GynoFiles

Sanitation, irrigation, public campaigns, pesticides, pavement of the cities and many other urban advances have protected Americans from diseases, and the knowledge of mosquito born disease. For many of us it's the annoying bites we have to deal with during backyard summer cookouts or gardening, or in some cases the medicines we take to protect our selves if we are lucky enough to venture to the exotic parts of the world that also, unfortunately, have malaria. Now we are hearing about the newly discovered Zika virus, we are reminded about the many mosquito born diseases we have not though about for decades, if ever. The Zika virus poses an especially large threat to pregnant women. We read articles in the news on almost a daily basis regarding the evidence linking the Zika virus to fetal harm. The latest article on the BBC suggests that research points to strong links between the Zika virus and fetal harm, but it is not yet entirely conclusive. More research and studies will sur...

Over 60 million Americans today are Prediabetic. For those with Prediabetes, they are very high risk to become diabetic over the next ten years. In fact they have a 49% greater chance of having a heart attack than if they didn't have diabetes. Getting diagnosed with diabetes is also critical step in prevention of blindness, heart disease, kidney disease and peripheral vascular disease. More American women need blood sugar testing, and even if you have been tested in the past, don't rely on those tests forever. According to the newest guidelines 29 million people nationwide have then progressed to diabetes, yet  an estimated 8.1 million don’t know they have the condition, based on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . American Diabetes Association sets the definition of diabetes , yet other organizations such as ACOG and the endocrine society do weigh in on how we define diabetes. And for pregnant moms, we tightened down the rules once again. Diabetes in preg...

How long do we live?   Expectancy is to 80.4  (US data 2004), and some are now saying 80.8 as of 2013. Was 48.3 in 1900. So the group of us is getting older. Now the longevity experts would tell us that the oldest among us hasn't really gotten older. The top dog in longevity: Maybe 1113, or 122, the data keeping back then, and from where, not so good. And who should we ask if we want to live really long, your doctor, right? Maybe not. I looked in UpToDate, the hot shot "medical encyclopedia"...and it is good for lots of stuff, longevity...no such place or topic to look up. I can check on how to make someone with a particular cancer survive longer, or with hypertension, you get the idea. Eventually, apparently living longer is treating what you have better. With rats we can do experiments and see which rat lives the longest, apparently that just has not been ok with human research, so extrapolation. First we do have to kick what kills us off early. Living longer world...

We’ve gabbed before about how beneficial exercise is. And in the May 2011 issue of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists  some Spanish researchers wrote about the benefits once again, but this time for pregnant women. Regular exercise helps prevent the back pain of pregnancy, minimizes long term weight changes, and helps coping with changing posture, as well as, gives you a more positive self concept and improve your life quality. Their study was relatively small, by the end they only had about 34 in each an exercise and a control group, but they were able to show that women who exercise were less likely to gain excessive weight or become obese and that exercise played a roll in reducing pelvic floor problems such as incontinence. And all their exercisers felt their health was improved. What I’m still curious about is how successful the women were at reducing fluid intake, sticking to diet restrictions because exercisers tend to stick to diets better, if ...

Truthfully, your gyno probably cannot tell much until you become pregnant because your pelvis does open up once you begin making certain hormones during a pregnancy. 

Trying to figure out if the infertility treatment cycle is proceeding as planned can be arduous. We do get clues. We can look at the estrogen levels, both early and later in the cycle. If they rise quickly to over 150 pmol/l on day three there is a good chance of pregnancy. We know that those higher estrogen levels are also associated with a nice endometrial lining, as the place the newly fertiliezed egg wants in the way of a "bed" to lie (implant) in!

WE have become so worried regarding exotic infections we've not heard of, it's easy to ignore those infections that are quite common. Herpes is one of the most common infections in the adult population, and therefore in pregnancy as well. Common pregnancy infections are classified in the grouping of infections we name the TORCH or STORCH infections, it is named as this is a the mnemonic physicians use to define a set of infections we have seen in in pregnancy: Toxoplasmosis Other (syphilis) Rubella Cytomegalovirus (CMV) Herpes simplex virus (HSV) or we move the S to define syphilis at the front and leave other for "Other" like HIV, Listeria, Haverhill fevers (it's from rats, I confess, I don't think I've ever seen a case, do people really ever get bitten by rats? that's not really possible is it??!), and now Zika Virus Infection would go under this rubric as well. Toxosoplasmosis comes from an outdoor cat, and you can be tested for it. But what we ...