Look Good … Feel Better program

Look Good … Feel Better program

SALEM

Women undergoing cancer treatment can learn techniques for looking and feeling their best during an upcoming session of the American Cancer Society’s Look Good…Feel Better program, hosted by Salem Regional Medical Center, 1995 E. State St., from 10 a.m. to noon April 11 in classrooms 3 and 4 on the hospital’s second floor.

During the workshop, a trained volunteer cosmetologist helps women cope with appearance-related side effects of treatment by offering assistance with makeup application, skin care, and hair and wig techniques. Light refreshments are offered. Registration is required to receive a personalized makeup kit to use during the workshop. Call the American Cancer Society at 1-800-227-2345 option 5 by April 5.

Endometriosis Awareness Month

Aiken, S.C.

March is Endometriosis Awareness Month.

Endometriosis, a disease that affects at least 176 million women worldwide, is characterized as having tissue similar to the endometrium, the tissue that lines the uterus, in other places such as the ovaries, fallopian tubes, bowels, and pelvic walls. This tissue should normally be expelled by the body, but with endometriosis, it is unable to exit, causing severe pain and other symptoms.

Author, health professional and endometriosis patient Samantha Bowick has written a new book,”Living with Endometriosis: The Complete Guide to Risk Factors, Symptoms, and Treatment Options,” which comes out April 24.

In her book, Bowick has compiled a list of seven signs that women may have endometriosis and should consult a specialist. The signs are: Period pain, not characterized as cramping, that makes you miss work, school, events, and forces you to lay in bed; heavy periods; painful intercourse; painful bowel movements and diarrhea or constipation; pelvic pain even when you don’t have your period; nausea/vomiting/bloating; and infertility/hormone imbalances.

Birth control and depression study

COLUMBUS

Many of the 37 million women in the United States on birth control still worry about potential side effects, particularly depression.

However, a new study by researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center has found that there is no evidence to support a link between hormonal birth control and depression.

“The biggest misconception is that birth control leads to depression, and for most patients that’s just not the case,” said Dr. Brett Worly, lead author of the study and OB/GYN at the Wexner Center.

However, said Worly, women should continue to have open and honest discussions with their doctors to decide what is best for them.

Treatment for pain

BOSTON

A new Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) study has shown that opioid drugs traditionally used as the first-line treatment for moderate to severe chronic back pain and arthritic knee or hip pain were no more effective than safer over-the-counter medications.

“While opioids are no better as a first choice treatment for back pain and arthritis,... the issue is not whether narcotics have a role. Of course they do, for post-op, post-injury, and in cancer. The question that needs to be asked—and isn’t—is how to use the broad mix of natural and pharmaceutical options most effectively and safely. A prudent integrated approach allows narcotics to be used properly, much less often, and much more safely,” said Dr. Teitelbaum, author of “From Fatigued to Fantastic!,” “Pain Free 1-2-3,” and “The Fatigue and Fibromyalgia Solution.”