It's Not Hysteria: Everything You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Health (But Were Never Told)

by Karen Tang

Women continue to be treated as if they need to be protected from their own minds when it comes to reproductive decisions such as birth control, sterilization, and abortion.

Since gynecologic conditions such as endometriosis, pelvic floor dysfunction, and premenstrual dysphoric disorder can cause a wide range of symptoms but don’t show up on imaging studies or lab tests, patients will often be told by doctor after doctor that there is nothing wrong with them and that the problem must be emotional or mental. Sadly, this is our twenty-first-century version of hysteria.

and it wasn’t until 1993 that President Clinton signed an act mandating that NIH-funded human research projects must include women and racial minorities.

Due to these decades of excluding women from research trials, data about everything from heart disease to medication efficacy do not include information about the effects on women or potential gender differences in results.

Gynecologic procedures are reimbursed at significantly lower rates than procedures in any other surgical field, including urology, which treats the male reproductive organs. Compensation for biopsies of the uterus or vulva is much lower than compensation for biopsies of the prostate or scrotum.

Severe endometriosis can scar or block off the ureters, causing a backup of urine that can put so much pressure on that kidney that it leads to kidney failure.

The connective tissue between the uterus and the rectum is called the posterior cul-de-sac.

NSAIDs increase bleeding elsewhere in the body but actually decrease menstrual bleeding. In fact, NSAIDs are almost as effective as birth control methods in lightening uterine bleeding. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) may also improve pain but usually to a lesser extent than NSAIDs, and it does not have the same beneficial impact on bleeding.

For instance, many doctors tell patients that a hysterectomy will cure endometriosis because they believe that it cannot return if there is no uterus; however, endometriosis can and does recur in women who have had a hysterectomy.