Your Pap and Your Mammogram Are Heart Tests Too!

The pap test and HPV testing on the pap is a cellular biopsy to determine the health of your cervix. We have arrived at the concept of a "liquid biopsy," for some organs meaning that we can check the health of that organ with the appropriate blood test. In some cases this actually means harvesting cells from the blood stream. In the case of the cardiovascular system it means determining the nature of levels that correlate with the condition of your blood tests. But Heart Health means overall cardiovascular system health. Your blood pressure should be normal, your heart should beat at a modest pace, and your blood vessel walls should be pristine clear of inflammation and plaque build up. How we determined this used to be a weight, a blood pressure check and a cholesterol measurement. The addition of lipid tests that are beyond the cholesterol number, and delve into the fat and carbohydrate metabolism has been the newest frontier in heart health testing. But we can look at heart health through the window of the mammogram, calcification in the blood vessels on mammogram correlates with vessel disease through out your body. And now there is a new test: your pap! Actually, it is more than just a pap, it is a test for HPV disease that can indicate heart health or disease. Those women who test positive for HR-HPV is associated with almost a 3 times greater risk of atherosclerosis, and are at greater risks for strokes and non-fatal myocardial infarction (heart attack). Remember that 50% of all strokes and heart attacks are in women with normal cholesterol, and about 20% are not found to have any risk factors at all. So you and your gyno have to be vigilant for other factors that are preventable.And for all of us, we need to learn simple prevention strategies for saving those around us if they go down with a heart attack.

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Passing Your Uterine Lining, Menstrual Period Norms

Decidual Cast Periods can be fairly easy, passing some tissue at a time, or off can come the whole lining in one piece called a decidual cast. Generally the lining of the uterus is only 6-8 mm thick at the time of the menstrual period, and it is shed gradually, a few cells at a time. The decidual cast is when the entire lining passes spontaneously. It's not uncommon, but it usually both uncomfortable, and alarming to some. But us women are designed to have some sort of periods Or Not? We have to pass tissue each month. Or Not? Are they good for us? Or Not? Do we want them? Or Not? Is this something that is individual? Or Not? It's a complex topic that I will be discussing a lot over my time in this blog. So lets start with basics: How much do we bleed and what are we loosing, and just what was this that the patient passed? And another basic: track your periods, and the Women's Health Practice site http://www.womenshealthpractice.com/media/pdf/menstrual_chart.pdf you...

Post-Endometrial Ablation Syndrome

If you have had an endometrial ablation and have developed symptoms of pelvic pain you might have post endometrial ablation syndrome. What is post-endometrial ablation syndrome? It is a constellation of symptoms due to entrapped blood or tissue within a uterus that has previously undergone an endometrial ablation. We are able to diagnose this at Women's Health Practic e but occasionally other conditions are causing similar symptoms. Other complications of endometrial ablation include pregnancy, risks from pre-existing conditions such as a polyp or fibroid, an infection of the uterus, or a pregnancy. If you have had a tubal ligation then it is possible that the condition could be post-ablation tubal sterilization syndrome. The ablation procedure is designed to destroy all lining tissue, but in fact there is no way to confirm the completeness of the ablation. It is thought that either residual or regrowth of the tissue is producing the symptoms of post-endometrial ablation syndrom...

You Have an IUD: But a Positive Pregnancy Test

Fortunately IUD pregnancy failures are rare. But if you have an IUD for contraception, and you get a positive pregnancy test, you probably ask yourself, what next? Well, make your gyno appointment promptly, this is a condition that is not typically an emergency, but it can be and it’s not handled over the phone or on a blog, or through self diagnosis! That being said, some researchers from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas decided to look back at over 4100 women who had IUDs and of those 42 cases who became pregnant in their institution, over about a year period of time, to help understand what these women could expect when they got to their gyno and what actually happened to their pregnancies. Accurate pregnancy diagnosis, pelvic examination, and pelvic ultrasound were the cornerstones of the evaluations. They had very specific ways they looked at their ultrasound to prove there was no pregnancy in the fallopian tube, or partially in the fallopian tube...

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