The G-Spot

I love nursing school. Mostly for the incredible resources I have access to on a daily basis.

Despite the title of this post, this is not a guide on achieving g-spot pleasure, but a layman's guide to getting pregnant. I always dreamed of teaching sex-ed classes...turns out dreams do come true!
http://websrvr40nj.audiovideoweb.com/avwebdsnjwebsrvr4501/portal/media/media-050516-pregnancy.html

more on Menstruation + Madness ...

For those of you who this post pertains to, please do not take offense to the title. I use the word madness simply to enhance the creative catchy-ness of the title and not to infer that anxiety makes you "mad" - necessarily - although in my case, I would say anxiety most definitely does make me crazy.

Anyway - to the point...

While studying psychopharmacology for my exam Tuesday, I discovered a few interesting tidbits unique to women. Firstly, women are more likely to men to experience side effects from drugs. I imagine that this is in part due to body weight, but is largely due to a number of more complex reasons for why medications affect each person individually. Secondly, menstruation can alter the efficacy of certain drugs. Take Benzodiazepines for example - a class of anti-anxiety and sedative-hypnotics. "Benzos" include the trade name drugs valium and ativan, which may be familiar to you. Among other indications, these drugs are used commonly to "take the edge off" prior to certain nerve-racking medical procedures or flights, to sedate people in psychiatric hospitals and (as the tabloids often point out) by celebrities to escape their lives. According to Austin and Boyd (authors of my trusty Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing text), female hormones that fluctuate during the menstrual cycle can also affect response to drugs. Benzodiazepines, for example, bind to the same receptors that progesterone does (called GABA receptors) and therefore, the levels of progesterone can affect the efficacy and potency of benzodiazepines at certain stages of the menstrual cycle. 

So if you are taking these drugs, consider how your cycle might be affecting the effect of the medication. Put simply, progesterone begins increasing just before ovulation, which is approx. 14 days after the first day of your period, peaking a few days after ovulation and gradually decreasing and triggering menstruation. Refer to the diagram on my last post if you need a refresher on what hormones are doing when. So...in the case of benzos, efficacy of the drug may be altered with the changing levels of progesterone, and so may your mood. The few days of bleeding are the most hormonally stable. [sigh]. Yet again, menstruation rears it's ugly bloody hormonal head! haha.

In any case, the lesson here is to not be fooled by (nor ignorant to) the power of your hormones and how they affect your mood - natural or drug-induced. I think it's important to recognize these changes in your body, how they are impacting other aspects of your mental and physical health and to respond to them however possible. Insight into why you are feeling the way you are can be powerful in managing your emotions.

Menstruation Marks Monthly Madness

According to the diagnostic statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM), menstruating women everywhere are, indeed, going mad monthly. 

When my professor read the clinical definition of PMS aloud in my mental health class this week I couldn’t resist the urge to post it. The notion of problematic PMS psychosis provides the foundation for which the title and concept of this blog was developed, after all. After reading the below definition; however, I see very few differences between PMS and a multi-day hangover. So why do bitchy bleeding women get such a bad rap? In fact, the self-inflicted nature of repeated substance induced fun seems to me a more appropriate recipient of the clinical mental disorder terminology?

So girls. Let’s lose the stigma. When the last week of your luteal phase is approaching (approx. 21 days after the first day of your period for those with an average cycle – see diagram below), gather some girls and go have some fun. Several days of it.

I wonder what the diagnostic manual of mental disorders would think about that? 

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV): Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD), otherwise known as severe Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS)

A.      In most menstrual cycles during the past, five (or more) of the following symptoms were present for most of the time during the last week of the luteal phase, began to remit within a few days after the onset of the follicular phase, and were absent in the week post-menses, with at least one of the symptoms being either (1), (2), (3) or (4):

(1) Markedly depressed mood, feelings of hopelessness or self-deprecating thoughts
(2) Marked anxiety, tension, feelings of being "keyed up" or "on edge"
(3) Marked affective lability (e.g., feeling suddenly sad or tearful or increased sensitivity to rejection)
(4) Persistent and marked anger or irritability or increased interpersonal conflicts
(5) Decreased interest in usual activities (e.g., work, school, friends, hobbies)
(6) Subjective sense of difficulty in concentrating
(7) Lethargy, easy fatigability or marked lack of energy
(8) Marked change in appetite, overeating or specific food cravings
(9) Hypersomnia or insomnia
(10) Other physical symptoms, such as breast tenderness or swelling, headaches, joint or muscle pain, a sensation of "bloating", weight gain
B.     The disturbance markedly interferes with work or school or with usual social activities and relationships with others (e.g., avoidance of social activities, decreased productivity and efficiency at work or school)
C.    The disturbance is not merely an exacerbation of the symptoms of another disorder, such as major depressive disorder, panic disorder, dysthymic disorder or a personality disorder (although it may be superimposed on any other disorder) 
D.    Criteria A, B and C must be confirmed by prospective daily ratings during at least two consecutive symptomatic cycles (the diagnosis may be made provisionally prior to this confirmation)