Below are excerpts from Maureen Jenkins article "Lifting the Curse," that appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times on Friday, June 9th.
Many women are starting to use hormonal birth control continually because of debilitating cramps and conditions like endometriosis and fibroids. But a woman doesn't need to have a medical condition to have fewer periods -- or none.
New products like Seasonique, an extended-cycle pill that lets women have just four periods a year, have hit the market, one of the latest developments allowing women to choose when, or if, they menstruate at all.
It has become a lifestyle choice made manageable thanks to modern medicine -- but not all health professionals agree this is a long-term safe bet.
Not everyone has signed on to this. Dr. Susan Rako, a Massachusetts-based women's hormonal health expert, strongly disagrees with the practice.
"To encourage healthy young girls and women to do away with their periods for convenience's sake without educating them to the risks is immoral," says Rako, author of The Blessings of the Curse: No More Periods? (Backinprint.com, $15.95) and founder of the educational nonprofit Women's Health on Alert.
"A woman's normal cycle protects her by lowering her blood pressure, giving her the only natural way of ridding herself of excess iron [and lowering the risk of] atherosclerosis, heart attacks and strokes," Rako says. "In addition, the birth control pill makes a woman more susceptible to the high-risk strains of human papillomavirus in causing cancer of the cervix."
Bonnie - on the surface, the extended cycle pill seems liberating! Before "jumping in" without testing the water, do yourself a favor. Read Dr. Rako's book, The Blessings of the Curse: No More Periods?, and discuss this at length with a knowledgable health professional. If past history serves as a reminder, remember the miracles of Thalidomide and HRT for hot flashes? They had a dark side that may not have been worth the risk.
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