{"id":9633,"date":"2006-05-22T13:34:18","date_gmt":"2006-05-22T20:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/05\/22\/end-of-a-period.html"},"modified":"2006-05-22T13:34:18","modified_gmt":"2006-05-22T20:34:18","slug":"end_of_a_period","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/05\/22\/end_of_a_period.html","title":{"rendered":"End of a Period"},"content":{"rendered":"

An interesting article on how, increasingly, women are getting contraceptive (or contraceptive-like) treatments to basically stop their menstrual cycles<\/a> — and doing it for non-clinical reasons. <\/p>\n

Using birth-control pills or other contraceptives to block periods is gaining popularity, particularly among young women, doctors say.<\/p>\n

“I have a ton of young girls in college who are doing this,” said Dr. Mindy Wiser-Estin, a gynecologist in Little Silver. “There’s no reason you need a period.”<\/p>\n

[…] Already, the Seasonale birth-control pill limits periods to four a year. The first continuous-use birth-control pill, Lybrel, likely will soon be on the U.S. market, and drug companies are lining up other ways to limit or eliminate the period.<\/p>\n

Sardinha says elimination of her periods has been great for her marriage, preventing monthly crankiness and improving her sex life.<\/p>\n

“I would never go back,” said Sardinha, who got the idea from her aunt, a nurse practitioner.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Certainly seeing the discomfort (to sometimes put it mildly), inconvenience, and mood swings associated with periods, I have to applaud something that would free women from that. My main concern would be over long-term effects — doing something so profound to body chemistry over a long haul, without a compelling medical or therapeutic reason, seems like it would be asking for trouble. But, most likely, maybe, possibly, it’s not a problem.<\/p>\n

Most doctors say they don’t think suppressing menstruation is riskier than regular long-term birth-control use, and one survey found a majority have prescribed contraception to prevent periods. Women have been using the pill for nearly half a century without significant problems, but some doctors want more research on long-term use.<\/p>\n

[…] “If you’re choosing contraception, then there’s not a lot of point to having periods,” said Dr. Leslie Miller, a University of Washington-Seattle researcher and associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology whose Web site, www.noperiod.com<\/a>, explains the option. She points out that women on hormonal contraception don’t have real periods anyway, just withdrawal bleeding during the break from the hormone progestin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

On the other hand …<\/p>\n

[Prof. Linda Gordon] says caution is needed because there’s not enough data on long-term consequences of using hormones continuously. Gordon notes that menopausal women for years were told that hormone drugs would keep them young–until research uncovered unexpected risks. “People should proceed very cautiously,” she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

All that said, for those who think something like this “’tain’t natural,” an intersting statistic:<\/p>\n

[M]odern women endure up to nine times more periods than their great-grandmothers, who began menstruating later, married young and naturally suppressed periods for years while they were pregnant or breast-feeding. Today’s women may have about 450 periods.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interesting article on how, increasingly, women are getting contraceptive (or contraceptive-like) treatments to basically stop their menstrual cycles — and doing it for non-clinical reasons. Using birth-control pills or…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":28004,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/25\/the-male-pill.html","url_meta":{"origin":9633,"position":0},"title":"The Male Pill","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 25-May-12 10:47am","format":false,"excerpt":"1. Have to wonder, if this came about, how it would change the argument over contraceptive coverage in the US.2. Will also be interesting to see if there would be an uptick in STDs among males.Reshared post from +Breaking NewsSperm gene discovery may lead to male birth control, scientists say+CBS\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51060,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/13\/searching-still-for-a-better-male-contraceptive.html","url_meta":{"origin":9633,"position":1},"title":"Searching (still) for a better male contraceptive","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 13-May-15 9:22am","format":false,"excerpt":"Assuming the science is as good (and safe) as it sounds, there are two issues in the way of this:(1) It's still a (minor) surgical technique. That won't deter some folk, but it's a bigger barrier for relatively casual use than ideal.More importantly, though:(2) There's no big money in it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27101,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/14\/getting-your-bosss-permission-to-use-birth-control.html","url_meta":{"origin":9633,"position":2},"title":"Getting your boss's permission to use birth control","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 14-Mar-12 6:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Really. Under a bill working its way through the Arizona legislature, an employer can insist that a woman getting birth control under her insurance produce evidence to prove that it's being prescribed for something other than (ew! dirty!) actual contraception. And as Arizona is an at-will employer, the employer can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27908,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/05\/14\/because-ignorance-is-an-american-family-value.html","url_meta":{"origin":9633,"position":3},"title":"Because ignorance is an American Family Value!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 14-May-12 6:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"By pushing abstinence-only sex \"education\" for kids and teens, the Family Value types not only keep kids in ignorance of ways to be sexually active in a responsible fashion, but distort their understanding of what birth control can actually do (by downplaying its effectiveness) when they do become sexually active\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":26445,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/16\/the-cognitive-dissonance-of-republican-contraceptive-politics.html","url_meta":{"origin":9633,"position":4},"title":"The cognitive dissonance of Republican contraceptive politics","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 16-Feb-12 3:22pm","format":false,"excerpt":"So many of their attacks on Obama and the Democrats are clearly politically motivated, even though they are draped in yards and yards of \"religious freedom\" and \"traditional values\" and \"constitutional protections.\"Which is why they find it so uncomfortable when someone notes to them that Romney mandated contraceptive coverage even\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43392,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/07\/some-good-contraceptive-news-for-a-change.html","url_meta":{"origin":9633,"position":5},"title":"Some GOOD contraceptive news for a change","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 7-Jul-14 10:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"At the very least, there's some pretty big correlation going on.\ufeff Colorado claims contraceptive program caused big drop in teen birth rates A state health initiative to reduce teen birth rates by providing more than 30,000 contraceptive devices at low or no cost has led to a 40 percent drop\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}