March 11th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Tags: endometriosis, FemCare, Menarche, Menstruation, pain
Posted in Dysmenorrhea, FemCare, Menarche, Menstruation, New Research, anatomy | No Comments »
March 10th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Guest Post by David Linton, Marymount Manhattan College
Debates about Christianity’s attitudes toward women sometimes focus on Jesus’ relationship with Mary Magdalene and isolated engagements with other unnamed women encountered during his travels. Little is made of a healing scene in the book of Luke(8:43-48) where Jesus had momentary contact with a woman who, in all likelihood, had a severe case of menorrhagia. Here’s how the translation is described in the Revised Standard Version”
“As he went, the people pressed round him. And a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years and could not be healed by any one came up behind him, and touched the fringe of his garment; and immediately her flow of blood ceased. And Jesus said, “Who was it that touched me?” When all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the multitudes surround you and press upon you!” But Jesus said, “Some one touched me; for I perceive that power has gone forth from me.” And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.” Continue reading...
Tags: Christianity, guest post, Menstruation, religion
Posted in Language, Literature, Men, Menorrhagia, Menstruation, Religion/Spirituality | No Comments »
March 1st, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
POZ magazine and poz.com claim to be the leading publication and website in the U.S. about HIV/AIDS. The March 2010 issue has a great article by Suzanne Bopp about menstruation, menopause, and HIV. As with medical and cultural knowledge about HIV itself, understanding of how HIV affects menstruation continues to evolve. Irregular menstruation is a common complaint of women with HIV, but
“[Today] we have a better grasp of factors associated with abnormal menstrual cycles: substance abuse, AIDS, wasting disease—it relates more to overall nutritional status,” says Kristine Patterson, MD, clinical assistant professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill. “If the body doesn’t have enough fat, production of estrogen and progesterone shuts down,” Patterson says. This can happen anytime a woman loses too much weight, and it is exacerbated by advanced HIV disease, which causes the body to burn calories more rapidly.
. . . .
Researchers do know, however, that female hormones affect the virus—and that sex hormones generally have an impact on immunity. “We know that where a premenopausal woman is in her menstrual cycle affects her infectiousness,” Patterson says. “Estrogen plays a role—not only in HIV and the interplay of HIV and meds, but also in [the likelihood of] women transmitting and acquiring HIV.” Estrogen’s role may explain why women progress to AIDS at lower viral loads than men.
Highly recommended. Read the whole thing.
Tags: AIDS, estrogen, Health Care, HIV, hormones, Menopause, Menstruation
Posted in Health Care, Menopause, Menstruation, New Research, Sex | No Comments »
February 25th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Tags: Men, Menstruation, pain, women
Posted in Men, Menstruation, New Research | Comments Off
February 22nd, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Guest Post by David Linton, Marymount Manhattan College
Dana Medoro, The Bleeding of America: Menstruation as Symbolic Economy in Pynchon, Faulkner and Morrison, Greenwood/Praeger, 2002. Pp. 198. $98. ISBN 0313320594.
One of the ways the taboos surrounding menstruation find expression is through absence. For instance, until recently menstrual references in American novels were rare. Contemporary writers, particularly women novelists such as Joyce Carol Oates (The Tattooed Girl, 2003) and Erica Jong (Parachutes and Kisses, 1984) and occasional men such as John Updike (The Widows of Eastwick, 2008) and Philip Roth (The Dying Animal, 2001), have more frequently used period reference to advance a plot or to symbolize something or other, but historically the menstrual cycle has generally been off limits. Similarly, literary criticism has tended to ignore or avoid an examination of the social, cultural and psychological significance of the cycle within the literary marketplace. There is, however, in the area of scholarship one significant exception.
In 2002 Dana Medoro published a seminal study of menstrual references and symbolic allusions titled, The Bleeding of America: Menstruation as Symbolic Economy in Pynchon, Faulkner and Morrison.
Here’s the way the publisher describes the book: Continue reading...
Tags: books, guest post, Menstruation
Posted in Language, Literature, Menstruation, books | Comments Off
February 16th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Tags: advertising, anatomy, estrogen, Menstruation
Posted in Advertising, Menstruation, Objects, anatomy | Comments Off
January 29th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Tags: anatomy, birth control pill, Health Care, menstrual suppression, Menstruation, music, oral contraceptive pills, PMS
Posted in Birth Control, Health Care, Menopause, Menstruation, Music, PMS | 4 Comments »
January 28th, 2010 by Chris Bobel
All this iPad humor has got us thinking about menstrual humor more generally–what’s funny (to some) what’s not (to others), why and why not.
In the end, anything-menstruation is almost always met with either
1) a shudder and a swift topic shift
OR
2) an uncomfortable laugh that reinforces once again, the menstruation-rule-we-live-by.
Then there’s our friends Chella Quint and Sarah Thomasin who brilliantly and creatively write and perform menstrual humor that is genuinely funny without being offensive to women. But their work is truly exceptional.
Usually, the humor is more like this classic from Kids in the Hall. Finally giving up the luddite’s fight, I joined Facebook this week and look what I found: this page referencing a sketch starring Dave Foley
The over-the-top earnestness of this guy is funny, sure, but that’s not all that’s going on.
Yeah—he offers a lot more appreciation for the menstrual cycle than even I aspire to– but is the premise–that a guy could offer something other than disgust (or at best, indifference) to menstruation– really that hysterical?
Granted, the concluding passage (below)had me laughing, but like most (all?) satire, after the laughs die down, I’m left wondering: why IS that funny, anyway? Continue reading...
Tags: Humor, Men, Menstruation, television, viral video
Posted in Humor, Internet, Men, Menstruation, Television | 7 Comments »
January 27th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Guest Post by David Linton, Manhattan Marymount College
A short item in the February 2010 issue of Harper’s Magazine captures, yet again, how nervous some folks are about any mention of matters menstrual. The piece referred to the publication of a list of words and terms that were blacklisted from use in crossword puzzles and other word games by a British computer program called Crossword Compiler.
Among the partial list of problematic terms, along with others such as bollocksing, bonk, clitoridectomy, fanny, nooky, ruttish, sapphic, sexy and shtup, was the word “catamenial.” This rather arcane term is one of the more obscure references to the period, more likely to appear in medical or, surprisingly, broadcasting documents.
For the first 25 years of commercial TV’s existence in the US, the National Association of Broadcasters specifically banned the advertising of feminine sanitary products. It was not until 1972 that the ban was lifted and a year later, 1973, the first mention of the menstrual cycle appeared in a ground breaking episode of All in the Family. Continue reading...
Tags: catamenia, Communication, guest post, Language, Menstruation, television
Posted in Communication, Language, Media, Television | 3 Comments »
January 21st, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Tags: blood, college students, endometrium, Menstruation, stem cells, uterus
Posted in DIY, Menstruation, New Research, Reusable menstrual products, anatomy | Comments Off
January 20th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
A new meta-analysis of previous research on acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol outside the U.S.) vs. NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) for treatment of menstrual pain indicates that NSAIDs are more effective. NSAIDs include aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen sodium, which are all readily available over-the-counter in the U.S. The research pooled results from 73 randomized controlled trials comparing the effectiveness and safety of NSAIDs vs. placebo, vs. acetaminophen, and each other.
The results don’t indicate whether one NSAID is any better than any other for menstrual pain. Researcher Jane Marjoribanks, M.D., Cochrane Menstrual Disorders and Subfertility Group in Auckland, New Zealand, says they work by reducing prostaglandins, the substance manufactured by the uterine lining to help the uterus contract and expel menstrual fluid.
“Research has shown that women with dysmenorrhoea have high levels of prostaglandins, hormones known to cause cramping abdominal pain. …NSAIDs are drugs which act by blocking prostaglandin production.”
The study was published today in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
Tags: cramps, drugs, Menstruation, pain
Posted in Dysmenorrhea, Menstruation, New Research, Pharmaceutical | 3 Comments »
Readers should note that statements published in re: Cycling are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Society as a whole.
In a controlled study of 268 Australian women with surgically confirmed moderate-to-severe endometriosis (cases) and 244 women without endometriosis (controls), researchers found that characteristics of a woman’s early menstrual cycles were associated with later development of endometriosis. Data showed those who did not start their menstrual cycle until after they turned 14 had a significantly reduced risk of later developing endometriosis.
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