Women's Health Promotion

There is no unified standard for women's health that is universally applicable. The most important thing to listen to is your own body's signals. Don't treat inappropriate tolerance as "women are born to suffer", and don't blindly follow the trend of Internet celebrities' health regimens and torment yourself.

Last week, I met 32-year-old Sister Zhang at a community free clinic. She dragged me and asked me if she had any uterine-warming home remedies to treat dysmenorrhea. She said that her menstrual period had been painful since she was 14 years old. Every time it hurt to the point of vomiting and being unable to get out of bed, the elders in her family always said, "It will be fine once I give birth to a child." She has endured this for 18 years without even having a gynecological examination. I persuaded her to have a color ultrasound as soon as possible. The result was that she had stage three endometriosis and already had chocolate cysts. If it continued, it might even affect her fertility. You think it's a pity that these 18 years of pain have been in vain?

Speaking of folk remedies, the most frequently asked question backstage recently is "Will drinking soy milk supplement too much estrogen and cause breast nodules?" ”In fact, there are different views on this matter in the industry. If you ask evidence-based Western medicine practitioners, they will most likely tell you that the soy isoflavones in soy milk are phytoestrogens, which are two-way regulatory components. If the estrogen in your body is high, it will help you lower it, and if it is low, it will help you supplement it. Drinking a normal amount of 300-500ml every day will not induce nodules at all. But if you ask an experienced Chinese medicine practitioner, they may add to you: If you have a weak spleen and stomach, are always lazy, have a thick and greasy tongue coating and are heavy in moisture, and drink iced soy milk every day, it may indeed aggravate the accumulation of phlegm and dampness and increase the risk of nodules. Both sides are right. There is no absolute right or wrong. The key is to look at your own physique.

Oh, by the way, there is another pitfall that everyone easily steps into, which is the HPV vaccine. Last month, a 26-year-old girl came to see me for a report. It had only been two years since she took the nine-price treatment. She was found to be positive for HPV16 and had high-grade TCT lesions. She cried at that time and said, "Didn't you say that you won't get cervical cancer after taking the nine-price treatment?" ”You see, this is misled by the publicity. The nine-price method can only cover 9 high-risk subtypes, and there are many other subtypes that cannot be prevented. No matter how much you pay, after you have sex at the age of 21, you need to do a combined TCT and HPV screening every 1-3 years. This is the real gold standard for preventing cervical cancer. Don’t think that after getting the vaccine, you will enter the safe.

Over the years, I have found that many girls' gynecological problems are not caused by poor hygiene at all, but are caused by stress and anger. Last month, there was a girl who worked in Internet operations. She had to rush for three big projects in a row. She stayed up until two or three o'clock every day and had a fight with her boss. Then she got fungal vaginitis and her menstruation was delayed for 20 days. She thought she was pregnant and was scared to death. Western medicine says this is caused by too much stress, which affects the hypothalamus-pituitary-ovary axis, causing hormonal disorders and bacterial flora imbalance. ； Traditional Chinese medicine says that it means stagnation of liver qi and blockage of qi and blood. To put it bluntly, it means that emotions are not released and are blocked in the body. You see, don’t always hold it in. Cry when you should and vent when you should. No matter how big-name skin care products you buy, you can support others.

Speaking of messing around, another hardest-hit area is private parts care. I have seen too many girls buy private parts lotions that cost hundreds of dollars a bottle and wash them every day, euphemistically calling them "deep cleansing". As a result, the more they wash, the more itchy they become, and the more they wash, the more likely they are to get vaginitis. The advice of regular gynecologists has always been: if there is no inflammation, it is enough to wash the vulva with warm water every day. The vagina has its own self-cleaning function. If you wash it blindly, it will wash away all the beneficial bacteria. Once the balance of the bacterial flora is broken, all kinds of problems will arise. Those lotions with highly touted "whitening" and "firming" effects are basically IQ taxes, so don't waste your money.

I have been talking so much today, not to make you anxious when you go back, or to search on Baidu when you feel a little uncomfortable, and then immediately judge yourself as "terminal disease" after the search. I just want to remind everyone: You know your body best. No matter how good the "standard" others say is good, it is useless if it is not suitable for you. If you really feel uncomfortable, don't bear it, and don't be embarrassed to go to the gynecology department. Go to a regular hospital to see a doctor, it will be more reliable than watching 100 short health videos. Oh, by the way, our community health service center has free gynecological consultations every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. If you have any questions, just come and have a chat. Health is really more important than anything else.