health
From the ovaries, outward, all about female-focused health and medicine.
Adventures With PCOS
So for those who don’t already know, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a condition where hormones in the body are off so there’s a high testosterone level in the woman’s body and symptoms such as weight gain, hair growth in male patterns, and irregular periods which can cause infertility.
By Jessica Enas8 years ago in Viva
PCOS: Cure or False Hope?
Like many others, I woke up on Tuesday to the news that not only had doctors discovered "the cause of PCOS" they had also discovered a "cure". The article was everywhere on social media, quoted from various trusted scientific institutions such as The New Scientist (1) and IFLScience (2).
By Rivka Spicer8 years ago in Viva
Living With PCOS
Since I can remember, things were just different for me compared to other girls my age. Doctors would tell me: watch what you’re eating, exercise, drink water, etc. You know the normal things they tell people to lose weight. But it just wasn’t the working. I could eat the right things and still not lose the weight. I could exercise on a daily basis and only feel more depressed and see no results in the weight. At the age of 12, the beginning of womanhood, I wasn’t regular and I was diagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). At that age it was scary to hear I had something wrong, but I was sent to a specialist in which I was told to just take birth control and it would regulate everything. For the next ten years, this was what I continued to use. But, like mentioned above, it never helped with weight, hair, or your typical symptoms of PCOS. Finally, at the age of 24, single, educated, and working on my future, I decided to look into my diagnosis.
By Amber Nickol8 years ago in Viva
10 Reasons Why You Should Switch to Only Using Organic Tampons
Many women are so used to the normal tampons on the shelves of CVS that they don't think twice about the ingredients that create them. You put a tampon in your body for hours on end, snug between some of the body's most vulnerable tissue. If you think about it, do you really know what you're trusting your vagina's health with? Many people have made the switch to cloth pads, but if you're a tampon kind of person, those won't do you any good.
By Kelsey Lange8 years ago in Viva
My Story - The Life of Endo I Live
Endometriosis affects almost every aspect of my life! My job, my social life, relationships, and my eating habits. Most children I knew were worried about acne, sex, and what they looked like when they hit puberty. My worry was reaching the time of the month when my period came! I was 11-years-old when I first started my monthly circle.
By Sinead Smythe8 years ago in Viva
Learning Curves With a Chronic Disease
I'll never forget the day I woke up and never got better. I was supposed to make it to college for an 8 AM lecture but instead it was 4 AM and I was on on the bathroom floor experiencing pain I've never had before. Imagine being sick with the worst flu... After days, weeks, months of this every single day I finally realized, "this is never going away."
By Ivy Norris8 years ago in Viva
The Evolution of Hidden Fertility
We are the only female primates that do not undergo estrus—a time when the anogenital areas turn red and swell signaling receptivity for sex. The obvious bright swellings also indicate the female is fertile. This is also referred to as sexual heat. Science is a male-dominated occupation, full of bias in assessing the role of women in evolution. Nowhere is this seen so acutely as it is in considering why human females do not undergo estrus. Many of my male counterparts see the loss of sexual heat as simply the evolution of continual receptivity that benefitted the males of our species., and others believe sexual heat still exists in more subtle ways. Some of the current thinking on the end of estrus can be summed up as follows:
By Monica Bennett8 years ago in Viva
10 Things Every Woman Thinks About Their VaJJ
A vagina is so many things. Mysterious. Magical. Beautiful. Like an enchanting unicorn. However, it's also a giant pain in the ass or more like a pain next to your ass. Unlike man parts which can be lifted, flipped, and flopped, a woman's "secret garden" requires so much more love, attention, and upkeep. Located and designed to make it near impossible to see it yourself, it is hands down the most confusing and complicated part of the human body.
By Jus L'amore8 years ago in Viva
10 Common Questions About Birth Control Usage
From the basics to more complex understandings of birth control methods, these are the top ten questions about birth control usage. Is my birth control making me fat? Or how about, am I safe to skip one pill every once in a while?
By Kelsey Lange8 years ago in Viva
