women's health week

There is no "standard health answer" that can be applied to all women. Don't believe in one-size-fits-all health advice. Rather than following the trend of taking supplements and doing Internet celebrity care, it is more important to understand your own body signals first than anything else.

A while ago, my best friend had just stepped into a trap. She was a 28-year-old planner. Every day she read bloggers who said, "Women should take estrogen supplements, drink rose tea, and do private parts washing regularly before the age of 30." She persisted for three months. First, my aunt postponed it for half a month, and then found out. She had fungal vaginitis. When she went to the hospital, she was scolded by the doctor: She has a constitution with high estrogen, and she blindly supplemented with exogenous estrogen. It would be strange if it was not disordered. Healthy private parts have a self-cleaning function. Use douche every day to destroy the bacterial flora, and you can wash away the disease even if you are not sick.

Speaking of this, I remembered an interesting incident I encountered at a free maternal and child health clinic. Two doctors argued in front of the patient about the way my aunt treated her pain. The old Chinese doctor who attended the clinic said that dysmenorrhea is caused by cold blood stasis. Taking painkillers will suppress the cold air in the body. If the pain is worse next time, moxibustion and ginger tea should be used to warm it up.； The western medicine gynecologist next to me directly pulled out the clinical guide and said that primary dysmenorrhea is caused by elevated prostaglandins. The adverse reaction rate of taking ibuprofen for 6 months is less than 1%, which is much less harmful than the pain of stomach cramps and vomiting bile. In fact, both sides are right. If your hands and feet are cold when you are in pain, and holding a hot water bottle can make you feel more comfortable, then there is no problem in following the adjustment of traditional Chinese medicine. ； If the pain makes you roll all over the floor in a cold sweat, and you can survive after taking painkillers for half an hour, there is really no need to endure the pain. No method is "necessary".

I have been working in a women's health charity group for almost a year, and the most common misunderstanding I have seen is that "discomfort" is regarded as "a sin that women are born to suffer": my aunt's breasts were sore and swollen for half a month, and she thought it was normal.； It hurts during intercourse, and I feel like I’m not ready ； After giving birth to a child who coughed, laughed and leaked urine, I thought it was the price of being a mother, so I just tolerated it. Last week, I met a mother of two at the coffee shop downstairs. She said that she had been leaking urine for three years, and she didn't even dare to do aerobics. She thought it would be like this for the rest of her life. However, she went for pelvic floor muscle rehabilitation for three months, and now she can jump on the trampoline with her child for half an hour. When she complained to me, she said that she had known it was a muscle injury, which is the same as sitting for a long time, so why endure it for so long.

Oh, by the way, there is also the HPV vaccine issue that has been particularly hotly debated recently. Some people say that the price of nine is the ceiling. If you can’t get it, it will be in vain.； Some people say that two-price is much more cost-effective than nine-price, and it is useless to take it if you are over 26 years old. I was chatting about this with a friend from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at dinner a while ago. She rolled her eyes and said that many young girls now save thousands of dollars to grab the nine-price offer. If they can't get it, they just don't get it. It's completely unnecessary - the WHO has long made it clear that HPV vaccination before the age of 45 will protect against it. The protective effect is that the second price covers the most dangerous types 16 and 18, which can prevent 84.5% of the risk of cervical cancer. If you can’t get the nine-price product, buy the second-price product first. Then you can pay the nine-price supplement if you have the conditions. You don’t have to wait for a vaccine and take risks for several years.

I have been embarrassed before. I deliberately skipped the gynecological examination every year. I always felt that it was awkward to take off my pants for the examination. The year before last, my mother forced me to do it. A uterine fibroid less than 1 centimeter was found. The doctor said that there was no need to cut it and that it would be enough to review it every six months. If it took three to five years to grow bigger, I would need major surgery. Now I go for gynecological check-ups every year. After going there a lot, I realize that doctors have to see dozens or hundreds of patients a day, and no one will remember who you are. There is really no need to turn a small problem into a big trouble just because of that little embarrassment.

In fact, when we were doing offline charity activities this week, there was a sentence printed on the first page of the handbook we distributed: You know your body best. Don’t listen to what is said on the Internet, “Girls must give up ice and spicy food to be healthy.” You can drink iced milk tea without diarrhea, eat spicy food without getting acne, and you can eat whatever you want. ； You don’t have to run 5 kilometers every day to get a “healthy persona”. If you feel more comfortable doing square dancing or walking, then choose what you like. Compared with those standardized health requirements, your own comfort comes first. By the way, many maternal and child health hospitals across the country are offering free gynecological clinics and priority vaccination slots for HPV vaccines this week. If you have been feeling unwell recently and want to get vaccinated but have not been able to get an appointment, you might as well ask. You won’t suffer any loss anyway.~