Dynamic Solutions For Women

For some women, their monthly cycle causes them no bother: they have a period once a month that is neither heavy nor painful; they do not suffer from bloating or mood swings or feel the need to eat all the biscuits in the house.

Others are not so fortunate, and suffer badly from what is known as ‘Pre-Menstrual Syndrome’ (or sometimes Pre-Menstrual Tension).

There’s a PMS Awareness Week, which this year is from 26^th September to 1^st October (though to be honest if you have PMS or live with someone who suffers from it, chances are you’ll be aware of it at least one week every month). It’s all about showing women that they are not alone in their constant up-and-downs of PMS.

Other symptoms aside from those listed above include breast tenderness, migraine, depression and increased aggression. Fortunately, there is a lot of good advice out there to help you to cope with PMS and allow your life to continue as normal.

• Even if you feel like sitting on the sofa with a hot water bottle, a cup of hot chocolate, some paracetamol and a packet of biscuits, that’s actually the worse thing you can do. Instead, you really have to get out there and get active. Go for a walk, a swim, anything that gets you moving and those lovely endorphins (‘happy hormones’) racing around your body. They are your body’s natural pain-suppressant. Exercise is also believed to maintain steady hormone levels if you do it frequently and regularly.
• Try alternative therapies such as agnus castus, which regulates your hormones (the key culprits in PMS).
• Minimise caffeine and alcohol consumption
• Eat fewer saturated fats, which make your body produce prostaglandins, which can increase sensitivity to pain.
• Try omega-3 fatty acid supplements. These were once thought of as ‘brain food’ that would boost intelligence and do all sorts. Not so, but they’re still good for alleviating PMS. If you’re not eating a balanced diet then at least take multi-vitamins and iron tablets daily.
• Taking the contraceptive pill can alleviate many of the physical effects of PMS.
• If depression, aggression and irritability are your main symptoms, you may want to talk to your doctor about being prescribed antidepressants. Some are specifically good at dealing with PMS-related moods.
• For really severe PMS, surgery may be an option if you have completed your family – removal of the ovaries is a permanent procedure that should only be considered after thorough discussion with your doctor and family.

Think of varicose veins and you might well think of elderly ladies with support stockings. However, they are in fact the blight of many women of all ages, and pregnancy can often be a trigger for developing them or making them worse. They are enlarged, blue/purple veins that protrude from the skin, usually on the legs and ankles.

They don’t necessarily require treatment – however, sufferers may feel acutely self-conscious about them but don’t wish to keep hiding their legs under trousers or long skirts. The NHS rarely funds treatment for varicose veins purely for cosmetic reasons, though, so if sufferers merely want to improve the appearance of their legs they would probably have to pay privately.

As well as for cosmetic reasons, sufferers may require treatment if they are painful or uncomfortable, or if they lead to complications like leg ulcers or swelling.

The treatments offered rather depend on factors such as the size of the veins, how bad they are and whereabouts on the body they are situated.

Treatments include:

Compression stockings: also known as support stockings. They squeeze the legs to improve circulation, encouraging the blood to flow up the leg to the heart rather than ‘gather’ in the veins. They don’t necessarily stop the veins getting worse or prevent more occurring. They can be uncomfortable to wear and many women don’t like wearing them because they are so associated with old age.

If compression stockings aren’t an option or aren’t helping, then surgery may be appropriate. It’s usually carried out under general anaesthetic but is normally a day procedure, meaning that unless patients react badly to the anaesthetic they won’t need to stay overnight.

The surgery involves “ligation and stripping” – the culprit vein is tied off from the rest of the circulatory system and removed. The other veins are more than capable of dealing with the removed vein’s workload. Possible side-effects include pain, bruising and bleeding, and in some cases the risk of deep vein thrombosis.

Another option is “sclerotherapy”, which involves injecting a chemical to scar the veins, sealing them closed. It’s less invasive than the above-mentioned surgery but only works well on small or medium-sized veins. It also has more potential side-effects, including: pain, blood clots, lower-back pain, brown patches discolouring the skin, temporary vision problems and headaches.

There are other therapies available, but not on the NHS. These are: laser treatment; transilluminated phlebectomies and radiofrequency ablations.

A wide-reaching study into the effects of the contraceptive Pill has been carried out by scientists at the UCI in America. Previous research has focused on the possible links between the Pill and the likelihood of developing or not developing certain cancers and blood clots. This research has focused on a rather different aspect: the effect of taking the Pill on the brain and memory.

One of the main findings was that taking the Pill causes women to remember things differently to those women who do not take the Pill. Women who take the Pill remember events in terms of the emotional impact they had, rather than on the details of the event itself.

The researchers presented women (some of whom were on the Pill and some who were not) with details of a car crash that involved a mother and a son. The women on the Pill remembered the basic details – like that there was an accident, that the boy had been taken to the hospital and treated – but the women not on the Pill remembered far more detail, such as that there was a fire hydrant next to the car, for example. However, the women on the Pill were much clearer on the emotional impact of the event than the others.

Women not using them remembered more details, such as a fire hydrant next to the car.

One of the researchers, Shawn Nielsen, said “It’s a change in the type of information they remember, not a deficit. What’s most exciting about this study is that it shows the use of hormonal contraception alters memory. There are only a handful of studies examining the cognitive effects of the pill, and more than 100 million women use it worldwide.”

Neuro-biologist and researcher Larry Cahill, explained that the possible reason for the findings was that the hormones oestrogen and progesterone (that are suppressed by the Pill) are linked to the ‘left brain’ memory (that which focuses on language). So if the hormones are suppressed by the Pill, the ‘right brain’ memory and processing (which is more emotional) kicks in to a greater extent.

The researchers stress that taking the Pill does not damage memory, it just changes its focus.

You may have seen franchise opportunities being advertised, but you might not be clear about exactly what they are, or how you would go about funding such a venture.

There are many different types of franchises which vary from teaching languages to running a magazine or teaching baby yoga classes. The set up costs for each franchise are very different, so it is important to do your research and find the right franchise opportunity for you.

Effectively, when you buy a franchise, you are buying a ready-made business model. This means you can set up your business within a matter of weeks and your business can easily be expanded, depending on how ambitious you are.

Franchises can offer much more flexibility than working a 9-5 job, but there are several things to consider before you decide to become a franchisee, including:

What skills do you have? Are you an entrepreneurial type? Do you find yourself watching Dragon’s Den and thinking that you would be far more organised/ambitious/savvy when it comes to your business? Be honest about your skills and whether you think you could make a business work. You need to be sure that you can make a decent go of your business.

Are you a team player? Although for many franchises this means working alone, you are still part of a wider business and you will have to regularly report on the progress of your franchise, and you will also have to pay regular fees. Are you going to be happy reporting back to others or would you prefer to take a self employed route?

Do you have a business plan? Being a franchisee means that you have to understand your market, make decisions that affect your business and have clearly defined targets. Are you prepared to be able to assess your targets, budget effectively and develop your business over a long period of time? Being prepared can be essential to a successful franchise.

Advice on drinking alcohol seems to swing like a pendulum from day to day: one minute it’s a deadly drug that will harm foetuses and cause everything from dementia to cancer; the next it’s a life-extending miracle drug that we should all consume every day.

The latest bit of research has found that for women, at least, consuming a ‘moderate’ amount of alcohol helps them to age better.

The researchers found that middle-aged women who consume 15.1 – 30g of alcohol per day (the equivalent of three small glasses of wine) have a good chance of living at least to seventy and not suffering from cancer or other chronic illnesses. Nor will they suffer major physical or mental impairment.

The women who drank steadily and regularly, rather than the odd binge, were around 50 per cent more likely to enjoy a healthy old age when compared to non-drinkers.

The report concluded that, “Moderate alcohol consumption was associated with modestly better overall health status.”

The current law that governs abortions is the Abortion Act of 1976. Over the years, numerous amendments have been suggested and generally vetoed. For instance, the latest date during the pregnancy that an abortion can be carried out legally is still 24 weeks’ gestation despite medical advances that mean that babies of that early gestation can survive.

The latest proposed amendment come in the form of the Health Bill, currently being debated by MPs. The basis of the proposal is that clinics that provide abortions should be banned from also offering counselling to women who are considering or seeking abortions.

The concern that led to the proposals being made was that clinics that offer abortions benefit financially if those abortions are carried out – if the woman chooses not to abort, then they don’t get as much money. MPs think that this presents a conflict of interest.

Those opposed to the changes say that if independent counsellors are required to give counselling, then pro-life groups could put pressure on women to not go through with abortions by giving pro-life counselling.

It’s expected that MPs will reject the proposal – amongst others, David Cameron has said that he will vote against the proposals, fearing that existing, well-known and respected counselling services will be forced to close.