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Dec 23 2011

Symptoms of an Ectopic Pregnancy

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Ectopic pregnancy refers to a fertilized egg that implants somewhere outside of the uterus. This is generally in the fallopian tube and is sometimes referred to as a tubal pregnancy. Certain women are at a higher risk for having an ectopic pregnancy than others.

An ectopic pregnancy can start out just like a normal pregnancy. You may have a positive pregnancy test, miss your period or have other normal pregnancy symptoms. Then again, you may not have a positive pregnancy test and you should seek immediate medical help if you experience any of the ectopic pregnancy symptoms.

Many women first experience abdominal pain that can be tender to the touch, sharp or sudden, persistent or intermittent, or it could be fairly mild. Symptoms can have a wide range from person to person. Some women only have pain on one side while others have it in their entire abdomen or pelvis.

Vomiting or nausea can occur. Spotting or vaginal bleeding is also normal. Pain generally gets more severe if you are active, sneezing, coughing or laughing.

If your fallopian tube has ruptured, then you could be in immediate life-threatening danger and you should call 911 immediately if you experience any of the following symptoms. Pain in your shoulder, especially when you lie down can be caused by internal bleeding. Lying down can wash the pooling blood up to your shoulder and put pressure on the nerves, causing pain.

This is a real emergency and you may not have much time to get medical help. Do not delay in calling 911 and never attempt to drive yourself if you experience this type of pain. You may go into shock and experience a weak or fast pulse. Your skin could become pale and clammy. You can get dizzy and find it hard to balance. You can feel faint or actually pass out. Any of these symptoms should tell you that you are in immediate danger and you should get help without delay.

Your chances of having an ectopic pregnancy are higher if you have an IUD, have had a previous ectopic pregnancy, if you have had any type of surgery in or around your fallopian tubes, if you have had a cesarean section or other abdominal surgery or if you have had any type of pelvic infection, such as pelvic inflammatory disease, chlamydia or gonorrhea. Any surgeries or infections can make scar tissue grow in your fallopian tubes trapping a fertilized egg. IUD's and progestin-only birth control pills can make your uterus inhospitable to fertilized eggs and they may implant in your fallopian tube instead.

If you are at a higher risk for ectopic pregnancy, be very mindful of the symptoms so that you can seek medical help at the slightest signs of a problem.

Symptoms of an Ectopic Pregnancy

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Nov 24 2011

STD Gonorrhea – The Serious Complications and the Treatments

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The popularity of STDs can really affect a lot of individuals suffering from these diseases. That is why prompt information regarding infections like Gonorrhea must be disseminated to educate the public.

Gonorrhea is a sexually transmitted disease which is also popularly termed 'the clap'. Gonorrheal complications are serious and can lead to weakening or permanent disability of the patient's immune system. Gonorrhea patients are more susceptible than others to HIV that causes AIDS. Furthermore, HIV infected people who also experience Gonorrhea turn out to be easy conduits of HIV to others not having Gonorrhea.

Among women, gonorrheal infection can lead to Pelvic Inflammatory Disease and/or increase the risk of developing ectopic pregnancy which is characterized by fever or/and abdominal pain. In intense cases, PID can lead to serious and at times really dangerous eventualities: formation of abscesses, recurrent pelvic pain, damage of the fallopian tubes, infertility, and ectopic pregnancy. The abscesses are pockets filled with pus and they are formed within the body and are very difficult to be cured. When PID causes harm to the fallopian tubes, the patient become sterile or even run the danger of having the life-threatening condition of ectopic pregnancy. In ectopic pregnancy, the fertilized egg develops not in the uterus, but in a fallopian tube. Among men, Gonorrhea can be painful, long lasting and life threatening; it can lead to the painful condition of epididymitis. It affects the ducts connected to the testicles and if untreated, epididymitis can cause that sterility. When Gonorrhea spreads to the joints, it turns out to be grave.

Gonorrhea is a bacterial infection, and a tremendously contagious one; an estimated 2.5 million Americans contracts this disease annually. The symptoms of gonorrhea generally appear within one to three weeks after infection. In men, these symptoms comprise of a white to yellow-green penile discharge, burning pain while urinating and deep, aching pain or pressure in the genitals. In women, there may be painful and frequent urination, deep, aching pain in the lower abdomen and, seldom, a vaginal discharge. Pharyngeal Gonorrhea, in the mouth and throat, may generate a sore throat; rectal gonorrhea sporadically causes discomfort in the area around the anus and a slight discharge. Yet, in 10 to 20 percent of men and up to 80 percent of women, there are no apparent symptoms at all.

Untreated, STD Gonorrhea usually affects the urethra in men, making urination very painful and difficult; it may progress to chronic obstruction and infertility. In women, the disease can assault the fallopian tubes and other pelvic organs, causing pain, fever and, very probable, infertility. The threat of infertility increases with each infection: 75 percent of women who have had three infections involving the pelvic organs are infertile. In both sexes, untreated gonorrhea may result in arthritis, or in a widespread bacterial infection affecting the heart and nervous system. If a woman has active Gonorrhea at the time of delivery, her baby may have permanent blindness. That is why it is important to get regular and routine check-ups at the various STD testing sites near you.

Luckily, once it is diagnosed, gonorrhea can be treated swiftly and effectively with antibiotics. A diagnosis of gonorrhea can be made by a microscopic examination of the discharge or a cervical smear; or, more dependably, by a culture that takes two days to incubate. The culture should be continual one week after treatment.

STD Gonorrhea - The Serious Complications and the Treatments

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Aug 16 2011

Post Tubal Ligation Syndrome – PTLS – What Can Help You

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Tubal ligation has been used by millions of women in the U.S. alone, and many more millions around the world, as a method to halt conception. One possible outcome of this surgical method to control conception is called Post Tubal Ligation Syndrome which causes the women who suffer it some quite horrible experiences. Simply doing a search on the Internet will lead you to many of these stories.

For those women who suffer from Post Tubal Ligation Syndrome, also called PTLS, there is a long list of possible symptoms they can have. Upon researching this topic, one can find a popular list (seen on several websites) of 35 possible symptoms. Within the personal stories, most women seem to suffer from terrible mood swings, longer and/or heavier bleeding during periods, weight gain or inability to lose weight, awful PMS, problems sleeping, low to no sex drive, migraines and very severe, even crippling, abdominal pain. Cramps are too wimpy a word for what some of these women report.

Perhaps what is even worse for these women are the responses from their doctors and surgeons when these symptoms are brought to light. They range from a "there's nothing wrong and so you'll have to learn to live with it" attitude to outright telling these women it's all in their heads and they need professional counseling. One doctor has been quoted as saying that PTLS is a "medical myth" on medicinenet.

Many women are told they need to go on birth control pills or even undergo another surgery to "correct" whatever is wrong up to and including a hysterectomy. If you need to be on birth control pills, what good did it do to have a tubal ligation in the first place? However, you will find in the medical literature that many doctors believe the problems found after the surgery are actually caused by the women going off birth control pills and other factors related to age.

This is why our quoted medical myth doctor suggests that women about to undergo a tubal ligation surgery should go off birth control pills several months before the procedure. I'm guessing that the supposed age-related factors are something you just have to live with. However, I'm not sure these suggestions will do much to help those women who were pregnant and had their tubes tied upon having their child. Obviously no birth control pills were being used prior to the surgery. Nor do the "age related factors" seem to have any application to those women still in their 20's and experiencing these problems.

Another way to help with these effects and syndromes would be a better notification of potential complications before the surgery. Even the government's FDA website only lists the following as possible "rare" complications from the surgery: infection, ectopic pregnancy, hemorrhage and problems related to the use of general anesthesia. No mention of the effects that so many women suffer from PTLS. Maybe a more informative consent form would stop some women from going through with the surgery. At least they would be better informed with a consent form that included PTLS which is what the "Coalition for Post-Tubal Women" is trying to accomplish.

However, for women who have already undergone tubal surgery, there has to be other action taken. These can include, as mentioned above, going onto birth control pills, having a hysterectomy or having a tubal ligation reversal surgery performed. By getting a tubal reversal ptls symptoms seem to be reduced for about 90% of patients. That's the results of a study Dr. Berger of the Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal Center cites.

A further review of the site for Chapel Hill Tubal Reversal reveals a forum where many threads can be found addressing the issues of PTLS. It seems women ask if tubal reversal is the best way to take care of the symptoms. In every case I read, other women answer in the affirmative describing how much improved their lives are in all respects, including the possibility of having another child. Even those who have not become pregnant are rejoicing just because of the relief they are getting from post tubal ligation syndrome, myth or not.

Post Tubal Ligation Syndrome - PTLS - What Can Help You

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