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DIRECTORY of all topics (See also the SEARCH ENGINE, bottom of page.) LINKS to this site BELOW Leer la versión en español de los siguientes temas: Anticoncepción y religión, Breve reseña - Olor - Religión y menstruación - Seguridad de productos para la menstruación.Comic strip: A conservative American family visits the (future) Museum of Menstruation CONTRIBUTE to Humor, Words and expressions about menstruation
and Would you stop menstruating if you could?
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No:
"No more menstruation - ever"
Yes, I would:
A 23-year-old from the state of Washington has stopped . . .
Yes and no:
No, from Chicago:
I love my periods! from a 32-year-old homeopathy student:
Another 32-year-old, an artist, wouldn't miss premenstrual syndrome one bit:
An 18-year-old writes, "In a heartbeat":
To stop menstruating would be a blessing!
A 26-year-old Californian writes,
Never, ever, ever!
Oh, Lordy, yes!!!
Yes, but . . . .
From a 25-year-old DepoProvera user:
Later, she added,
Only Mother Nature will stop it:
A New Yorker says yes:
Menopause, here I come!
A 16-year-old Texan says yes, but . . .
A Canadian wants to stop:
Nature isn't always right; ask any flood victim:
Here's a second letter from the Australian who wrote about DepoProvera:
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Regarding the menstruate/not-to-menstruate dilemma: I am a seventeen-year-old girl who has not gotten her period since May, probably due to the fact that I've lost more weight than is likely healthy. My observations of myself have revealed that, while I once saw menstruation as a major inconvenience, I do feel a "need to bleed."
My friends say, "Aren't you lucky, you might never have to deal with it again if it's gone for good," but the fact is I want to see blood, I want to be able to bleed for a week without dying. Men almost never see their own blood, and when they do, it's almost always associated with danger. The fact that the same thing that pumps through my veins and keeps me alive makes a monthly appearance thrills me and fascinates me, strange as that may seem. I miss it. Then again, I've never had any glimmer of cramps, bloating, or water retention, so I can't speak for all women. My only hope is that it'll come back before I forget about it entirely and allow it to catch me off-guard!
Keep up the good work,
Absolutely NOT.
Menstruating is so sacred to me. I wouldn't change it for the world! I was disappointed to read all the replies from womyn saying they would want to stop bleeding. There is so much power in our blood. I do understand many womyn have painful blood times and that is upsetting. But for me, I LOVE washing my menstrual pads, and everything else. It is a personal time for me when I journey inwards and my creativity soars. I feel absolutely amazing when my blood comes. For anyone interested in possibly feeling better about their blood, I highly recommend the book "Blessings Of The Blood" By Celu Amberston. It is a wonderful book with personal stories of menarche, menopause and creativeness.
It really opened my eyes to just how sacred and beautiful our blood is.
[She added the following later.] I just wanted to add my opinions on this synthetic drug.
Many people may not care about this issue but apart from the harmful effects of synthetics, what or rather who will they be testing this drug on? My educated guess would be non-human animals.
This is an absolute torcher. Animal tests are unsafe, not to mention inhumane. They should not be subjected to these horrible, painful tests just to "improve" us humans. It is pathetic and unreliable. What works for one rabbit or mouse may not work for another let alone each and every woman out there.
We have voices and can speak out against these atrocities. If this pill is going to come forth, and they want women to be cold machines, suppressing their natural cycles, and the women who want this too, then so be it. But do not subject animals who cannot defend themselves for this cause.
Although sometimes it's annoying not to be able to swim whenever I like, I don't have any pains (only once every couple of months) or any abnormalities.
So, why should I stop nature? Plus, some women think that this will only make the men happy since they can have sex any day of the month.
I'm 17 in Indonesia.
God Love You,
Lydia
Here's why. For years as a teenager my uterus was so strained by lifting of heavy things like book bags and such, my periods were painful nightmares! The fourth day was the worst. The bleeding and the pain were horrendous, my mother was of no help to me. She would not take me to the doctor's or dentist even though she was covered by health insurance. It was so bad I went rolling around the floor in agony, the blood coming in chunks (sorry to be so graphic). I would also have serious diarrhea on the first day.
Later, when I was in my 20's, I went to the gynecologist for relief, he prescribed ibuprofen. It helped some but not enough. As I was waiting for my first appointment, an old family friend of the family who worked there said that I would have to have a baby in order to stop having the pain. I am not going that far for relief.
Today, I take Orudis and birth control pills to control in order to control the pain and the heavy flow. It would help more if I did not ride the bus to and from work. You see, the buses have very little suspension and shake the riders tremendously. I have had uterine pain while on the bus and after disembarking. Other women have mentioned this also. The intense motion almost makes the Orudis null and void.
I know I have gone on for too long, so to get to the point I will say that: I am all for those women who want their periods suppressed. The pain and feeling of uncleanliness is not worth it. I myself am going to ask my next gynecologist for help in convincing my pharmacy plan to help me in this endeavor.
Please no names, but I am 37 years old. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
Thank you for letting me vent, good job on the Web site.
Would I, if I had the option, is a question that has been entertaining my mind over the past months. To tell you the truth, I really don't know. I am a deep believer in nature, and things happening for a reason in a natural pattern. From that aspect I feel like it would be wrong to turn on and off something that has been happening to women for thousands of years. On the other hand, I am a vivacious go getter kind of person who likes freedom. Sometimes I feel like my period limits me. I abhor wearing feminine underwear. When I wear underwear at all it is boxers. That is, except during my period. I am a pad girl. While I like the idea of tampons and would love if they would work for me, I have a rather heavy flow and after about three hours or so they stop working. I also swim a lot. I love the water. I could spend my life in it. Pads don't work for that and when I am doing laps tampons have a way of working themselves out. On top of it all I have terrible cramps.
So, I am between a self-made rock and a hard place. So, my answer is this: Do I have the right to stop what nature intended? If I would say yes it would be hypocritical to my other beliefs. So, as much as I hate to admit it, I think I would keep on menstruating. I never thought I'd say that, though. For as much of an inconvenience as it would be and is, (imagine hitch hiking across the country and having to stop to add pads to your small belongings) I couldn't imagine crossing nature.
Stop menstruation? YES, in a heartbeat!! I am 44 and have hated the nuisance of monthly bleeding since I started at age 9!! My only goal in life was to have a family, but I never achieved this. While I would like to have frozen my eggs (or embryos) to continue our family genes, I have no fondness of menstruation. It is messy and smelly. And now that I am "morbidly obese," my hormones are out of balance, so I bleed 28 days a month!! NOT a pleasant experience. (I tried progesterin for a couple years with intermittent success, but stopped using it when it no longer regulated/stopped the bleeding and I read it isn't good for us). I always had killer cramps on the first day of my 5-7 day long periods when I was having "normal" ones, so how could anyone like this? My acne always flared up worse than normal before my period, I got cranky, etc., etc. But I wouldn't like to take a daily pill. I don't trust synthetic drugs, what they may do to our insides.
I was searching on bidets when I came upon your page. Never thought there would be a museum, or art, regarding menstruation. I'm sending the link to all my female friends!
I was ignorant of the fact that they still make natural fiber pads. I thought commercial ones were all we could buy. I hate the expense, plus find that the darn synthetic pads, which are supposed to be super absorbent now, wick the blood to the ends OFF the pad, soiling my pants. So what's the point?
I have been using cloth pads for at least five years now. Basically I use old, absorbent terry wash-clothes folded into thirds. Its messy washing them out, but I find them more effective than Kotex pads, etc. I can no longer use tampons since my short arms can't stretch around my body mass to reach my vagina. :o(
I'm sure I gave you far more details than you cared to know, but I figured my perspective is important, too. All my life I wish we women could turn Off menstruation except when we wanted to get pregnant. I don't see how any woman feels feminine from it, or likes it, let alone tolerates it. But then I'm not a "normal" woman (grew up a tomboy, even though I physically developed early). I have too much testosterone which gives me a raging sex drive (and acne), but since I am "ugly" (fat) by American standards, men don't get to experience the pleasure of my fondness of sex (yet I hear so many men complain about women not liking sex).
Oh, well, their loss. (I had one boyfriend years ago, so did experience the pleasures of sex and miss it greatly!).
I always wanted to be a guy when I was young, but for some reason I am only sexually attracted to men. Oh, well.
I'm 31 years old, have two kids, ages 8 and 10. I was surprised to see all the adamant Yes replies about not bleeding anymore. I might consider it for a month or two if I was feeling really sick of messing with my good ol' cotton pads, but NO, I would NOT stop my menstruation. I'm a woman, it's part of who I am. Every month, I revel in the fact that I can conceive and nourish a child because of my cycles. Periods are a part of life!
Hi,
I hate having my period! I don't feel like I can do everything when I am on it! And I hate shopping for pads and tampons. I think it is sooo embarrassing! This is what I think.
Thank you
I've just gone on DepoProvera - an injection of progesterone that lasts for three months and often stops menstruation.
I was nervous about about this injection, as I have tried the Pill in the past and had some bad reactions, and I was aware there could be side-effects from Depot, too, such as irregular bleeding and depression. But I was keen to try this for a number of reasons. I was told it would have the affect of arresting my cycle, that I wouldn't have the ups and downs of the cycle, that I probably wouldn't bleed as long as I am taking the treatment.
This all sounded pretty great to me - I am SO sick of the effects my hormones have on me and the impact on my life, my happiness and my relationships. A typical cycle for me often includes mid-cycle bleeding, sore breasts for two weeks each month from ovulation to menstruation, feeling nauseous for three days around ovulation, and feeling exhausted and hyper-sensitive and as if I'm getting out of the flu for a week before my period is due. Also, I'm having quite uncomfortable wind and diarrhea in the week before and during my period. I do a very good job of keeping it to myself and not letting it stop me from doing the things I want to do. But . . . .
CRAZY! This has been going on for about five years now. I am extremely fit right now, have worked on my fitness seriously for the last year in part to try to moderate my hormones - but to no avail.
I just want to feel all right for more of the time - to find a plateau and get off the hormonal roller coaster. I want to look forward to each month knowing that for the whole month I will feel good, instead of just one-and-a-half weeks.
The other factor in this is that about a year ago I discovered I was severely anaemic, and since then I have been working on improving my iron levels through diet and having shots. When I was very deficient, my periods, bizarrely enough, were extremely heavy and extremely painful. You'd think the body would have some kind of regulatory thing: "Low iron levels? OK! No more bleeding for a couple of months!" - but no! Stopping my periods at least for a year feels like a form of self-defence to me now.
I do want to have children at some stage, and I hope that having taken Depo will not interfere with that when the time comes. Having just turned 30, you can bet I'm thinking about that now.
But until then, Santa, I want NO PERIODS, THANKS!!!!
[She wrote the following after I told her that some women have told me they felt that DepoProvera subjugated women:]
Conspiracy to subjugate women! Far out! I'd like to hear their rationale! I think DepoProvera is brilliant stroke of liberation - but hoping that it is as safe as my doctor told me. It's pretty funny - in a sick kind of way - because when I went to have it done I asked my doctor about the history of DepoProvera, and he wryly told me that it had been tested widely first on third-world women. I think that is quite dubious, and I wonder whether those women were told that they were being used as guinea pigs for the benefit of richer women in first world countries. But obviously I'm still willing to give it a go. I guess all our drugs get tested out on someone/something.
I think the museum is fantastic, and it's great to be able to see it online. I think it's interesting that many women who like the museum disapprove of stopping menstruation. The difficult time my hormones have given me has overridden any sense that I 'should' do what's natural, because what's obviously "natural" for my body is too uncomfortable. I don't strongly dislike menstruation in itself, but don't like being caught up and controlled by a monthly cycle which I never would have chosen if I'd had the chance. It also seems like a waste for my uterus (and for my whole body) to go through all this every month when I have no intention of getting pregnant in the near future.
But I also have friends who are very much into seeing the cycle as an essential part of their womanhood and a source of power, and if that is how it is for them, then more power to them! All interesting stuff, and all part of the mix of attitudes towards menstruation in our culture which your web site allows us to explore.
Keep up the good work!
I am 46-years old and have been bleeding every month of my life (except the blessed 9 months I was pregnant the two different times)!
Enough already!
I am sick to death of it. In fact, I told my ob/gyn [obstetrician/gynecologist] during my last visit that I think I was born 20 years too late. In the 60's and 70's women were given hysterectomies at the drop of a hat. Now, because of terrors that "specialists" who get big bucks to study anything and everything that's published, doctors are extremely reluctant to even mention the word, much less perform one.
My sex drive is non-existent and I was bleeding 3 weeks out of every month until just recently when my doctor finally put me on progesterone replacement. The bleeding isn't as bad, but now it is totally unpredictable and the libido is in the dumpster. I wouldn't want to be a man for anything in the world, but sometimes I sure am envious of their easy life.
From a 36-year-old American woman:
Stop menstruating? Yes, most definitely. I've had one miscarriage and no children, and I have decided not to have children. I've found the older I get, the more irregular my flow becomes. What a joy it would be not to have to schedule vacations, day trips, MY LIFE around my period!
Hello!
I took the pill during my undergraduate finals, because I can get bad period pains and didn't want to lose twenty per cent . . . . Well, I didn't like not having periods. When I was just starting to menstruate, I missed the pre-sexual, convenient, one-piece body experience of not having to worry about it. Then I missed some periods, and changed my mind. I'm too used to it; it didn't feel like me any more.
Besides which, I disliked periods when I was using pads or tampons, but now I use a Keeper (a menstrual cup) and I like it! So I think quite a few women who'd like to stop periods might just not be enjoying their feminine hygiene product?
And is it my imagination, or is it kind of stupid to suggest that a bodily function is obsolete? I'm not a stereo system! If it was really obsolete, then it would have gone the way of gills and evolved into something else. If you gotta dose yourself with lots of pills to keep your body up-to-the-minute with the latest research, then heaven help us all.
I don't like messing with nature, quite frankly. I took the pill and hated it because it made me feel weird and I felt disconnected from my period. Yes, it's messy, inconvenient, and uncomfortable, but it's part of me so why erase it? PMS, on the other hand, I could do without. If I could get rid of PMS but still get my period, I would do that in a heartbeat.
Of course, YES!! This blood thing every month is awful!!
Why do women have to spend money on these stupid pads just for periods!? I'm 14 and I'm sick of it already!! (I also would never want a child.)
Hell, yes! In a New York Minute! I am 44 years old and have been menstruating since I was 10. I am sick of it all. I am sick of the cramps. I am sick of the blood. I am sick of the expense of both ruined underwear and of feminine hygiene products. I am sick of the inconvenience. I have two girls, I do not plan or wish to have any more kids, enough already!
With regard to the lower iron stores of menstruating women: Jerome Sullivan, M.D. (working in the U.S. Veterans Administration) recognized about 20 years ago that people with (iron- deficiency) anemia had almost no atherosclerosis.
Therefore he published the hypothesis that menstruating women have their very low risk of myocardial infarction (MI) because of their iron losses (in The Lancet 1981, easily found with the help of MEDLINE). It took more than a decade until Finnish epidemiologists (J. Salonen et al.) showed that the MI-risk in men around 50 years indeed was significantly influenced by their iron stores (as reflected in their serum ferritin).
A few years later they showed that the blood donors in their study cohort of aging men had a MI risk even lower that that of menstruating women! And they also showed that the risk of diabetes correlates with iron stores. As you probably know America has a huge problem with an epidemic rise of diabetes. The causes presumably are:
a) High meat consumption, especially red meat, since the red pigments, myo- and hemoglobin, are iron containing, and this heme-bound iron is easily absorbed from the gut.
b) In the US flour is supplemented with iron by order of the government. In addition many ingest multivitamins plus -minerals including iron.
c) Women loose less blood when taking the hormonal contraceptive pill: I think it was Kaiser Permanente which invented "tampon counting" in a study to find out the effect of contraceptive use on menstrual blood loss. (I am not sure. You might just enter tampon* and blood* or iron or something like that into a MEDLINE search and see what hits you get.)
d) Postmenopausal hormone replacement in women in former days resulted in more or less regular vaginal blood losses - which the women treated didn't like at all. Therefore modern concepts of this therapy have accomplished no bleeding in most women so treated.
e) Hysterectomy, that is the removal of the uterus, is done very liberally in the US, immediately stopping menstrual blood loss, often long before natural menopause.
f) Modern day man does not loose blood any more by diseases (such as infection with hook worms), by fighting etc.The message is easily deduced: U.S. health problems (overweight, hypertension, diabetes etc.) to a large extent are caused by iron accumulation in Americans, and a simple solution would be a combination of measures like
stopping iron supplementation of flour,
prohibiting free sale of iron-containing pills etc.,
reduced consumption of meat, especially red meat, ingestion of food stuffs which bind iron and reduce its absorption from the gut (like tea, phytate-containing food-stuffs...),
blood donations, and
cost-free phlebotomies for all those with high iron stores not eligible as blood donors.It is definitely wrong that menstruation has negative consequences on health!! The contrary is true - at least if the woman who reduces menstrual blood losses (e.g. by taking the "pill") starts accumulating iron similar to men of the same age (which may be counteracted by blood donations).
Keeping iron stores low presumably is the main mechanism by which vegetarians reduce their risk of hypertension, overweight, diabetes, MI, stroke, several common cancers, etc., and it obviously is a major mechanism to explain why children (with low iron stores because of iron requirements for growth) and menstruating women in affluent societies have much lower risk of morbidity and mortality than men and older people!
Perhaps you could get an interview or a comment on this topic from your countryman J. Sullivan, who is still very active in promoting knowledge on the risks of iron accumulation to health. Just enter Sullivan and iron into MetaCrawler to get some information and hints how you might contact him; or use MEDLINE/pubmed once more to directly find out his address - he wrote an editorial for volume 100 of the top journal CIRCULATION in September 1999 containing his address. Perhaps the pocket book "Iron And Your Heart," 1993, by R. B. Lauffer is still available, which contains many of the basic arguments of the iron risk hypothesis (but without the risk of hypertension . . .).
Keep up the good work!
Heinz Mensing, M.D.
Heck, yes. I have given birth to two children 18 months apart, and breast-fed both, so that I went without a period almost continually for almost three years (except for a couple months between kids). After stopping breast-feeding, it was the worst return to reality to get my period once again. How wonderful it was to have drawers full of clean underwear, no blood stains to be found.
The only advantage to menstrual cycles I can point out is that my libido is much more active after menstruation. But in fairness, it's also much lower at other points in the cycle.
Thanks for a great Web site! I'm very impressed. [Many thanks, and I appreciate your comments.]
- from Holly Suthard, business manager of an information technology company (April, 2000)
Mr. Finley,
Thank you so much for taking the time to coming to Vassar to talk to us about your marvelous museum [here's a short account]. It was wonderful to hear about a place entirely devoted to women's menstruation, a subject which everyone seems to want to avoid (along with all sorts of other pro-women topics). I am finally getting around to e-mailing you a response to the sheets you passed out regarding menstruation. Here goes:
Would I take a hormone pill daily to stop menstruating if it had only good side effects and I could have children if I stopped taking it?
If there were absolutely no bad side effects, and if the pill had been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was no harm in taking it, of course I would, because of the health benefits from taking it. Anything that reduces cancer is good in my book.
However, if there were neither good nor bad side effects, then I think I wouldn't. I have immense amounts of respect for my body, and nature in general, and I don't like screwing around with it. I've taken the pill before, and it's fine, but it's strange that I'm basically convincing my body of something entirely untrue. And although I'm sure the pill is safe, there haven't been any truly long-term studies, because it hasn't been around long enough. (I could be wrong on that last one, I don't know huge amounts about the history of the pill, but that's the word on the street.)
I don't know if you asked this question due to the recent book that came out about menstruation and whether we're supposed to be menstruating throughout our lives or not, but I thought I might respond to that too. You gave out a list of comments and statistics of menstruation, which I found interesting, but I was floored when I read the quotes at the end regarding whether menstruation was truly "natural."
Basically the quote said that throughout history women were either pregnant or lactating for most of the time and thus didn't have their periods for years and years and years.
Thus, now that we're in a society where there are few children per family and are living longer due to improvements in medicine, our uteruses are having to work harder than they used to, and we are wasted precious resources by menstruating once a month. I was extremely troubled by this quote (and still am), because I see that it could possibly have some merit.
Problem is, I don't know if it's true that women in the past weren't menstruating all their lives. I would love some more information on this (maybe I should investigate this on your Web site). At the moment, I don't consider it an issue, because there don't seem to be many safe options to stop menstruating for long periods of time, unless you've already had kids.
Taking the birth control pill for more than four years has unknown and possibly detrimental effects on your reproductive system. I don't know about other options, but I think (emphasis on "think" here) that the birth control is the option best studied and known, and thus the other options probably can't be guaranteed either.
Moving on: menstruation is ABSOLUTELY a positive part of my life, though I only started realizing it in the past few years. It's good for several reasons. First of all, it lets me know that I'm a woman, and everything which is associated with being a woman: fertility, strength, a separate and distinct and equally beautiful physiology. Secondly, it tells me how I'm doing. If I menstruate, it means I'm healthy. On months when I am extremely stressed, don't eat well, worry too much, don't exercise, etc, I get bad cramps, and horrible premenstrual syndrome (depression, crabbiness, weird cravings).
Likewise, when I'm happy and am eating well and exercising, I barely notice my period coming, and when it does my cramps are virtually nonexistent. It's great, because when I get too involved in things outside of myself it brings me back to what's most important: me, and I realize that I need to treat myself better. Thirdly, loving menstruation means loving my uterus and vagina and all my genitalia. Tampons without applicators are great because it means I'm touching myself, getting to know my body (something men do every time they go to the bathroom).
Menstruation encourages me to acknowledge myself as sexual and not ignore a wonderful part of my body.
- from a 20-year-old student at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, where I gave a talk about this museum (April, 2000)
I don't mind having a period, but I'd have to be darn sure that it would be easy to start up again. I was on the Pill for three years in college, and didn't ovulate afterwards, at all, for more than 10 years. I also would be concerned with the hormone doses and cycles - I know that during some parts of my cycle, I'm more creative, or more passionate, or more brainy; I would hate to be slotted into just one aspect for years!
- from cv, 34-years old, North America (April, 2000)
Here are your questions, and my answers. I don't think you'll be getting many other answers like this from other girls (er, excuse me, WOMEN!), especially ones my age [15]. Most girls have been conditioned to think that periods are stupid, bad, boys don't like them, blah blah blah, but not me.
Are you going to put some of the responses you get on a MUM page? You should. I'd like to read what other people think, and I'm sure other people would too.
QUESTION: From what you know - stopping menstruation for most of your life will drastically reduce your chances of getting some kinds of cancer, probably prevent endometriosis and many kinds of disorders tied with menstruation like PAIN and swelling, plus, of course, the trouble associated with menstruation - would YOU take hormone pills (like those in birth-control pills, aka The Pill) every day, knowing that if you want to have a baby, you can just stop, get pregnant, have the kid, and start taking The Pill again?
I would probably take The Pill, but not all the time. Right now my periods are really long and I have to take iron pills so the cramps won't kill me, but I wouldn't mind having two-or-three-day periods every month.
They're just a bother sometimes because they get in the way of things I want to do and wear. So, I guess my answer is, yes, I would take The Pill, but only to make my periods shorter, not go away altogether. I try not to think about all of the cancers and diseases I might get when I get old, so that doesn't really figure into my answer.
QUESTION: Do you have a "need to bleed"? There is a group of women who feel menstruation is good for various reasons and would not stop if they had the chance.
I like having my period sometimes, and I'd feel a little weird not having it. I just wish they didn't last as long, and without cramps in the beginning.
- from Victoria Howe, a 15-year-old in Seattle (U.S.A.) who has a 'zine on this site (March, 2000)
Hi, Harry,Actually, from a science perspective, there doesn't seem to be any harm in not having a period every month if a woman is taking oral contraceptives. In fact, health-care providers have been giving women pills for medical problems like endometriosis, and cycling women to bleed every few months. A new pill will be coming out that is a 12-week pack, so a bleed will occur every 3 months. I have heard Robert Hatcher (of Contraceptive Technology fame) talk about this - he says he has talked to women who skipped the placebo pills for as long as 2 years! Some say this will be the wave of the future!! The point is that giving estrogen and progestins doesn't cause the endometrial buildup that might predispose women to cancer - and this is different than a woman not on pills who isn't ovulating, and therefore has unopposed estrogen.
We never did find much research on this; what we did find was that this concept is being borrowed, if you will, from the work on Depo Provera, the progestogin injection. The biggest side effect with this is amenorrhea.
- from Linda C. Andrist, Ph.D., RNC
Associate Professor and Coordinator,
Women's Health Nurse Practitioner Program
Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions
Boston, Massachusetts (U.S.A.)
(March, 2000)
Harry,
I've been reading the Lancet article, as well as looking at a few other papers.
Interestingly, I found an article looking at side effects of the seven hormone-free days in the standard contraceptive pill:
Obstet Gynecol 2000 Feb;95(2):261-6, 'Hormone withdrawal symptoms in oral contraceptive users.' Sulak PJ et al.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10674591&dopt=Abstract
They found a list of symptoms more frequently reported during the pill-free days than the other days (pelvic pain, headaches, increased analgesic use, bloating or swelling and breast tenderness - all sounds familiar, no?). Another reason for dropping the inclusion of the placebo pills in the packet.
- from Anna Simpson, an English molecular biologist (March, 2000)
I have to say that I wouldn't go back to using The Pill just to stop having periods. Part of this is personal experience - I ended up very depressed whilst taking the pill, and I didn't realise how low I was feeling until I stopped taking it. I'd be reluctant to risk going through that again just to avoid a bit of inconvenience.
At the end of the day, taking The Pill for years on end would be no more "natural" than having larger numbers of periods than our ancestors. For someone who has a lot of trouble with their period (I had a friend who took The Pill because she had very bad premenstrual tension) it's an excellent idea.
Although the pill is extremely safe, as medication goes, it does still have side effects; as well as the most widely known thrombosis problems, it's been linked to increased liver disease and maybe even melanoma (something else I found out whilst looking through papers yesterday.)
Interestingly, there was also a paper which described a double-blind trial of oral contraceptives as a treatment for acne, which the authors thought might be the first ever double-blind placebo controlled trial of oral contraceptives. I couldn't read the whole paper, but they described the levels of side-effects amongst pill takers and placebos as "similar."
Hi, Harry,
I have been thinking about your presentation [on 1 April at Vassar College, about this museum and The Pill] and specifically, the "need to bleed." I did a phenomenological study on support during menopause and found, not surprisingly, that the women in my study were delighted to have their periods end and didn't "need to bleed" to feel like a real woman.
- from Theresa S. Standing, Ph.D., RN
Director, Doctor of Nursing Program
The Bolton School of Nursing
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, Ohio (U.S.A.)
(March, 2000)
I've read the piece on Dr. John Rock in the New Yorker but have not yet read the book [Is Menstruation Obsolete?]. In my experience, I've given birth control pills continuously in women who were having bone marrow transplant whose own hormones as well as blood counts were very low. We didn't want them to have a period because they could bleed to death!
In that setting - not a healthy, well-fed woman - it was hard to keep from getting breakthrough bleeding for longer than about six to eight weeks. Also, breasts tend to become very nodular and sore if they are given no break from high estrogen (don't forget that the pill has estrogen levels that are 5-10 times higher than physiological).
Most women I know, and this issue comes up with the continuous menopausal ovarian hormone therapy schedules, would much rather have an expected than an unexpected period. Having regular periods, therefore, is usually far preferable to having irregular and unexpected ones. The solution for the menopausal woman is to increase the progesterone dose and give it daily and to give a slightly lower estrogen dose for 26 or 27 days/month.
All of this debate reminds me how horridly far our concepts are from normal physiology. The increased symptoms during the placebo or pill free days of the oral contraceptives are because the body is trying to get the ovary back on track. It overshoots in response. No wonder, after suppression for 3 weeks!
I believe that barrier methods of contraception (jelly and diaphragm, condom or cap) work well in a stable relationship and are very necessary for infection prevention in a new one are preferred. Then we might be in touch with our own normal reproductive cycles, be able to tell if we were ovulating, and be able to make the changes that would allow normal ovulation to occur if not.
- from a female professor at the University of British Columbia and the Vancouver Hospital (Canada) (March, 2000)
I must admit that when I was a surgical resident (and there were few women) I didn't want to risk getting cramps in the operating room and I took The Pill continuously without a period for three years with no symptoms. . . . I do not feel the need to bleed.
- from an American surgeon (March, 2000)
I haven't read the New Yorker article, yet. However, the description of the discourse elicits these free associations which may or may not be relevant to the article:
Menstruation of the kind we humans do is rare in nature, and we really don't have any idea why human females menstruate. The fact that at our current state of knowledge we have a failure of imagination or knowledge about why human females should bother menstruating doesn't mean that there is no reason for it, or that we know what the system-wide bodily effects of interrupting menstruation on a long-term basis for large numbers of women would be.
Hysterectomy and oophorectomy [removal of the ovaries] were done to an extent now argued to be unnecessary, because of a failure of imagination about why nonreproductive women would need these organs. Not very long ago, the idea that estrogens would be related to bone or cardiovascular health was not an idea that anyone had considered.
There's a kind of hubris that goes like this: When there is a new discovery or association, instead of saying "gee, that system is a lot more complicated than I previously imagined," the message instead is "we used to be ignorant but now we know it all."
- from Paula Derry, Ph.D. (U.S.A.) (March, 2000)
pderry@bcpl.net
Well, I finally read the New Yorker story.
My personal opinion is that the main issue here is not whether menstruation is obsolete, but, rather, that this article is a poorly written diatribe that confuses fact, hopeful speculation, playing on emotion, etc.
The Los Angeles Times [newspaper] did a series on problems with science reporting that I think covers some of the issues relevant to this article: inflating the importance of results, looking for something sexy to report, etc. In addition, this article, like Gladwell's article on Susan Love [a surgeon who has written books on hormones and breast cancer], uses ad hominem attacks in lieu of reasoned (or reasonable) arguments.
(In case anyone is interested, the Los Angeles Times series is still on the Web: go to www.latimes.com, click on "print edition," then click on "special reports," then go to "overdose of optimism?" )
[Professor] Domenico Pecorari [Director of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Policlinic Hospital of the Medical School, University of Verona, Italy, and a great and early supporter of this museum who sent me an interesting article; scroll to the bottom of the page] has just sent me a Progress Report (#52, 1999) from the World Health Organization which includes several articles pertinent to this discussion; one confirms research findings I came across some 15 years ago which suggested that "menstruation has taken on such sociocultural, religious and psychological significance that many women refuse to tolerate disturbances to their pattern of vaginal bleeding as a result of using contraceptives."
This is apparently still true world-wide. One question is, to what extent are these "attitudes" impeding health advances - e.g., if menstruation is "obsolete," then should we be working to help women changes their attitudes if they represent an impediment to better contraception? The point about bone loss should not be missed [studies have shown that certain combinations of hormones increase loss of bone in the users].
(The full citation of the recent WHO report it is: "How Women Perceive Menstruation and their Menstrual Patterns, Progress, 52 - a quarterly by the UNPD/UNFRPA/WHO/World Bank Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction, World Health Organization, 1211 Geneva 27, Switzerland.
Write to that address for a free subscription. The only e-mail address given in the report is rhrpublications@who.ch
- name withheld (U.S.A.) (March, 2000)
I saw your request for responses to the new medical research which asserts that frequent menstruation is a modern phenomenon and damaging to women's health. National Public Radio [in the U.S.A.] recently did a couple shows on this new research and I have been thinking about it a lot and appreciate a chance to get my two cents in.
First, I would like to acknowledge that EFFECTIVE contraception is indeed a modern phenomenon (though contraception has existed in less effective forms for at least 2000 years) and that the current trend in industrialized societies is for later birth (and/or marriage). And also, that women in first-world countries are experiencing earlier ages for first menstruation (I was only 11, for instance).
Granting those well known facts, and also granting that those facts indicate more frequent menstruation among the current population of women, I would also like to point out the following:
In our past, women did not enjoy the advantages of nutrition and leisure that they do now; they worked at hard physical labor and didn't have as much, or as high a quality, a food as they do now. So they matured later and bore children later, and nursed them for longer (an effective contraceptive) and they died YOUNG - before menopause, for the most part, until recently. So (for the most part) they didn't apparently die of breast cancer or cancer of the reproductive organs; they never had a chance to! They died of childbirth, of blood loss and exhaustion, of viral infections and bacteria.
It is only in the last one hundred years or so that women have been living consistently beyond menopause and only in the last 25 years that our medical science has turned its attention to women's health in a serious way.
Just because we are observing disease in older women and also observing earlier and more frequent menstruation does not mean that they are necessarily (or logically) linked.
Despite more frequent menstruation we still outlive our ancestors on the order of decades - and with a better quality of life, besides - and anyone who is honest will admit this has to do with safer childbirth, later childbirth, better nutrition and health care. The average age of life expectancy has gone up despite cancer.
So while I don't have a problem at all (personally) with the idea of menstruating less often, I have a problem with the concepts behind it and I have a serious problem with the medical technology involved.
Can synthetic hormones, repressing my menstrual cycle, really help me? Manipulation of progesterin and oestrogen levels will cause my menses to stop but are they the whole story? Those hormones are the big players, but not the only ones. Will the interruption of the ebb and flow of ALL my hormones result in a healthier female? If "historical woman" was healthier because of her earlier pregnancies and lactation, how could medical science hope to mimic THAT with their chemicals?
As I said, I'm not opposed to the idea of repressing menstruation in general, but I feel that we are a long way from the execution. There's nothing wrong with my body as it is, though I would like to help it live a little longer in health. I'm just not sure this new idea can provide it and I feel a little suspicious about the continued medicalization of natural human functions as they are expressed in women.
I guess that was a lot more than two cents worth, but obviously, I have opinions about the subject.
Sincerely,
Beth Twomey (U.S.A.) (March, 2000)