Women’s Health Facts

90% of the "women's health common sense" you read online, or are instilled in you by beauty salons or Wechat businesses, are either half-truths and half-false marketing gimmicks, or old conclusions that have long been overturned by academic circles. 95% of women's health anxiety is completely unnecessary.

I have been working in a gynecological clinic for almost 8 years, and I have seen too many young girls who had no problems at all, but were deceived by rumors into causing problems. I just received a 22-year-old girl a while ago. During the consultation, she was squirming and couldn't sit still. She said that her vulva was itchy for almost half a month. She changed her underwear three times a day and washed her private parts two or three times with an Internet celebrity's private parts lotion. She thought she was not clean enough. But after doing the leucorrhea routine, the bacterial flora was completely imbalanced. Nowadays, many people still believe that "washing makes you healthier". In fact, the obstetrics and gynecology community has long had a consensus: for daily private care, it is enough to wash the vulva with warm water. The vagina itself has a self-cleaning acidic environment, and there are a large number of beneficial bacteria to maintain balance. If you wash it every day, the beneficial bacteria will be washed away, and pathogenic bacteria will take the opportunity to cause chaos and cause diseases even if they are not sick. Of course, this does not mean that all lotions cannot be used. If it is a medicinal lotion prescribed by a doctor for inflammation, just use it according to the doctor's instructions. Don't just buy the Internet celebrity model with a consumer brand and use it blindly. By the way, the dark color of the private parts that many people are embarrassed to ask has nothing to do with the frequency of sexual life. It is simply melanin deposition, related to genes and hormone levels. Don’t believe in any pink and white projects, which either use corrosive ingredients to peel off the surface mucous membrane, or bleach it. Not to mention the cost, it can easily cause infection, and it is purely looking for guilt.

When it comes to the fields that are most deceived by marketing tactics, breast care definitely ranks high. A 30-year-old patient came for a breast ultrasound. I was shocked when he took off his underwear. There was a deep red indentation on his ribs, which was almost worn out. He said that he spent more than 8,000 yuan to buy a set of adjustable underwear. The salesperson said that wearing it for half a year can eliminate the secondary breasts and prevent sagging. However, after wearing it for three months, the secondary breasts have not disappeared, and I feel like I am having trouble breathing. In fact, the core causes of breast sagging are the loss of collagen with age, hormonal changes during pregnancy and breastfeeding, large weight fluctuations, and genes. The function of ordinary underwear is to support and avoid the pain of shaking when walking and exercising, and it cannot prevent sagging at all. Of course, this does not mean that underwear is completely useless. Research in the field of exercise physiology has also confirmed that wearing sports bras with sufficient support during high-intensity exercise can reduce the pull of the suspensory ligaments of the breasts, and can indeed reduce the risk of sagging in the long term. However, ordinary underwear for daily wear, or even tight underwear for sleeping, has no other use than to tighten the breasts.

There are also many people who are scared to death when breast hyperplasia is detected. For fear of turning into cancer, they buy loose knot tea everywhere and go to beauty salons for breast massage. It must be made clear here that 90% of breast hyperplasia is physiological, which is a normal reaction that occurs with the changes in hormones during the menstrual period. It is not a disease at all. There is no continuous swelling and pain, and no abnormal hard lumps can be felt. Regular breast screening every year is enough. There is no need to take medicine or massage. Of course, there are different opinions here: the massage department of regular traditional Chinese medicine hospitals does have massage techniques for breast swelling and pain during menstruation, which can appropriately relieve discomfort, but the premise is that you have done an examination first to rule out the possibility of malignant nodules. If you ask a beautician in a beauty salon to massage randomly, you can damage the breast tissue if you use too much force. If there are really bad nodules, pressing them may stimulate their spread, which is not worth the gain.

After talking about these daily care pitfalls, there is another topic that everyone has been arguing about for many years: can I wash my hair and eat ice during menstruation? In fact, there is really no standard answer to this. Modern evidence-based medicine does not have any evidence to prove that washing your hair or eating ice during menstruation will directly cause dysmenorrhea or the so-called "uterine cold". However, traditional Chinese medicine does believe that exposure to cold during menstruation will cause qi and blood stasis, aggravating discomfort. To put it bluntly, the key point is to look at your own physical feelings: if you eat ice or wash your hair during menstruation, it will be okay. You should eat and drink as you should, and you don’t have to bear the 30-plus-degree temperature in the summer and dare not touch ice drinks; if you take a sip of iced milk tea and it hurts so much that you break out in a cold sweat, then don’t do it and just drink warm water. Oh, by the way, some people say you shouldn’t exercise during menstruation. In fact, low-intensity walking and gentle yoga can promote blood circulation and relieve menstrual cramps. Just don’t do strenuous running or jumping, or exercise that puts too much abdominal pressure. You don’t have to lie down for seven days.

In addition to these daily misunderstandings, misunderstandings about the HPV vaccine can also discourage many people. Many people think that "I have sex, so getting the HPV vaccine is useless." This is not true at all. The protective effect of the HPV vaccine is indeed highest when you have no sex life. But even if you have had sex or even been infected with HPV, as long as you have not been infected with all the subtypes covered by the vaccine, vaccination can have a protective effect. Even if the infected subtype turns negative, vaccination can reduce the probability of recurrence. There is also cooler knowledge: The HPV vaccine is not only available to women. Vaccination for men can not only prevent themselves from genital warts and penile cancer, but also reduce the risk of HPV infection in their partners. It is very cost-effective.

In fact, after all, women’s health really doesn’t have that many twists and turns. You don’t need to scare yourself by staring at the various “taboos” on the Internet every day, and you don’t need to follow the trend and buy a bunch of useless care products and health care products. Listen more to the voice of your body. If you feel uncomfortable, go to a regular hospital to see a doctor first. It will work better than any of the ten marketing accounts.