To clarify... cups and endometreotis

[shelleb]

Apologies if there was an easier way of doing this, I'm still fairly new to LJ.

I just wanted to make clarify the recent post about menstrual cups and endometreotis.

I just noticed leitadlifi's post with the link to this website article: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/ ( Read more... )

Comments

[daimere]

I'd just like to ask, couldn't you have back flow in a pad or tampon if you are lying on your back? What about riding roller coasters? Should I not ride if I'm bleeding?

[1girl]

I think that's one of the reasons you aren't supposed to do inverted yoga positions while menstruating. It's unlikely to cause problems, but possible.

But with a menstrual cup, I can't possibly imagine a problem. The cup is outside of your cervix, and once the blood is out, the blood is going to stay out because the opening of your cervix simply isn't big enough to allow much (if any) flowback. I think this one remains firmly in the very very theoretical problem category.

[elmoish]

I agree, you'd need a funnel to get it back into your uterus! Surely the blood would just pool in the posterior fornix of the vagina...

I just read in the ERC Online Questionnaire of Women Who Used Menstrual Cups:Summary Statement of Results and A Call for Additional Research by the associated pharmacologists and toxicologists:

"In the sciences of pharmacology and toxicology there is an awareness that the dose of an agent is a critical component in determining the likelihood that a physiological reaction will occur."

so it would seem that they think a theoretical link is sufficient for them!

[elmoish]

oh shelleb, you've got me really interested in this topic now, i hadn't spotted it before...

the thing that strikes me about the whole thing is that prior to the petition the APT (for short) sent questionaires out to menstrual cup users and found some of them had endometriosis, therefore (in their eyes) cup causes endometriosis. However, if they had also sampled women using pads or tampons they might have found exactly the same results (or much worse) but they didn't.

This was just poor poor research packaged up nicely!

[lintilla]

Wow, really? That's... pathetic.

Was it published somewhere peer reviewed? Because if so... SAD!

[elmoish]

wait wait wait it gets better!

in the comment from APT they reference a case of a woman whose endometriosis symptoms were only relieved by total hysterectomy....
see: http://www.assocpharmtox.org/Images/Cup%20Ques%20Sum%20w%20refs.pdf

LIES!!!

this is the actual article referenced:
http://endometriosis.nichd.nih.gov/pdf/Spechler_etal_GyneObstJuly2003.pdf

Now, I'm not a gynaecologist, but I thought that laser laparoscopic removal of areas of endometriosis was different to total hysterectomy...

[lintilla]

...

Argh.

Also, the idea that the cup does not leak when full is fairly hilarious (at least from where I'm sitting).

[shelleb]

I only just started using a menstrual cup this year, and I'm pretty sure I've had mild endometriotis (due to severe, SEVERE cramping and also it runs in the family) since as long as i've had my period. During the 10 years I've used tampons and pads for my period and have just changed in the last year and the cramps have DEFINATELY improved since getting a cup.

I'm definately curious about why anyone would want to slander the name of menstrual cups like this. Tampon/Pad manufacturers getting a little uneasy???