Features
Managing excruciating pain during ovulation and menstruation
This is a subject area I am not well vexed in because I am not a gynaecologist, neither am I a medical expert or a trained nurse who deals in issues related to women’s health. I am only a simple and common journalist, but with curious and inquisitive mindset who always wants to probe into issues involving all spheres of national life. It can be politics, education, agriculture, sports, corruption, graft, family planning, mining, forestry, oil and gas extraction among other subject areas of the economy, that need to be highlighted for the benefit of the entire citizenry. Therefore, the medical experts, should pardon me if I am not able to delve deep into the subject area, I have chosen to write on.
RESEARCH INTO
UNFAMILIAR AREAS
Many of my readers and patrons will ask me this vital question; You have admitted that you are not familiar with the subject area you have chosen to write on, why then, do you have to waste your time and energy to thread on that path? They, may be rightly so in asking me that question, but as a trained journalist, you have to muddy through the waters and research into unfamiliar areas and present the facts as they should in your write-ups.
My interest in this very topic, “Pains during ovulation and menstruation” was premised on the ground that I recently visited a male friend of mine, (the location of which I will not disclose in this article) whose wife was experiencing severe and excruciating pain in the abdomen at the time of my visit. Realising the condition of the woman and being so inquisitive, I decided to engage my friend (her husband) in a short conversation about what was going on with regards to pain by the lady. It was in our conversation that he told me point blank that, it was a regular monthly feature for her during her ovulation and menstruation. I felt bad for both of them. I lost my wife so many years back and even when she was alive, I did not witness such a situation from her.
BAD AND PAINFUL EXPERIENCE
The bad experience I witnessed from my friend wife’s condition, compelled me to delve into that subject area by doing a bit of research work to establish the causes of pains during ovulation and menstruation among women and probably the antidote.
To the lay man or woman on the street, menstruation or what is commonly referred to as period, is the bleeding that occurs after ovulation, if you don’t get pregnant. During menstruation, blood mucus and tissue flow out of the cervix and vagina each month. Ovulation, on the other hand is when the egg is released from your ovaries to be fertilized. In an average, 28-day menstrual cycle, ovulation typically occurs about 14 days before the start of next menstrual period.
LUTEAL PHASE OF MENSTRUATION
The luteal phase of the menstrual cycle starts when the eggs have been released during ovulation, so around 14 days before your period starts, the eggs leaves behind its shell which starts to produce progesterone to hold the lining of the uterus mature. In the medical world, menstruation happens when an egg that is released from your ovary is not fertilized, so the uterus sheds its lining. In view of this, you cannot technically menstruate without ovulating. However, you can still bleed and experience your period without ovulating.
Your menstrual cycle begins on the first day of your period and continues up to the first day of your next period. You are most fertile at the time of ovulation which usually occurs 12 to 14 days before your next period starts. A girl can get pregnant during her period. This might happen when a girl has bleeding that she thinks is a period, but it is bleeding from ovulation. A woman’s ovulation cycles can vary so it is statistically possible, she can become pregnant while on her period. While pregnancy is less likely in the earlier days of her period, the chances increase in the later days.
ONE-SIDED PAIN IN LOWER ABDOMEN
Some women get one-sided pain in their lower abdomen when they ovulate. It happens about 14 days before your period, when an ovary releases an egg as part of the menstrual cycle. Once ovulation occurs, your eggs travel through your fallopian tube and it is in your tube that your eggs meet the sperm for fertilization. If conception occurs, the fertilized egg travels down your uterus.
During your menstrual period, your uterus contracts to help expel the lining. Hormone-like substances (prostaglandins) involved in pain and inflammation trigger the uterine muscle contractions. Higher levels of prostaglandins are associated with more severe menstrual cramps. Having painful period is a condition called dysmenorrhea. It is the most commonly reported menstrual disorder.
More than half of menstruating women report pain. While painful periods themselves may not be linked to fertility issues, some of the causes behind the pain are associated with infertility. Some of these conditions can get worse over time which is why getting diagnosed and treated early is important.
CONDITIONS THAT
CAUSE PAIN
Conditions that cause abdominal pain during menstruation and also impact negatively on fertility include endometriosis, fibroids, ovarian cysts and pelvic inflammatory diseases. It appears that not all women experience pain during menstrual periods, some may have theirs easy and smooth sailing while that of others can be unbearable.
Like I stated earlier, I am not an expert in that field and therefore, I cannot say much about the subject but at least my little research on the subject will be of interest to my readers and patrons, especially women, more importantly the adolescent girls who may not understand the causes of this painful menstruation.
TEACHING OF HEALTH SCIENCE IN BASIC SCHOOLS
I will advocate the infusion of this particular subject area in the curricula from the Junior to Senior high schools, so that the female child is kept abreast of issues relating to the emergence of pregnancy from infancy to adulthood in order to avoid lifestyles that will inhibit their future and progression.
We need to intensify the teaching of health-related issues in our educational institutions especially at the lower level as it is done in the case of health and applied science in our tertiary institutions because children in their formative years, can pick up easily on what they are taught as they progress to the higher level in their education.
We have to use textbooks or open discussions to create awareness about menarche. Social support includes, providing moral support to girls and spreading knowledge to other sectors of the population so that menstruating girls are not treated as outcasts. Giving the multiple challenges women and adolescent girls face, it is evident that promoting menstrual hygiene management is not only a sanitation matter. It is also an important step towards safeguarding the dignity, bodily integrity and overall life opportunities of women and girls.
MENSTRUAL HEALTH MANAGEMENT
Menstrual health management is a critical component of reproductive health and an important entry point for adolescent sexual reproductive health programming. Factual information on mental health management and puberty is part of the school curriculum and the capacities of teachers are built to teach these issues with comfort.
There is the need for us as a country to intensify and highlight the importance of good menstrual hygiene on May 28 each year, a day designated as Menstrual Hygiene Day which is celebrated across the world.
Contact email/WhatsApp of author:
ataani2000@yahoo.com 0277753946/0248933366
By Charles Neequaye
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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