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[mundens]

I was reading holding_pattern's recent post on birth control pills, and felt like ranting on it. but I didn't want to intrude on the ladies seriously discussing pills and the like, with what is a slightly flippant rant

Comments

[amphigori]

How reversible is it?

A friend had a vasectomy and it didn't go very well at all. In the end they're "pretty sure" he's sterile, but it took six months longer to get to that point than they expected.

[theuns]

Not particularly reliably.

http://www.vasectomy-information.com/moreinfo/reversal.htm

Which is a pity, since otherwise it'd be a useful insurance policy. If you think about it - when one party in relationship wants children and the other doesn't, who has the most power to effect their choice?

And on a side note: occasionally people 'get better' from a vasectomy...

[mundens]

I'd point out that's discussing a vasectomy, where the vas deferens is cut and tied. In that procedure it can be difficult to find and succesfully rejoin the ends.

Modern techniques don't require the vas deferens to be severed.

Here's a reference to one of the many different devices, the Vasclip, and they're currently doing clinical trials on this silicon implant, being called the "IVD".

[theuns]

From the first link:
"There is a new device called Vasclip on the market with currently limited availability that may offer easier reversal than conventional techniques. At the present time information is limited as the device is new. Vasclip do not make any claim that the device is more reversible than conventional techniques, but in the past vasectomy clips have been trialled with easier reversal being the purpose. Time will tell!"

IIRC part of the problem was that, once the flow has been obstructed, sperm production goes down - I find it particularly interesting that the statistics reference the presence, but not the quantity, of sperm post-reversal.

In any case, even if you assume that every one of the 10% of failed reversals would have been effective, that still only produces a ~70% pregnancy rate...

[mundens]

There do seem to be a lot of women with issues associated with menstruation.

It also seems that there isn't any real science involved in determining how best to treat an individual with such problems. Then again that can be said about a lot of medical conditons. It seems to be largely trial and error.

Try this pill. Didn't make you feel that much better? Oh, then try this one instead. In fact the more people I hear the process described, the more it sounds like trying to find a fitting pair of shoes, when none of the shoes have size labels.

[stephanie_pegg]

Well, when you go to get a prescription for the pill they weigh you and take your blood pressure.
To be precise, they're supposed to. My GP didn't. He didn't check me for a tendency to clot, either, which in hindsight I'm bloody annoyed about, after finding out that a friend's cousin died from blood clots two days after starting contraception.

But yeah, it seems to be mostly guesswork and experimentation.

[mundens]

Yeah, I was being over the top for fun (another reason I didn't do it in a comment on your post!) I wouldn't seriously advocate banninng them, and it is your body and you can put whatever you like into it, especially if it helps!

[laputain]

I believe use of the various before-the-fact birth control pills, should be proscribed....
Forcing a woman to take pills forever

Did you deliberately introduce this massive hypocrisy to indicate you were joking? If not, colour me flabbergasted.

This rant reminds me very much of a rant I saw in Salient a few years ago, with the word "abortion" substituted for "chemical contraceptives". And I have exactly the same reaction - this is spitting in the face of every feminist who fought for legal, available contraception from the early 1960s onwards

[mundens]

OK, deep breath...

I did not use the term "un-natural", precisely because it has certain connotations when used by the religous right. I used the term non-natural. I would suggest that this is a correct description and does not have to be a value judgement. However I admit I was using it in a rhetorical way attempting to make the use of hormones for birth control sound unnattractive.

Also, I'll admit the term "proscribed" I used was over the top. Actually, I don't think anything should be banned, and people should be allowed to pump whatever they like into their own bodies, except stuff like infectious diseases, binary explosives, grey-ooze nanites, i.e: stuff thats going to get out and affect other people.

I do think that you are being oversensitive about the term, and I understand why. I don't feel being unnatural is inherently a bad thing, I wear shoes and clothes for instance, which is a good thing for everybody elses eyes, as well as keeping me warm, but it certainly can be bad, such as the unnatural hole in the ozone layer

[cha0sslave]

You realise what they actually DO in that procedure don't you. Sure if they work out a non intrusive way to do it with lasers or nanobots or something and get Pharmac to fund it then sweet. But I'm not paying a couple of hundred bucks for someone to rip my sack open and then hobble about for 3 or 4 days afterwards

[mundens]

Of course I'm aware, I had it done to myself many years ago by possibly one of the worst people I could have had it done by, an Army surgeon! And one of the attending nurses was a lady I'd been intimate with at an earlier time!

That was the only worrying thing, being put under by an "ex"! :)

There was a small pair of scars about 1cm in length IIRC, that are almost unnoticable now, I doubt I could find them.

I didn't hobble around at all, I walked out of the surgery within fiften minutes of them finishing, and was back at work in the hangar the next day.
I seem to remember being very keen to prove it didn't affect my performance afterwards!

Actually there other funny things about my experience, remind me to tell you some time.