quote:

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Originally posted by Serendipity:

I dont know ! But dont worry. I have taken already too much time from you. I will try to rest and maybe i will feel better tomorrow.

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Originally posted by MyKingdomForATaba2Koshari:
No trouble at all "ya gameela". Sleep tight.

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quote:

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Originally posted by MyKingdomForATaba2Koshari:
and of course our famous worm Bihalrzia (Schistosoma Hematobium & Mansoni)

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quote:

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Originally posted by 7aya:
mykingdom, i wanted to ask you a question. alot of people here in egypt believe that if a woman takes birth control pills immediatly after she gets married it will somehow make her infertile. now i know this doesnt sound logical, especially in the west women might decide to have babies 10 or 15 years after they start becoming sexuallay active, yet they have no problem getting pregnant. but still alot of people believe in this in egypt, and i've been warned alot. so i just wanted to ask you if this has any truth or is it just a myth?

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As you said it is just a myth....

But you have to consider the whole equation.

The child bearing span of the human female is sadly short.

Women are at their most fertile, very soon after they reach the menarche (puberty).

In most cases the female becomes sexually active a few years after puberty, but the idea of taking the pill is to postpone having children, mostly for economic or social and career reasons.

By the time this goal (career, finance…etc), is achieved, the woman would, in most cases, have passed the period of maximum fertility and well into its decline.

I think you can see now why this myth developed.

quote:

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Originally posted by Medosa:
As you said it is just a myth....

But you have to consider the whole equation.

The child bearing span of the human female is sadly short.

Women are at their most fertile, very soon after they reach the menarche (puberty).

In most cases the female becomes sexually active a few years after puberty, but the idea of taking the pill is to postpone having children, mostly for economic or social and career reasons.

By the time this goal (career, finance…etc), is achieved, the woman would, in most cases, have passed the period of maximum fertility and well into its decline.

I think you can see now why this myth developed.

Couples are advised nowadays to start and complete their family early, then attend to matters of career and financial security, of course almost an impossible equation.

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hi medosa, thank you so much for explaining that. you can't imagine how many egyptian women believe that birth control pills will make them infertile. but i can see how it developed now. but i think what scares some women here is that some very young women, in their 20's took the pill for a year or two following the marriage and couldn't concieve later. so i guess people started believing that its birth control that caused that. but as i said you can't imagine how many women believe this. the next time you visit egypt, just say the words "birth control" and youll immediatly have someone saysing, "but it makes women infertile, it plays with their hormones!"
anyway thank you so much for explaining.

best

quote:

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Originally posted by 7aya:
hi medosa, thank you so much for explaining that. you can't imagine how many egyptian women believe that birth control pills will make them infertile. but i can see how it developed now. but i think what scares some women here is that some very young women, in their 20's took the pill for a year or two following the marriage and couldn't concieve later. so i guess people started believing that its birth control that caused that. but as i said you can't imagine how many women believe this. the next time you visit egypt, just say the words "birth control" and youll immediatly have someone saysing, "but it makes women infertile, it plays with their hormones!"
anyway thank you so much for explaining.

best

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Not at all, my pleasure.

It may also be that taking the pill can mask infertility. What I mean is that if a young woman does not take the pill and cannot get pregnant, she will seek help. But if she takes the pill for a while then wants to get pregnant and cannot,

a)she will blame it on the pill, specially in a society where a woman is looked down upon if not fertile, even if it is her husband who is !!!.

b)It might have made treatment a little too late.

Of course we must not forget that there are those who would spread such dis-information around for their own reasons.

I remember when I was in Egypt, a lot of (religious) leaders opposed birth control and issued fatwas that taking the pill was haram and amounts to killing the unborn baby (just like other non muslim religious groups believe too).

Talking of this, I remember also that some of those people spread rumours that vaccinations made men impotent and infertile !!!

It is amazing what simple people can believe.

This reminded me of a funny incident when as medical students, we were on a clinical round in Neurology outpatient clinic. The purpose was to teach us how to examine sensory and motor functions.

So to examine and locate sensory deficit , in those days we used pin prick sensation (not used nowadays), that is, to lightly touch (not to draw blood or anything like that), areas of skin with a pin and ask the patient to report if he feels it sharp, dull, or not at all...

The patient was a simple (falah) boy of about 18.

Just before we started, our lecturer left the room briefly, so one of our numbers, a wicked boy, got it in his head to play a trick on this poor patient.

So he took him aside and told him that we were planning to kill him and use his body for experiments, and that the way he will be killed is by a pin prick.

Imagine what happened when the lecturer came back and tried to demonstrate how to test for sensory deficit using a pin prick ..

The poor boy bolted at top speed out of the room and hospital , running for dear life...the lecturer froze in total shock and amazement for nearly a full minute, while the rest of us suddenly burst laughing...

We were all suitably reprimanded and taught a bit more about respect to our patients and our pofession

I consider the ages of 13-63 quite a stretch.

My great grandmother had her last at 56 and it was the least complicated pregnancy.

And having children in your teens is an extremely dangerous thing to do. Postules are epidemic in regions of mandatory teen pregnancy. Ethopia even has a national law that women with postules past or present cannot ride public transportation or taxis becuase of 'seepage'.

Pregnancy is a great time in a life of a woman. And the result is very rewarding.

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Originally posted by sonomod:

Why would any female want to be pregnant before 20 is beyound me.

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I was about 16 when I was longing for a baby. Seriously I bought a book about pregnancy and how to raise a child. I admired the women who went with their little cute babies for a walk. I looked into every stroller and was just amazed. Most of the other girls were more busy with going to clubs and dating. I went many afternoons and evenings to babysit children (well next to getting experience some pocket money was always needed).

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Originally posted by sonomod:
Why do people think that the female span of fertility is short?

I consider the ages of 13-63 quite a stretch.

My great grandmother had her last at 56 and it was the least complicated pregnancy.

And having children in your teens is an extremely dangerous thing to do. Postules are epidemic in regions of mandatory teen pregnancy. Ethopia even has a national law that women with postules past or present cannot ride public transportation or taxis becuase of 'seepage'.

Why would any female want to be pregnant before 20 is beyound me.

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No it is not 13-63 it is 14-50 (the average age was 45 in the 1900's, now it is 50).

This is the normal span when pregnancy is possible, but if you consider the safe time within this window, by excluding the teen years and over 35 (see below), you will be left with about 15 years only, I consider this very short indeed.

Just like in any biological system, we are talking about 1 standard deviation (roughly 60%)will have their menarche by 14 +/- 2 and their menopause by 50 +/-2.5.

Meaning that taking menarche and menopause separately,there is a further spread either way, (2 standard deviations, about 15% each side +/-2.5). Those will have a very early menarche (or menopause), or a very late one , your grandmother was very late indeed, as was Zakarias wife in the religious mythology.

She was lucky not to have a child with genetic abnormality such as Downs syndrome, since the incidence of such births increases dramatically with the increased age of the mother (beyond 35 is considered risky, and tests are routinely carried out for those).

One very good argument for having children early.

By the way we are not talking here about teenage pregnancy being desirable , we are talking about early (20-30) versus late >30.

Another reason is that women who do not get pregnant by about 35 tend to develop polycystic ovaries symptoms, specially if they are over weight. Another good argument for getting your family complete early.

Oh again by the way polycystic ovaries are also a cause of difficulties in conceiving.

Let me first explain some stuff:
1- The brain regulated the ovulation process. So when the female is about 14 years old, the brain says to the ovary: "Pssst you down there, according to my calculations, it's time to lay an egg (ovum)." This message is in reality done through a messenger called: a hormone. To keep things simple, let's call it the ovulation hormone.
2- There are two possibilities:
A: The egg does not get fertilized (no pregnancy), and the woman gets her period to shed down the dead ovum. That is accompanied by some hormonal changes that the brain detects, gets the message and starts a new cycle in 28 days by nudging the ovary again.
B: The egg gets fertilized & pregnancy occurs. In this case the growing tissues send a message (pregnancy hromones) to the big boss (brain), saying: "Lady pregnant, roger". So the brain, being intelligent enough, says: "Okay, then I don't need to nudge the ovary for a while, let's say.. 9 months!". So for as long as lady is preggo, no ovulation occurs.

A very clever scientist once thought: "Hmm, what if I lie to the brain, making him think lady is pregnant, for as long as it takes, so Brain won't annoy the ovary to make an egg?". So he invented the contraceptive pills, that simply contain the pregnancy hromones.

So far so good. BUT, there are two problems that come along with all this:
1- Among other side effects, lady goes kind of nuts from the use of the pills, cos she's set on "pregnancy mode". That's why the pill causes mood changes. But that is not your question 7aya. Read further..
2- If the ovulation hormone is already made in lower concentrations by nature, the pill will make it even more difficult for this hormone to have its effect. That's why it takes longer for some women to get pregnant after stopping the use of the pills, and of course some who already would not be able to ovulate could blame it on the pill for this reason. BUT, if this is the only cause of infertility, it's realtively easy to treat using certain medications.

quote:

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Originally posted by Medosa:

Oh again by the way polycystic ovaries are also a cause of difficulties in conceiving.

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The ovari cysts were something my mother had in her early twenties, and mind you still a size 6.

After those reptured she was finally able to concieve me, her first child at age 23.

About 20% of my family has these cysts in their early twenties and late teens. Except for me the women in my family are under a size 8, some underweight and flat as a board.

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Originally posted by MyKingdomForATaba2Koshari:
Okay 7aya, just a little too late to answer your question. Medosa said well, but I still would like to mention my point of view.
What is mentioned in Egypt about the birth control pills is indeed a myth, but has some truth to it.

Let me first explain some stuff:
1- The brain regulated the ovulation process. So when the female is about 14 years old, the brain says to the ovary: "Pssst you down there, according to my calculations, it's time to lay an egg (ovum)." This message is in reality done through a messenger called: a hormone. To keep things simple, let's call it the ovulation hormone.
2- There are two possibilities:
A: The egg does not get fertilized (no pregnancy), and the woman gets her period to shed down the dead ovum. That is accompanied by some hormonal changes that the brain detects, gets the message and starts a new cycle in 28 days by nudging the ovary again.
B: The egg gets fertilized & pregnancy occurs. In this case the growing tissues send a message (pregnancy hromones) to the big boss (brain), saying: "Lady pregnant, roger". So the brain, being intelligent enough, says: "Okay, then I don't need to nudge the ovary for a while, let's say.. 9 months!". So for as long as lady is preggo, no ovulation occurs.

A very clever scientist once thought: "Hmm, what if I lie to the brain, making him think lady is pregnant, for as long as it takes, so Brain won't annoy the ovary to make an egg?". So he invented the contraceptive pills, that simply contain the pregnancy hromones.

So far so good. BUT, there are two problems that come along with all this:
1- Among other side effects, lady goes kind of nuts from the use of the pills, cos she's set on "pregnancy mode". That's why the pill causes mood changes. But that is not your question 7aya. Read further..
2- If the ovulation hormone is already made in lower concentrations by nature, the pill will make it even more difficult for this hormone to have its effect. That's why it takes longer for some women to get pregnant after stopping the use of the pills, and of course some who already would not be able to ovulate could blame it on the pill for this reason. BUT, if this is the only cause of infertility, it's realtively easy to treat using certain medications.

So the conclusion: It's a myth that has some truth in it.
If you want to use the pills do that, but be ready for some mood changes.. I never used them myself so maybe some other members of the forum can tell you how they felt with the use of contraception.

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Well explained , no wonder you teach now

I am not a Gynaecologist, but isn't the delay in ovulation a matter of one or 2 cycles in the abscence of any other reason for failure to conceive ?

quote:

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Originally posted by Medosa:

No it is not 13-63 it is 14-50 (the average age was 45 in the 1900's, now it is 50).

This is the normal span when pregnancy is possible, but if you consider the safe time within this window, by excluding the teen years and over 35 (see below), you will be left with about 15 years only, I consider this very short indeed.

Just like in any biological system, we are talking about 1 standard deviation (roughly 60%)will have their menarche by 14 and their menopause by 50.

Meaning that taking menarche and menopause separately,there is a further spread either way, (2 standard deviations, about 15% each side). Those will have a very early menarche (or menopause), or a very late one , your grandmother was very late indeed, as was Zakarias wife in the religious mythology.

She was lucky not to have a child with genetic abnormality such as Downs syndrome, since the incidence of such births increases dramatically with the increased age of the mother (beyond 35 is considered risky, and tests are routinely carried out for those).

One very good argument for having children early.

By the way we are not talking here about teenage pregnancy being desirable , we are talking about early (20-30) versus late >30.

Another reason is that women who do not get pregnant by about 35 tend to develop polycystic ovaries symptoms, specially if they are over weight. Another good argument for getting your family complete early.

Oh again by the way polycystic ovaries are also a cause of difficulties in conceiving.

[This message has been edited by Medosa (edited 20 August 2005).]

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And just to cover all bases, many of these new fertility studies either come from religious or conservative think tanks with a recieptant university that has recieved a large donation from these think tanks, or a pharmacitical company with much to gain.

I am extremely weary of accepting any study done on female and reproductive health until I know who did the study, which institution or company, and who organizations the institution or group is tied to.

quote:

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Originally posted by Medosa:
isn't the delay in ovulation a matter of one or 2 cycles in the abscence of any other reason for failure to conceive ?

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According to the definition of infertility, we have to wait for 2 years before we can describe a couple as infertile.

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Originally posted by sonomod:
The ovari cysts were something my mother had in her early twenties, and mind you still a size 6.

After those reptured she was finally able to concieve me, her first child at age 23.

About 20% of my family has these cysts in their early twenties and late teens. Except for me the women in my family are under a size 8, some underweight and flat as a board.

Maybe my family is a family of freaks, but no one has ever had cysts past 24, each and everyone of them had reptured, including with me.

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Hi Sonomod

Polycystic ovarian syndrome is in fact a bit of a misleading name as you do not always have to have cysts within the ovaries to diagnose it.

It is a group of symptoms, attributed to bad dietry habbits and weight gain, (although it has also, funny enough, been associated with being under weight and with Anorexia Nervosa), it is also associated with Diabetes (some treat it with Metformin, which is a drug used to treat Diabetes). The symptoms are of irregularity of periods , which become less and less frequent, or cease completely, excessive hair growth of masculine distribution (i.e. facial hair, limb hair..etc), and of course difficulty in conceiving, and obesity in most cases.

quote:

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Originally posted by MyKingdomForATaba2Koshari:
According to the definition of infertility, we have to wait for 2 years before we can describe a couple as infertile.

Does this answer your question or did I not understand it right?

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What I meant was to comment on this bit of your explanation :

[2- If the ovulation hormone is already made in lower concentrations by nature, the pill will make it even more difficult for this hormone to have its effect. That's why it takes longer for some women to get pregnant after stopping the use of the pills]

by asking is this a matter of 1 or 2 cycles after stopping the pill, before the woman ovulates again, or can it be a longer effect ?

quote:

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Originally posted by Medosa:
Hi Sonomod

Polycystic ovarian syndrome is in fact a bit of a misleading name as you do not always have to have cysts within the ovaries to diagnose it.

It is a group of symptoms, attributed to bad dietry habbits and weight gain, (although it has also, funny enough, been associated with being under weight and with Anorexia Nervosa), it is also associated with Diabetes (some treat it with Metformin, which is a drug used to treat Diabetes). The symptoms are of irregularity of periods , which become less and less frequent, or cease completely, excessive hair growth of masculine distribution (i.e. facial hair, limb hair..etc), and of course difficulty in conceiving, and obesity in most cases.

I do not know if that was the case with your family, but isolated cysts of the ovaries are another story.

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No one in my family is overweight (except my mother, but thats liquor related), no one has any noticable hair except on their scalp and eyebrows. None of us started to shave our legs or underarms until 15, and even now we don't sport much body hair.

Diabetes doesn't run in the family, everyone is under a size 8 (except me and my mother). And no one has has eating disorders. and for dietary habits, all of us ate from a garden on our property growing up (I was suburban raised but had a 1 feddan lot half of which was flowers or vegetable garden, the rest of the family is rural and rarely eats sweets, ice cream is a sweet!)

So none of those symptoms apply to my family even the periods, most of the women had periods every month when they had the cysts, yet not on time.

quote:

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Originally posted by Medosa:
What I meant was to comment on this bit of your explanation :

[2- If the ovulation hormone is already made in lower concentrations by nature, the pill will make it even more difficult for this hormone to have its effect. That's why it takes longer for some women to get pregnant after stopping the use of the pills]

by asking is this a matter of 1 or 2 cycles after stopping the pill, before the woman ovulates again, or can it be a longer effect ?

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Maybe you can write an article about that issue?

Was that your article about shisha use among women in Al-Ahram? Very good..

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Originally posted by MyKingdomForATaba2Koshari:
So 7aya have you read our replies about the pill?

Maybe you can write an article about that issue?

Was that your article about shisha use among women in Al-Ahram? Very good..

I tend to be liberal in my thinking, and I accept everyone for who they are, except for this one thing: I just can't stand the sight of a dressed to wanna-be-looking-like-a-saint (met7aggeba) veiled woman with a shisha in her mouth. Utterly disgusting.

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hi, yes thank you very much mykingdom and medosa for taking the time to explain this. i like the way you mykingdom explained the way a woman gets pregnant . you used simple language that an idiot like me can understand so basically the pill can only create a problem if the woman already has a fertility problem. so i guess the best way to deal with this is for a couple to take some tests before marriage,l to see if they are fertile or not. although i guess if it turns out that either of them is infertile, all wedding plans would be cancelled, its sad.
you know medosa, if a woman here takes the pill and then is later unable to concieve, people tell her that god is punishing her because she "e3teredet 3ala eradto" i never thought about it as an e3terad, but more in terms of planning and organizing your life.
umm mykingdom, there are several articles written about the shisha, mine was about an ad by the ministry of health.
again thank you both so much for your help

quote:

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Originally posted by sonomod:

No one in my family is overweight (except my mother, but thats liquor related), no one has any noticable hair except on their scalp and eyebrows. None of us started to shave our legs or underarms until 15, and even now we don't sport much body hair.

Diabetes doesn't run in the family, everyone is under a size 8 (except me and my mother). And no one has has eating disorders. and for dietary habits, all of us ate from a garden on our property growing up (I was suburban raised but had a 1 feddan lot half of which was flowers or vegetable garden, the rest of the family is rural and rarely eats sweets, ice cream is a sweet!)

So none of those symptoms apply to my family even the periods, most of the women had periods every month when they had the cysts, yet not on time.

Again I don't know where you get your information from?

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Sonomod

As I explained before. Polycystic ovaries syndrome is a name given to the group of symptoms I outlined above. It is a little misleading because you can have the syndrome without having actual cysts at all.

Also as I said before, having cysts of the ovaries is a different story. To explain more there are many types of ovarian cysts benign and malignant, tiny and huge.

By your description members of your family do not have polycystic ovaries syndrome, they seem to develop simple ovarian cysts.

Where do I get my information from?. I am a medical doctor with over 3O years experience. So I get my information from my medical text books, medical journals, meetings, seminars, symposia, work shops, discussions, experience, just about the same as any other doctor does all over the world.

However my specialty in not Gynaecology.

Just thought I should add, what is meant by simple ovarian cysts is, they are not malignant, they can be either non-functional cysts, follicular, or corpus luteal cysts.

Follicular cysts are the most common, normally an ovum (egg), develops inside a cyst, which is called follicular cyst, when it matures, that cyst ruptures and releases the egg. If the cyst does not rupture and continues to grow a little, the woman would then have a persistent follicular cyst.

Luteal cysts on the other hand happen normally when the ovum (egg), gets fertilized (the woman gets pregnant), this cyst has a very important function in sustaining the pregnancy, in fact if you remove it the lady may miscarry. Sometimes these cysts can rupture and cause severe pain, or bleeding can happen inside them causing not only severe pain, but may be a life threatening situation.

Sometimes an old bleed in one of these cysts gives it a brownish colour, it is then called a chocolate cyst.

I hope this little addendum explains thing a little more for you.

Best regards

quote:

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Originally posted by 7aya:
hi, yes thank you very much mykingdom and medosa for taking the time to explain this. i like the way you mykingdom explained the way a woman gets pregnant . you used simple language that an idiot like me can understand so basically the pill can only create a problem if the woman already has a fertility problem. so i guess the best way to deal with this is for a couple to take some tests before marriage,l to see if they are fertile or not. although i guess if it turns out that either of them is infertile, all wedding plans would be cancelled, its sad.
you know medosa, if a woman here takes the pill and then is later unable to concieve, people tell her that god is punishing her because she "e3teredet 3ala eradto" i never thought about it as an e3terad, but more in terms of planning and organizing your life.
umm mykingdom, there are several articles written about the shisha, mine was about an ad by the ministry of health.
again thank you both so much for your help

best

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Thanks 7aya

Of course it is not (e3terad), to organize one's life. It can be considered simply this way , if God is going to bless me with kids is it wrong to have them at a time and in the numbers that I can bring up well?, so that they and I can feel and be grateful for his blessings ?

It is amazing how much wrong and somtimes even evil is committed or omitted in the name of religion (any), and God .

One of the many reasons why I personally came to reject religions (but not God). I know people may find this odd or hard to swallow, but there are a lot of people like myself who believe in God but do not follow a particular organized religion or faith.

quote:

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Originally posted by Serendipity:
Hey doctors here, I am just wondering. Why in Gods name do you get so sad when you're sick!
Does it have any medical explanation????
and any solution???????

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quote:

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Originally posted by Serendipity:
Hey doctors here, I am just wondering. Why in Gods name do you get so sad when you're sick!
Does it have any medical explanation????
and any solution???????

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First, all my best wishes to you for speedy and complete recovery.

Other than the reasons 7aya gave, there are also without a doubt some organic (meaning physical as opposed to psychological), reasons for feeling sad and even depressed when ill.

Of course not all illnesses would cause this, but for example some severe infections will release toxins (poisons), into the blood stream that can cause not only all those horrible physical symptoms like fever, sickness, pains, tiredness, but also sadness, apathy, bad dreams, hallucinations, and can even cause psychosis (madness, although I do not like that word), this is called organic psychosis, and can resemble paranoid schizophernia . The elderly in particular are more vulnrable to it.

Of course there are many other reasons, other than infections that can do this, I think we all know about post partum depression (baby blues), which affects women after child birth.

Enough now I think I can go on, but must not bore all of you too much

Oh what can you do about it ? That depends on the illness it is associated with, in most cases the treatment of that, will take care of the depression. In other cases the careful use of a short course of anti-depressants can help a great deal.

Ps. I have:

quote:

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Originally posted by Medosa:
One of the many reasons why I personally came to reject religions (but not God). I know people may find this odd or hard to swallow, but there are a lot of people like myself who believe in God but do not follow a particular organized religion or faith.

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Originally posted by Snoozin:

That's not weird, you're describing a significant portion of the US population!
I'm happy that people can find their spirituality in different ways.

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So Medosa,pls correct me if i'm wrong, but when filling in forms and stating your religious beliefs. You would put that u r agnostic? and not athiest, as u said u do believe in God.

quote:

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Originally posted by poppy:
So Medosa,pls correct me if i'm wrong, but when filling in forms and stating your religious beliefs. You would put that u r agnostic? and not athiest, as u said u do believe in God.

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Correct, I am an agnostic and not an atheist.

Put simply, we know very little about spiritual life. . The case for the existence or otherwise of God has not been made either way convincingly. So agnostics do not accept the existence of God as a fact, nor do they deny it outright, that is the jury is still out if you like!.

God, MAY have sent messengers, but what is important? Is it the message or is it the messenger. I believe it is the message that matters; whether it came from God, our conscience or our intelligence...it does not matter.

While followers of religions, debate and fight around who is the true messenger and which of the religions is supreme, we believe that such debate is totally futile.

We (humanity), have matured enough now to understand the essence of the message and manage our life’s, without the need for a detailed user's manual (religion).

Filling in forms is another story, since the vast majority of officialdom know absolute zilch, let alone what an agnostic is.

quote:

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Originally posted by Medosa:
Correct , I am an agnostic and not an atheist.

Put simply, we know very little about spritual life, God may have sent some messengers to us, but what is important is the message and not the messenger.

We (humanity), have matured enough now to understand the essence of the message and manage our lifes, without the need for a detailed user's manual (religion).

Filling in forms is another story, since the vast majority of officialdom know absolute zelch , let alone what an agnostic is.

An interesting viewpoint! thanku 4 that. Ah! yes i was 4gettin the inate ignorance of officialdom (and worldwide, it appears)
Its an ideal job for those with a power complex.

[This message has been edited by Medosa (edited 22 August 2005).]

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quote:

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Originally posted by poppy:

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