GynoFiles

Women think their menstrual flow should all flow 'out' of the body, in effect ridding the tissue and any potential toxins from the system. In fact some bleeding comes from the lining into the fallopian tubes and then into the pelvic cavity settling into the deeper areas of the pelvis including the posterior culdesac, or the very deepest portion of the pelvis located right behind the uterus. The culdesac or culdesac of Douglas as it was formerly known, shown here, has evidence of retrograde menses. The backwards flow of the uterus can also settle into the pelvic side walls and the ovaries as well as around the bladder. The blood contains some menstrual and tubal lining. The tissues that are bled through this backwards bleeding period itself may contain substances known as ,released from cell break down, which can cause cramping or bowel or bladder symptoms. The tissue is often mere fragments and it's relatively rapidly cleared out of the pelvis, but heavier bleeding w...

A physician performing a bimanual exam. in this case with one finger in the vagina, two is also normal. The vaginal finger is feeling the cervix, the abdominal finger is feeling the top of the uterus which is shown in cross section. The position of the uterus in an cross sectional diagram of a woman. The uterus is located in the back wall of the vagina, its axis is approximately a 90 degree angle to the vagina it self.  The uterus can be tipped forward on that axis: then it is called anteveerted, if it is tipped back it is called retroverted.  Some women have the uterus both tipped back and folded back. Here the physician is reaching for the top of the uterus with the hand on the abdomen but a tipped back uterus is so far back it cannot be felt well. The vaginal hand can feel the bulge of the back of the uterus. This uterus that is bent back on it self is called retroflexed. Aetroverted uterus is often also retroflexed. An anterverted uterus is usually antef...

Conquering pain means conquering those factors which cause the pain, and factors that decrease that pain The more we learn, the more we realize that there are circulating factors in our blood and in our tissues that increase the pain we feel. And the more we understand these factors, the better we will be able to control the pain that goes along with medical conditions and treatments.   Cytokines are very ubiquitous molecules, and probably account for a lot of our issues with pain. Cytokines are like a hormone in many ways, but they exist in our blood in microscopic amounts relative to the amount of hormone we have. Cytokines figure into whether we will have a fever when we are sick, and help recruit other infection and disease fighting substances so that we can heal. It's one of those areas of medicine in which we know a lot, but cannot exactly apply much of the knowledge to the every day problems we have. But it's important to remember, you cannot heal without a health...