#what causes cervical cancer
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The exact cause of cervical cancer is unknown. However, over the years, a few factors that can increase the risk of cervical cancer have been identified. Know the detailed causes of cervical cancer for more clarity at - Cervical cancer causes
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The Best News of Last Year - 2023 Edition
Welcome to our special edition newsletter recapping the best news from the past year. I've picked one highlight from each month to give you a snapshot of 2023. No frills, just straightforward news that mattered. Let's relive the good stuff that made our year shine.
January - London: Girl with incurable cancer recovers after pioneering treatment
A girl’s incurable cancer has been cleared from her body after what scientists have described as the most sophisticated cell engineering to date.
2. February - Utah legislature unanimously passes ban on LGBTQ conversion therapy
The Utah State Legislature has unanimously approved a bill that enshrines into law a ban on LGBTQ conversion therapy.
3. March - First vaccine for honeybees could save billions
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved the world’s first-ever vaccine intended to address the global decline of honeybees. It will help protect honeybees from American foulbrood, a contagious bacterial disease which can destroy entire colonies.
4. April - Fungi discovered that can eat plastic in just 140 days
Australian scientists have successfully used backyard mould to break down one of the world's most stubborn plastics — a discovery they hope could ease the burden of the global recycling crisis within years.
5. May - Ocean Cleanup removes 200,000th kilogram of plastic from the Pacific Ocean
The Dutch offshore restoration project, Ocean Cleanup, says it has reached a milestone. The organization's plastic catching efforts have now fished more than 200,000 kilograms of plastic out of the Pacific Ocean, Ocean Cleanup said on Twitter.
6. June - U.S. judge blocks Florida ban on care for trans minors in narrow ruling, says ‘gender identity is real’
A federal judge temporarily blocked portions of a new Florida law that bans transgender minors from receiving puberty blockers, ruling Tuesday that the state has no rational basis for denying patients treatment.
7. July - World’s largest Phosphate deposit discovered in Norway
A massive underground deposit of high-grade phosphate rock in Norway, pitched as the world’s largest, is big enough to satisfy world demand for fertilisers, solar panels and electric car batteries over the next 50 years, according to the company exploiting the resource.
8. August - Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99
If the claim by Sukbae Lee and Ji-Hoon Kim of South Korea’s Quantum Energy Research Centre holds up, the material could usher in all sorts of technological marvels, such as levitating vehicles and perfectly efficient electrical grids.
9. September - World’s 1st drug to regrow teeth enters clinical trials
The ability to regrow your own teeth could be just around the corner. A team of scientists, led by a Japanese pharmaceutical startup, are getting set to start human trials on a new drug that has successfully grown new teeth in animal test subjects.
10. October - Nobel Prize goes to scientists behind mRNA Covid vaccines
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to a pair of scientists who developed the technology that led to the mRNA Covid vaccines. Professors Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman will share the prize.
11. November - No cases of cancer caused by HPV in Norwegian 25-year olds, the first cohort to be mass vaccinated for HPV.
Last year there were zero cases of cervical cancer in the group that was vaccinated in 2009 against the HPV virus, which can cause the cancer in women.
12. December - President Biden announces he’s pardoning all convictions of federal marijuana possession
President Joe Biden announced Friday he's issuing a federal pardon to every American who has used marijuana in the past, including those who were never arrested or prosecuted.
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And there you have it – a year's worth of uplifting news! I hope these positive stories brought a bit of joy to your inbox. As I wrap up this special edition, I want to thank all my supporters!
Buy me a coffee ❤️
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
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HPV - Frequently Asked Questions about HPV #HPVsearchkiyakya
Frequently asked questions about HPV - How common is HPV infection? Can HPV be treated? Am I really at a risk of getting HPV? #HPVsearchkiyakya
#hpvsearchkiyakya#hpv search kiya kya#what is hpv#hpv meaning#hpv cervical cancer#what are hpv symptoms#female hpv symptoms#what causes human papillomavirus
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hi. is it true that you can get hpv without having sex ? my parents opted me out of getting the vaccine for it . if it is possible, how? and also how do i ask them if i can get the vaccine for it ? or can i ask the pediatrician next time i go there and ask them to ask my parents about it ?
hi anon,
I'm going to go ahead and link the Center for Disease Control's fact sheet on HPV, which I think will be helpful to have on tap here:
HPV is spread through close skin-to-skin contact, primarily vaginal, anal, or oral sex - you're not going to get it by giving someone a hug or a high five or sharing food.
an important thing to know about HPV is that it's extremely common, to the point that virtually every person who is ever sexually active can be reasonably assumed to have it at some point. and it's usually no big deal! as our friends at the CDC tell us, about 90% of cases of HPV go away after about 2 years without ever causing any health problems at all.
the HPV vaccine is to look out for the other 10% of cases. an important thing to understand about HPV is that it comes in a lot of different varieties, called "strains." most of the strains are pretty harmless, as noted above; they're viruses that just freeload in your body for a while trying to spread to other people and then go away again, easy peasy. but some strains can cause genital warts, which can be uncomfortable and cause some health complications, and cervical cancer.
important to note: cervical cancer is HIGHLY treatable if caught early and managed properly, which is why it's very important to get regular pap smears if you've had partnered sex. (the current recommendation is every 3 years until you turn 65.) pap smears screen for irregularities in the cervix that can serve as an early warning for cervical cancer, allowing you and your healthcare providers to pursue treatment as quickly as possible.
now, back to the HPV vaccine, which can lower the risk of cervical cancer even further by providing inoculation against HPV. it's a great long-term health investment against one of the most common STIs in the world, which is a great point to bring up with your parents. your pediatrician can also be a good advocate to have in this discussion if your parents are, for some reason, opposed to you receiving the vaccine, so by all means feel free to involve them!
I don't really know how else to tell you to ask your parents other than, you know, saying you want to get the HPV vaccine. that's hardly an unreasonable request; the ideal time to get an HPV vaccine is when you're young and haven't had a chance to be exposed to HPV yet.
for anyone who's not that young or has already had sex, worry not: you can still get the vaccine up to the age of 45, and a vaccine that's a little less effective is much better than no vaccine at all. I didn't get mine until I was 25! so, for anon: if your parents really decide to be hardasses about this for some reason, you're still hot to go as soon as you're 18 and can pick your own vaccines.
I hope this helps!
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Following the news that Kate Middleton has in fact been diagnosed with cancer, I’d like the take the time to offer some information on cancer in afab people and some charities to support.
Cancer is a very personal and scary thing to face, and according to Cancer Research UK, every two minutes in the uk someone is diagnosed with cancer. Over 182000 women in the uk are diagnosed every year.
Almost half of all cancer cases are diagnosed at stages 3 & 4, and screening rates for breast and cervical cancers have fallen in the last few years in England and Scotland.
According to The Eve Appeal, around 60 afab people are diagnosed with gynecological cancers alone every day in the uk, and 21 of them will not be able to receive appropriate treatment in time.
People around the world are woefully uneducated about cancer as a whole, but the stigma and lack of proper knowledge given to the public and young afab people about our own bodies means that we often go under diagnosed, or are too afraid or ashamed to see a doctor until it’s too late.
I’ll be listing some informational pages to help people learn about the signs of breast and gynecological cancers that I believe every young person with an afab reproductive system needs to know. On the pages from The Eve Appeal and Breast Cancer UK there is also information for transgender and intersex people.
All of these sites have information on how to identify possible markers of cancer, information on how to get tested, and on how to donate to their charities. I highly suggest everyone regardless of gender identity have a look through to potentially help yourself or a loved one.
-Roe
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>:(
if anyone tell you pap smears don't hurt they're a gods damned liar
next time I'm going to ask them to just give me fucking laughing gas or something.
Edit two days later:
For the fucking record to ward off jackass, this post is being made by a nonbinary trans person. My pronouns are it/its. Any TERFs or other transmisics who touch this post will be fucking vaporized.
For a damn preface, for those unaware, a pap smear is a procedure done on people with vaginas to test for cervical cancer or other health problems. It involves sticking a medical device into the vagina and using it to widen the walls of the vagina so the doctor can stick a tiny brush into the cervix to collect cells for testing.
And if you try to look up whether or not this procedure can hurt, every where you look will tell you it doesn’t.
And I'm still fucking infuriated by this. Because it’s a fucking lie. Everywhere I looked beforehand said it wouldn't hurt, I might just feel some pressure. Every single fucking website and blog post and video said "It won't hurt! It doesn't hurt!"
Even now when I am specifically trying to find other people talking about how it hurts, 99% of the results are saying it doesn't hurt, and if it does, it's just because you're nervous and anxious and causing yourself problems.
Except every where I fucking looked told me it wouldn't hurt. The doctor said it wouldn't hurt. My fucking mom said it wouldn't hurt.
I was not tense. I was not anxious. I was told it wouldn't hurt and I believed all the people who'd said so.
And then it felt like having a knife shoved inside my body.
And I was told to just do some fucking breathing exorcises and relax.
Even though I'd been fucking relaxed until it started hurting, because everyone fucking old me it was painless, just mildly uncomfortable.
And I am not talking about pain like "a little pinch", I mean fucking pain like being stabbed with a needle or having a knife twisted inside you. And it just got worse the longer it went on. They had to fucking stop early and might not have even been able to collect the fucking cells they were supposed to be testing.
And when this was finally over the doctor told me that the only reason it hurt was because my hymen was intact (So what about all the fucking shit going around for years about how that breaks for everyone in fucking gym class???? More fucking lies!!), as though that had anything to do with the pain inside.
And now every fucking thing I try to look up for reasons why it can hurt is literally just fucking repeating the same shit about how it doesn’t hurt, and if it does, it’s only because you were nervous and anxious and embarassed and all the fucking things I WASN’T. BECAUSE I WAS TOLD IT WOULDN’T HURT.
Every where I fucking look, I’m told that these things don’t hurt, and it’s just anxiety, and blah fuckity blah.
For fuck’s sake, this is real fucking medical gaslighting going on on a fucking absurd level.
These fucking websites and videos and blog posts and articles may as well just fucking call my hysterical at this point for all they fucking give a shit about people who are hurt by this procedure.
Everyone’s too fucking busy insisting that it doesn’t hurt and you have to get one and if you avoid getting one then you’re a bad person and you’re going to get cancer and die.
I’ve literally found exactly one (1) article talking about how it does hurt for some people, but that this gets constantly brushed under the rug and shouted down, and how this is a fucking problem. One fucking short article out of almost a hundred that I checked.
If you are so hellbent on getting people to get pap smears that you will literally fucking lie about the fact that not only can it hurt, it can hurt extremely, then you are not fucking helping anyone! If no one’s allowed to fucking talk about how painful this procedure is, no one can actually fucking give informed consent, because all of society is apparently too damn busy lying and saying it doesn’t hurt!!!!!!
This is blatant fucking medical misogyny and medical gaslighting everywhere you look and I’d have to be fucking knocked unconcious or given fucking laughing gas before I ever agree to do that again.
There’s even a fucking tiktok someone put on youtube where the original person was talking about offering anesthesia for pap smears, and then a fucking gynecologist comes in to say that’s stupid and useless and absurd and pretends that the only reason it can hurt is because people aren’t relaxed enough.
This is literal fucking society-wide misogynistic lying and gaslighting and it is pure fucking evil.
So pro fucking tip, for people who need to get pap smears: It can in fact hurt. Do not fucking let anyone tell you that you’re imagining it or you’re immature or you’re causing it yourself by being anxious. Do not fucking let them gaslight you and victim blame.
Pap smears can hurt, a lot, and anyone who tells you they don’t or can’t is just straight up fucking lying to your face.
So does this fucking mean I have endometriosis? Vaginismus? Some other fucking horrible thing I haven't heard of yet??? I don't fucking know! And it's gonna take three weeks to fucking find out the test results, assuming they even got to collect any of the gods damned cells in the first place!
Either fucking way, the fact that no one is allowed to talk about how this procedure can be excruciatingly painful because everyone else is just shouting at the top of their lungs that it doesn't hurt and you need to be a Big Girl™ and stop being embarrassed and go get one is fucking evil and I am fucking enraged.
(Edit again for the anon: Yes, you can reblog this, I am not embarrassed, more people need to talk about this so people can at least have some fucking warning. Feel free to copy and paste to other sites too.)
#gynecological care#IDK#ask to tag#medical misogyny#medical gaslighting#ableism#misogyny#pap smear#pelvic exam#endometriosis#vaginismus#or WHATEVER THE FUCK IT IS#WHO KNOWS#NOT ME#genitals mention#healthcare
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I’m rereading your bvd/cci/eds/migraine posts with interest, bc I’m coming at it from the other direction—cervical spine degeneration and my body’s compensation attempts being the cause of the vision and other neurological symptoms, where you seem to experience that compensating for the vision problems exacerbates the issues with your spine.
Did you end up trying the preemptive bracing, since you found that monthly hormone changes caused eds flareups and migraines? What kind of brace, if you don’t mind saying?
And do you find that chiropractic adjustments help or hurt more than massage?
Not asking you for medical expertise, but it is so nice to hear from people who are speaking from the lived experience.
Thank you!
.
I haven’t tried bracing my neck yet, no. I doubled down on cervical stability exercises in PT and that seems to be helping a bit more. (Though I am still on the lookout for a brace that doesn’t break me out in hives.)
And no, chiropractic adjustments of the neck are never recommended for anyone, but especially not for anyone with cervical instability issues. I found this out after a neck adjustment tore all the muscles in my neck and required me to have an MRI to look for a possible brain bleed after I started developing neurological symptoms from the injury. I was bedridden for weeks.
This was not a “bad” or wrongly performed adjustment: it’s just the risk of having your neck adjusted.
It’s been 5 years and I still don’t have full stability on the right side of my neck and often get tingling numbness on that side.
The spinal specialist I saw for my recovery told me he used to primarily see people with brain injuries from car crashes and construction accidents. Now most of his primary patients are people who saw chiropractors and had their necks adjusted.
I still sometimes see a chiropractor for mid and lower back adjustments, and my hips because those pop out of place fairly often and my chiro is better at getting them back in than the local urgent care, but my person uses gentle stretching motions rather than the more abrupt cracking motions. She also refuses to touch anyone’s neck ever. There are far too many vital nerves and blood vessels there to risk it. The fact that she knows this makes me feel safe entrusting my pain management to her.
Massage and physical therapy are how I manage my issues the best.
Mysofascial release therapy has been very helpful for me in reclaiming a lot of my range of motion, breaking up muscle adhesions and building healthy soft tissue. There’s some new-agey bullshit claims about it, but if you find someone who knows how to do it and who doesn’t believe the “cures cancer” horseshit (claims some chiropractors also make) it can be beneficial.
The real long term progress, however, has been from regular physical therapy from providers who know how to deal with my hypermobility.
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Ladies I know we talk a lot about female specific disorders and having to be your own doctor so let me share some things about PCOS that you may not know.
If your doctor suggests that you have PCOS, they should be doing a blood panel. They need to check your hormone levels and your blood sugar. This should be enough to diagnose. They don’t need an ultrasound to diagnose and you can absolutely ask them to start with the blood panel at the very least.
Get the cervical cancer vaccine. Just do it. Your risk is higher. Don’t play with that shit, my friend.
There are three medications that PCOS specific and competent can help you with. One is birth control (this is to control your uterine lining and lower your cancer risk). Doesn’t have to be traditional BC pills/patch/ring. There are three month injections, implants, and IUDs. Have mental health concerns or BC gives bad side effects? Ask your doctor if a low or no hormone IUD will work for your situation (usually the copper doesn’t help often. Skyla is a new IUD with a very, VERY low hormone dose).
Spironolactone. This can adjust testosterone levels and level out hormonal acne, hair loss, and other symptoms. It also is a diuretic and blood pressure med so avoid if you have low blood pressure. This stuff clears up cystic hornal acne from PCOS.
Metformin. This is super controversial. PCOS increases insulin resistance and can cause prediabetes or contribute to diabetes. Some doctors consider this a preventative, some only when this is a current concern. This is a blood sugar medication that affects insulin production so really discuss this with any doctor who suggests it. That being said, it can help some women.
Advice about diets to fit beauty culture are bogus. This is not about that. You gotta eat healthier. It is theorized by some researchers (and some is a lot in this area; understudied, remember?) that PCOS is an autoimmune disorder. Cutting inflammation will leave you in less pain and feeling less tired and foggy. I’m not being bougie—simple is fine here—but eat some vegetables. Eat some grains and beans. Switch out some of that alcohol for weed if you need to. This doesn’t have to mean you eat less or even truly different things—I promise that you can add or substitute like one thing a meal and not have a huge issue. Add some zucchini to your pasta sauce. Have some farro instead of white rice. Eat home cooked food if you can!! Just be nicer to your body, don’t judge it. Treat your body how you would treat a lover who is recovering from an injury. Validate, support, and heal.
PCOS has a higher than average correlation with bipolar disorder. Work on yourself, what’s wrong that looks like. If your mind is a temple why are you not sweeping the floors? Care for yourself.
If you do start any of these changes, you may have a resulting stabilization of libido—some women with PCOS have extremely high sex drives and feel that they are on an even keel once they do some harm reduction methods like these. Some who have low libido feel that it goes higher!
Doctors want to talk to you about fertility. That is not my speciality, and it isn’t something that is my personal concern at all. This is just some information I wish I had known back when I started my journey to get my PCOS under control.
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Hello, lovely!
I have been admiring your fics for a long while and wanted to request a Larissa/ student femme reader in which R was abused as a child and has an aversion to touch, but needs a physical (which they have an understandable phobia to). Something hurt/comfort where Larissa holds them through the exam.
Thank you in advance 🩵
You’re safe my love| h&c
*Authors note ~this is such a touchy subject so I'm going to do my best to handle it delicately*
Trigger warnings~ child abuse mentions of death and cervical cancer
Prompt~ see ask^^^l
✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰
Your childhood was no secret from your girlfriend, she knew the horrors you'd been subjected to at such a young age, and how they still affected you to this day. That's one of the main reasons you were able to keep your relationship under wraps for so long. Your aversion to touch had been there for as long as you could remember. Anyone who would even just poke you in a teasing manner would cause a meltdown.
That was fine for a while, sure you had those moments like every other person where a simple hug could really go a long way in comforting you, but you couldn't allow anyone near to you and no one wanted to anyway which left you to learn the act of self soothing. All of that changed when you met Larissa Weems.
At first you would freeze up, she was never sure why, then you'd shake and finally cry. It was like you were terrified of her. With Larissa's issues herself, other partners wanting her to shift into other people, you knew it was best to sit down and tell her everything. That night was filled with many tears and no matter how much the older woman longed to hold you in her arms and soothe all the pain away, she didn't want to risk upsetting you further. You had these boundaries for a very good reason, together you'd work to lower them, but that all takes time.
Larissa was amazingly patient with you, never pushing for more, encouraging you to self soothe however you needed, even dealing with youre regression. As a coping mechanism you tended to slip into little headspace, where you were even more terrified of affection. However, Larissa wasn't expecting the first time you allowed her to hold, to be in headspace. But it was and she made sure to respect boundaries as soon as you said "no more" she stopped. It was much like that until you found yourself seeking the taller woman out for comfort.
It had taken sometime and lot of patience and determination but you were finally ready to let Larissa and her only touch you. It was oddly relaxing to be in her arms, Larissa let you be there as much as you wanted, never wanting to turn down any form of affection and you regress back into avoiding it. It had been used to hurt you so much in the past, she wanted to show you the other side. What it could be like.
You knew you had a medical exam coming up, smear test, and you were absolutely terrified. Only Larissa could touch you. Especially there. When the letter came you broke down to your girlfriend pleading with her to not make you go. But it was for your health so Larissa couldn't make that deal, instead she made a new offer, "how about I come with you sweetheart, I'll make sure she doesn't harm my girl hm ?" Even that new offer took hours of persuading and encouraging you to agree with.
The day of the exam arrived and you were an absolute nervous wreck. Larissa was truly a god send, never overstepping any boundaries and always trying to soothe your anxiety. She knew how hard this would be for you but unfortunately this was something that needed to be done, one day it could potentially save your life. Larissa told you of her dear friend Caroline, who had this test, the test diagnosed her cervical cancer. Unfortunately Larissa lost her friend as the cancer was too aggressive and in too late of the stages to save her. You could tell by the way she got choked up that if that was to happen to you she'd be broken. That's the only reason why you even agreed to do this. For her.
Laying on that table, feeling all exposed, was triggering off your panic attacks. As if your girlfriend knew that she spoke to the nurses before coming to sit behind you. Your head propped up against her chest. Both your hand joined together and she would drop kisses to your head every now and then. "Isa. Don't let her hurt me. Please I'll be good. Please Isa" you whimpered as tears began to fall. The exam hadn't even started yet but you were terrified. "I won't darling. It's okay you can feel me yes?" She queried and you nodded sniffling. "That's good baby. Focus on that okay?" She murmured as you nodded.
Mid way through the examination you sobbed, turning your head to burry it into her chest, the nurse looked up at your girlfriend concerned only to be met with the shake of her head. The silent conversation you were completely unaware of, "Isa hurts" you whimpered as you cried into her. "I know baby I know, you're almost there darling. You're doing so well. Such a good girl" she murmured over and over as one of her hands rubbed at your back, the angle awkward but she'd cope with it. Anything to make you feel better.
Truthfully, the exam was over rather quickly, the nurse slipping from the room, allowing you to calm down and re dress. Larissa sat there as you shifted to cuddle into her more closely, "it's okay baby. All done. You did so well. I'm so proud of you beautiful. Let's get you dressed and we can go back and have a nice bath or cuddle on the bed okay?"she whispered as you nodded. The pads of her thumbs came to wipe your tears before helping you get dressed again. You'd done it now, Larissa would look after you and make sure you were never hurt again. You knew that.
Word count ~ 1050
#anon answered#v3nusxsky answers#fanfic#larissa weems#principal larissa weems x reader#principal larissa weems#principleweemsxreader#larissa x you#larissa weems x reader#larissa x reader#principle weems#weems x reader#anon requested
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The Best News of Last Week
🌍🌡️ - Climate Prophecy: The Forecast Is 100% Chance of 'Cool'
1. No cases of cancer caused by HPV in Norwegian 25-year olds, the first cohort to be mass vaccinated for HPV
Last year there were zero cases of cervical cancer in the population that was vaccinated in 2009 against the HPV virus, which can cause the cancer in women. The HPV virus is extremely common, basically everyone comes into contact with one version or another of the virus in their lifetime.
The vaccine was given to girls only out of an abundance of caution, they were the most likely to contract cancer from the viruses, and because there was limited supply.
2. ‘Every square inch is covered in life’: the ageing oil rigs that became marine oases
Built decades ago, California’s offshore oil platforms are home to a huge diversity of marine life. According to a 2014 study, the rigs were some of the most “productive” ocean habitats in the world, a term that refers to biomass – or number of fish and other creatures and how much space they take up – per unit area.
3. Vaccinations may have prevented almost 20 million COVID-19 deaths worldwide
Vaccinations estimated to have averted 19.8 million COVID-19 deaths worldwide in their first year, according to the latest Imperial modelling study.
In the first year of the vaccination programme, 19.8 million out of a potential 31.4 million COVID-19 deaths were prevented worldwide according to estimates based on excess deaths from 185 countries and territories.
4. Global climate policy forecast predicts ‘well below 2°C’ Paris Agreement climate goals will be met
They report only a 10% probability we exceed 2°C by 2050. Temperatures are expected to peak between 1.7°C and 1.8°C, which is consistent with the “well below 2°C” objective of the Paris Agreement in Art. 2.1c.
5. Young driver fatality rates have fallen sharply in the US, helped by education, technology
Crash and fatality rates among drivers under 21 have fallen dramatically in the U.S. during the past 20 years.
Using data from 2002-2021, the report says that fatal crashes involving a young driver fell by 38%, while deaths of young drivers dropped even more, by about 45%.
6. A Virginia woman was feeling sad. Her doctor prescribed her a cat.
7. Remote workers report saving $5,000 to $10,000 a year
What value would American workers place on the privilege to work from home?
In a 2022 survey by FlexJobs, 45% of remote workers reported saving at least $5,000 a year. One in 5 reported saving $10,000 a year. The savings average out to about $6,000 a year. The poll reached 4,000 workers in July and August of last year.
Three years into the remote-work revolution, research increasingly suggests that telework is a commodity, a job descriptor worth thousands of dollars in potential savings and improved quality of life.
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That's it for this week :)
This newsletter will always be free. If you liked this post you can support me with a small kofi donation here:
Buy me a coffee ❤️
Also don’t forget to reblog this post with your friends.
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HPV Prevention
HPV or Human Papillomavirus is the most commonly transmitted viral infection of the reproductive tract. Visit the site to know more about HPV. #HPVsearchkiyakya
#hpvsearchkiyakya#hpv search kiya kya#what is hpv#hpv prevention#hpv meaning#hpv cervical cancer#what are hpv symptoms#female hpv symptoms#what causes human papillomavirus
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Hi sex witch! I need to get a pap smear done (I'm a 26 y/o cis lady). I've tried getting them before twice, but both times, I was so distressed (involuntary screaming), that the gynecologist decided we needed to stop. For reference, I've never had a sexual partner and am ace and autistic, and penetration just feels extremely painful, unfamiliar, and unwanted. I've heard that this might be called vaginismus. Do you have any recommendations for how to approach trying again to get a pap smear?
hi anon,
I think first and foremost it's worth having a chat with your gynecologist about whether a pap smear is strictly necessary.
the primary purpose of a pap smear is to catch abnormalities that could indicate the presence of cervical cancer, but the vast majority of cases of cervical cancer are caused by HPV, which you're extremely unlikely to have if you've never had a sexual partner. while there can be other risk factors that can slightly increase the odds - smoking, for one, and being immunocompromised - there's a good chance that your risk of cervical cancer is next to nothing, in which case this is an awful lot of stress to put you through for something truly negligible.
in the case that you decide a pap smear is still necessary, you may want to look into some drastic options. although it's not common, it is possible to have pap smears done under anesthesia, which sounds as if it would be the least traumatic option for you. few gynecologists are equipped to provide anesthesia, so it would likely require some moving around and coordinating with another hospital, but given the severity if your response it's the most reasonable option I can think of, and would definitely be worth discussing.
it's entirely possible that you could have vaginismus, but there are any number of reasons why penetration might be unpleasant. a pap smear is hardly the best circumstance in which to judge. regardless of what's causing your discomfort, I hope you're able to find a solution that feels safe and comfortable for you.
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Something that still really fucks me up?
The way the HPV vaccine was advertised when they were doing HPV shots, along with other vaccinations, through my school when I was ~13.
The information flier that was sent home with us wasn’t calling it a vaccine for HPV, it was labelled as a vaccine for cervical cancer.
My parents did research on what it was, because, to their knowledge, a vaccine that would prevent cervical cancer didn’t exist. And they were right. The vaccine, even though it wasn’t advertised to be so, was a vaccine for HPV. HPV is the cause of 95% of cervical cancer, but not all cervical cancer is caused by HPV. HPV is not, in-and-of-itself, cervical cancer.
And, because that information—that the vaccine was actually against HPV—was not presented as part of the flier that was sent home, they felt uncomfortable letting their kid get vaccinated. Because how exactly do you trust something that doesn’t tell you what is actually being vaccinated for?
I don’t blame my parents At All for choosing not to have me vaccinated for HPV under those conditions. I blame whoever it was that chose to leave off that the vaccine was for HPV and instead just advertise it as a vaccine for cervical cancer, period. But I do really wish it was easier to do it now, as an adult.
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It did not seem like a good thing when a precious consignment of human tumour samples on its way from Kampala, Uganda, to Heathrow was diverted to Manchester. When the samples finally arrived at the Middlesex hospital in London, they were swimming in murky fluid in their vials as though they had been infected with bacteria.
But when the pathologist Anthony Epstein looked at the fluid under the microscope he saw no bacteria, just individual cells that had been shaken loose from the tumours. And that was just what he needed in order to search for elusive virus particles and test his hunch that they were causing cancer.
In the early 1960s Epstein, who has died aged 102, had heard a lecture by Denis Burkitt, an Irish surgeon working in Kampala, that described strange tumours (now known as Burkitt lymphoma) growing around the jaws of children in equatorial Africa.
Intriguingly, the geographical distribution of the condition seemed to depend on temperature and rainfall, suggesting a biological cause. Epstein, who had been working with viruses that cause cancer in chickens, immediately suspected a virus might be involved, perhaps in association with another tropical disease such as malaria.
Epstein began to collaborate with Burkitt, who supplied him with tumours from children he had treated. But Epstein’s efforts to grow pieces of tumour in the laboratory and isolate a virus had all been unsuccessful until the dissociated cells arrived.
With his graduate student Yvonne Barr, he then decided to look at cultures of these cells in an electron microscope, a powerful instrument that had only recently become available in his lab.
The very first image showed a tell-tale outline that looked like one of the family of herpes viruses. It turned out to be a previously undescribed member of that family, and was given the name Epstein-Barr virus. In 1964, Epstein, Barr and Epstein’s research assistant, Bert Achong, published the first evidence that cancer in humans could be caused by a virus – to be greeted by widespread scepticism even though they went on to demonstrate that EB virus caused tumours in monkeys.
Thanks to samples supplied by Epstein, in 1970 Werner and Gertrude Henle at the Children’s hospital in Philadelphia discovered that EB virus also caused glandular fever. That made it possible to design a test for antibodies to the virus in order to confirm a diagnosis. EB virus turned out to be very common, infecting most children in early life, though it usually causes glandular fever only in older teenagers and young adults. As well as causing Burkitt lymphoma in endemic areas in Africa and Papua New Guinea, it is also associated with a cancer of the nose and throat that is the most common cancer of men in south China, as well as cancers in people whose immune systems have been compromised, such as those infected with HIV.
More recent research suggests that EB virus might also be involved in some cases of multiple sclerosis, and that people who have previously had glandular fever are more susceptible to severe Covid-19.
After the discovery, Epstein and others devoted time and effort to trying to find out under what circumstances EB virus causes cancer. The relationship between the virus, other diseases, human genetics and cancer is complex, and it took decades before the medical community could accept the EB virus as a cause with confidence.
Not until 1997 did the International Agency for Research on Cancer class it as a Group 1 carcinogen, formally acknowledging its role in a variety of cancers.
The discovery of EB virus opened up a whole new field of research into cancer-causing viruses. It also raised the exciting possibility of preventing cancers through vaccination, an advance that has now been achieved in the case of human papilloma virus, which causes cervical cancer, and hepatitis B virus, which causes liver cancer.
By the time of his retirement in 1985, Epstein’s research group at the University of Bristol had developed a candidate vaccine that protected monkeys infected with EB virus against tumours, but neither it nor any other candidate has yet been successfully developed for human use.
Epstein was born in London, one of three children of Olga (nee Oppenheimer) and Mortimer Epstein. Mortimer was a writer and translator who edited The Statesman’s Yearbook for Macmillan from 1924 until his death in 1946. Olga was involved with charitable work in the Jewish community. Anthony attended St Paul’s school in west London, where the biology teacher Sidney Pask encouraged boys to go far beyond the syllabus and whose pupils also included Robert Winston and Jonathan Miller.
Epstein won a place to study medicine at Trinity College, Cambridge. He moved to Middlesex hospital medical school in wartime London to complete his training, before doing his national service in India with the Royal Army Medical Corps. He returned to work at the Middlesex hospital as assistant pathologist, conducting his own research. Thinking electron microscopy might be useful in his studies of cancer-causing viruses in chickens, he spent some time learning the new technique at the Rockefeller Institute in New York (now Rockefeller University). Not long afterwards he attended Burkitt’s lecture and began the serendipitous route to his discovery.
In 1968 he was appointed professor and head of the department of pathology at the University of Bristol, where he remained until his retirement. He moved to Oxford as a fellow of Wolfson College in 1986, becoming an honorary fellow in 2001.
An exemplary scientific good citizen, he served as foreign secretary and vice-president of the Royal Society, and sat on boards and councils for numerous national and international research organisations, including as a special representative of the director general of Unesco; he was also a patron of Humanists UK. Among his many prizes and honorary degrees, he received the international Gairdner award for biomedical research in 1988. He was appointed CBE in 1985 and knighted in 1991.
“It was a series of accidents, really,” he said of his discovery in a conversation with Burkitt they recorded for Oxford Brookes University’s oral history archive in 1991. “Lucky quirks.” Burkitt immediately responded with Louis Pasteur’s aphorism: “Chance favours the prepared mind.”
Epstein was a deeply cultured man who retained a lively interest in many subjects – particularly oriental rugs, Tibet and amphibians – until the end of his life.
He is survived by his partner, Kate Ward, by his children Susan, Simon and Michael, from his marriage to Lisbeth Knight, from whom he was separated in 1965, and who died in 2015, and by two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
🔔Michael Anthony Epstein, pathologist, born 18 May 1921; died 6 February 2024
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Long Covid may be the body trying to fight off other viruses (Sarah Knapton, The Telegraph, April 08 2024)
"Dr Felicity Liew, from Imperial’s National Heart & Lung Institute, said:
“Even though the acute phase of illness resolves, there may be virus persisting in the body that could continually trigger the immune system and cause the ongoing inflammation that we found.
“It can also cause reactivation of herpes viruses or people that previously had glandular fever caused by Epstein-Barr virus, and it can cause that to reactivate and cause ongoing symptoms.
“Or it can result in autoimmunity, and all of those scenarios result in the types of inflammation that we see, and could result in chronic and ongoing abnormal inflammation represented by these proteins highlighted here.”
There are eight herpes viruses that routinely infect humans, and which lie dormant in the body.
Around 70 per cent of people in Britain carry the Herpes Simplex type 1 (HS1) virus, which causes cold sores, while 10 per cent have HS2, which can cause genital warts and is linked to cervical cancer.
Similarly, around nine in 10 people carry Epstein-Barr – also a type of herpes – which mostly causes no problems, but can sometimes lead to glandular fever, encephalitis, meningitis and trigger auto-immunity.
Usually dormant viruses are kept at bay by the immune system, but experts think Covid-19 requires so much attention that it may allow other viruses through the defensive cracks. (…)
Researchers believe long Covid may be similar, or the same, as post-viral syndrome which leads to people experiencing fatigue and brain fog after influenza and other viruses, and may be to blame for conditions such as ME/CFS.
The team say the sheer number of people suffering ongoing symptoms after Covid gives the opportunity to get to the bottom of what is causing these after-viral effects, and could lead to help for other long-term conditions."
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therapy yesterday (tw: health anxiety, specifically heart-related; contamination OCD)
so i probably have health anxiety. i've been having some physical symptoms which led me to get an electrocardiogram (ECG) and then a 24hr ECG - and of course i didn't have any symptoms during, only before and after 🙄- but i talked to my psych about how i get all obsessive over it (e.g. i get palpitations, i check what that could mean, i worry i'm having a heart attack, the anxiety causes the palpitations to get worse, the cycle continues). and turns out she wrote her masters thesis on heart-related health anxiety so literally the best person i could be talking to about this!
in typical health anxiety fashion i spent all of today researching health anxiety. i found a subreddit (r/HealthAnxiety) and reading their posts has been really helpful. i also found a workbook on health anxiety so i'll read that.
the thing to remember is that i'm still here. like... i've had many episodes of these heart symptoms and i'm not dead.
of course though, all the symptoms of a heart attack are the same as symptoms of anxiety & panic attacks. which makes it hard! but then the trick is to wait, as hard as that is. if you're really having a heart attack, your body knows. panic attacks are awful but they won't kill you.
if i had been assessed as a kid, i reckon i would've been diagnosed with OCD (and painfully obvious autism lol). i read Roald Dahl's autobiography when i was a kid and he wrote about having appendicitis which scared the shit out of me. obviously treatment and prognosis of appendicitis is way better in 2023 than it was in the early 1900s lol. but if i felt any amount of abdominal pain i'd be mentally running through the symptoms of appendicitis and freak myself out over it. (a small reason why i got a hysterectomy was so that i'd be 100% certain that i could never get a ruptured ovarian cyst, or endometriosis, or cervical cancer, etc.).
i was also obsessed with (and terrified of) natural disasters. i'd memorised all the cloud shapes and patterns and what they meant and i was always analysing the clouds to make sure a tornado wasn't about to happen (worth noting i live in a part of the world where tornadoes literally do not happen). or i'd see a mountain that was vaguely pointy and i'd be like, oh shit what if that's a volcano. or i'd be at the beach and be obsessively checking the sky and sea to make sure i'd be prepared if a tsunami were to happen (again, there's no volcanic activity here or tsunamis). bushfires do happen and can be pretty severe (our house came close to burning down a few times) and i still fixate on them during bushfire season but definitely not to the point i did as a kid.
i also went through a phase were i'd never be sure if i washed my hands after going to the loo, so i'd go back to the bathroom multiple times to wash them again. classic OCD there.
my psych and i theorise that these anxiety/OCD-like symptoms are the result of autism and trauma (as everything seems to be in my life lol). it makes sense - a little (undiagnosed) autistic kid in a chaotic, unstable environment hyperfixates on control and uncertainty (OCD)... and develops a fear of pain and death. an injury can be controlled, there's a process and uniformity to it (e.g. you cut your finger, so you wash it and get a bandaid, and over time it heals). an abusive environment is unpredictable and can't be controlled, so you focus on what you can control (and dissociate from the rest). once again, i have to wonder how much easier and better my life would be if it weren't for all the trauma lol...
#dogpost#personal#hs' anxiety#health anxiety#illness anxiety#hypochondria#the dr thought it might be mild serotonin syndrome (tho unlikely) so i had to stop my anti-anxiety meds ironically#obsessive compulsive related disorders#somatic symptoms#hypochondriasis#ocd#obsessive compulsive disorder#in my unprofessional opinion i think HA is a type of OCD (it has obsessions (health) & compulsions (checking & reassurance))#also the queue has run out so i'll be not very active for a bit while i get through my drafts and fill up the queue again
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