Hormones & downstairs geography

Cranky? You know it's your hormones, don't you? Feeling all over the place like a madwoman's washhouse, as my nanna used to say? It's your hormones. Nauseated? Probably hormones. Trouble at the United Nations General Assembly agreeing on a policy for the Congo? Ooh, that'd be your hormones, I reckon. Ah, the unfathomable female reproductive system. Let's see if we can understand some of the mystery. Otherwise we may as well pop back to the Middle Ages, when they declared that the uterus was an organ that wandered about the body, which made women flighty and neurotic (hyster – womb; hysterical – person with a womb, apparently).

Periods

If we deftly arranged six assorted women around a table (it's easier than getting them in a vase), we'd probably get at least 8.5 attitudes to their periods: 'Argghh! I hate getting my period', 'Argghh! I get scared when I don't get my period', 'I prefer to take the Pill all the time so I never get one', 'I worship mine, and welcome each moon-woman bleeding hour, which I honour with forest tambourine ceremonies at which I wear tiedyed culottes', 'I don't know if mine are normal', 'My periods hurt. A lot. And just before I get one I want to lie down and bite somebody and if I can't decide which I'll just fall over and cry', 'Periods are perfectly normal and I can't see what all the fuss is about', 'Shut up or I'll bite you quite a lot.'

In this chapter we'll look at 'normal' periods, period pain and other problems, premenstrual symptoms, endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and try to minimise the biting. And the culottes.

Breast health

There isn't much I can write about the history of breasts without waggling a few confronting, perky but firm clichés at you while we both pause for an imaginary blatting soundtrack of stripper-act trombone music with appropriate salacious barps of the trumpet to punctuate the tassel twirling. Barrrp!

Here's how to look after them, what to expect from a mammogram and other bosomry procedures, what to do if you find a lump, and what you need to know about breast cancer, including the fact that most women survive it. Now grab a tassel and read on.

Pregnancy thoughts & decisions

For every woman who has her fingers crossed and can't wait to feel thrilled by the news she's pregnant, there are others dreading the possibility and willing their next period to appear. This chapter is for both kinds of women, not least because most of us will feel both of those things at different times in our life. Should you try to get pregnant, and if so, when is a good time? What if you want to be and you're not, or you are and you don't? See, it can be complicated. Let's sort it out.

Menopause

A lot of women have told me they can't wait to read this chapter. I'm very much afraid they think it's going to have a magic answer in it that will make menopause symptoms vanish in a gigantic pouffe. Listen, I love a big pouffe as much as the next person, but I'm afraid that for some people, going through menopause is a pain in the neck. The extent of the pain-in-the-neckity will have to do not just with personal philosophy but luck: some of us just have rougher symptoms than others when the oestrogen-dispatch department decides it's time to retire.

In this chapter we'll take a tour of what happens before, during and after menopause, and examine its implications for everything from comfort and acceptance, natural and medical help with symptoms, knowing when to stop contraception, and what to wear when hot flushes give you the whim-whams.

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