, today, women dealing with reproductive health issues such as heavy periods or fibroids have non-surgical treatment options available, too. These options come in medical and surgical forms and I always want my patients to know all of them.”

For example, fibroids or polyps in the uterus can be removed with a procedure called MyoSure, which requires no cutting into or removal of any part of the uterus. The procedure can help patients reduce heavy bleeding caused by polyps or fibroids while retaining a fully functional uterus. Heavy periods, which affect more than 10 million women, can be treated with the NovaSure procedure, a five-minute, non-surgical procedure that can be performed in your doctor’s office. For more than 90 percent of women, the procedure can dramatically reduce menstrual bleeding or even stop it altogether.

“This procedure works very well and can also be done in the office setting,” says Shepherd. “For every procedure, there are those patients that may not be a candidate for them and that is why a detailed conversation with your doctor is important. Feel comfortable asking questions and getting all the information you need.”

Some serious conditions may only be treatable by hysterectomy. According to the National Women’s Health Network (NWHN), these include: invasive cancer, unmanageable infection or bleeding, and serious complications during childbirth, such as rupture of the uterus. Shepherd also adds: “Fibroids do cause heavy bleeding and sometimes the size of the fibroid can be very large and they may require a more invasive surgery. Therefore it is important to talk to your gynecologist about your fibroids and all the options that can treat them.”

However, NWHN “believes that unnecessary hysterectomies have put women at risk needlessly, and that health care providers should recognize the value of a woman’s reproductive organs beyond their reproductive capacity and search for hysterectomy alternatives before resorting to life-changing operations,” according to the organization’s website.

“Before making any serious decision about a health issue, patients should consult their doctor and educate themselves as much as possible about their specific condition and their treatment options,” Shepherd says. “In the end, we as women should celebrate our bodies and having engaging dialogue with your gynecologist and other women only encourages healthy lifestyles. In my forum for women’s health care we discuss all the topics that you may not want to or feel embarrassed about. We want you to open up about these topics and feel empowered!”

Visit her Viewpoint with Dr. Shepherd on Facebook and Twitter at Facebook.com/HerViewpointCommunity, and Twitter.com/HerViewpoint.

To learn more about non-surgical treatment for heavy periods, polyps or fibroids, visit www.changethecycle.com.

The post One size doesn’t fit all in reproductive health appeared first on AKAMom Magazine.