Side Effects of Oral Contraceptive Pills

Oral Contraceptive Pills

- contain estrogen and progesterone (composition may vary)

Side effects:

Most women have no side effects. Most side effects go away after the 1^st 3-4 cycles.

- Bleeding between periods: spotting may occur while taking the first three weeks of hormone pills, but this is not serious. Usually occurs during the first 2-3 cycles. Becomes serious if bleeding becomes heavier or last a few days.

- Irregular periods

- Nausea: usually goes away if the pill is taken with a meal or a snack at bedtime (due to effects of estrogen..therefore if too severe, give pill with less estrogen)

- Headaches: also given lower dose of estrogen or taken off OCP if too severe

- Mood changes: exercise and a healthy diet may help, if not, change the type of pill

- Acne: usually helps cure acne, but a few women feel they get acne from taking OCP

- Appetite change: appetite increases, becomes bloated

- Weight gain (some claim they lose weight)

- Breast tenderness

- Blood clots: usually in women over 35 who smoke

Important:

• Abdominal pain (severe)
• Chest pain (severe), cough, shortness of breath
• Headache (severe), dizziness, weakness, or numbness
• Eye problems (vision loss or blurring), speech problems
• Severe leg pain (calf or thigh)

Why do women use OCP?

- Milder menstrual cramps: for girls who experience severe menstrual cramps and OTC medications do not help. Helps to decrease menstrual cramps.

- Lighter periods: reduce the amount and length of menstrual bleeding. For girls whose menstrual periods are irregular (too often, too late, or not at all), OCP help regulate the menstrual cycle to every 28 days and provide the body normal amounts of estrogen to help protect the bones

- Cure acne: for moderate to sever acne, which OTC and prescription medications can’t cure, OCPs may be used. Hormones help stop acne from forming. May take several months to work

- Protection from ovarian cancer and endometrial (lining of uterus) cancer

- Does not increase risk of breast cancer

- Protection from anemia: because less menstrual bleed

Resources:

http://womenshealth.about.com/od/thepill/f/pillsideeffects.htm

http://www.youngwomenshealth.org/med-uses-ocp.html

(Posted by: Vivian)

Sign & Symptoms of Hyperthyroidism and Graves' disease

Signs and Symptoms of Hyperthyroidism

· Weight loss, increased appetite
· Recent onset of heat intolerance
· Agitation, nervousness
· Hot, sweaty palms
· Fine peripheral tremor
· Bounding (forceful) peripheral pulses
· Tachycardia, atrial fibrillation
· Lid retraction and lid lag
· Goitre, with or without overlying bruit
· Brisk tendon reflexes

Signs and symptoms are usually a result of increased basal metabolism rate and sympathetic activity. It is thought that the thyroid hormone increases the activity of the sympathetic system by increasing the body's sensitivity to catecholamines.
Autonomic overactivity causes increased tone and spasm of levator palpebrae superioris. This causes retraction of the upper lid as well as an abnormal following reflex where the upper lid lags well being the pupil during downward movement.

Signs and Symptoms of Graves’ disease

· Diffuse goitre with audible bruit
· Pretibial myxoedema (non-pitting oedema), finger clubbing
· Onycholysis (Plummer’s nails)
· Lid retraction, lid lag
· Proptosis, exophthalmos (a more severe form of proptosis)
· Conjuctival oedema (chemosis)

Signs and symptoms unique to Graves’ disease may be a result of antibody-mediated autoimmune reactions. It is thought that antibodies found in Graves’ disease react with antigens found in parts of the body e.g. the eye, (causing the eyes to swell and protrude) & the nails (causing separation of nail from its bed).


Comparison between Signs and Symptoms of Graves ’ disease and Toxic Nodular Goitre (another cause of hyperthyroidism)

Graves’ disease (GD) vs Nodular Goitre (NG)

Sex: Female >> Male(GD) Female = Male(NG)

EyeSigns: Very common, exophthalmos(GD) Less severe(NG)

Goitre: Smooth, diffuse, overlying bruit (GD) Uneven, may be multinodular(NG)

Heart: Tachycardia, atrial fibrillation(GD) Also angina, congestive heart failure(NG)

Weight: May lose weight(GD) Often profound weight loss(NG)

Contributed by John Lee

Source: Epstein, Clinical Examination 3rd Ed

Effects of stress

Week 2 – The Wedding
Effects of stress
Presented by
Ji Keon LOOI

Acknowledgements
•Dr Craig Hassed’s Year 1 Lecture Notes
•Prof. Khalid’s Year 2 Endocrinology Notes
Visit http://pclgroupd.blogspot.com for more information.

Outline of presentation
After this presentation, you are expected:-
•To define stress and allostatic load
•To look at how the body reacts in presence of stress (endocrinology)
•To discuss the negative consequences as a result of chronic/prolonged stress, using our immune system as an example
•To appreciate different modalities available to help cope with stress

Stress? Allostatic Load? What are they?
Stress
•Perceived inability to cope
•Natural and essential physiological response to threat, to preserve life
•Will impose negative consequences if not switched off when is not necessary

Allostatic Load
•Prolonged stress leads to wear and tear on the body
•Mediated through the symphathetic nervous system

What happened when you are stressed !?!
*Refer to Prof Khalid’s Adrenal Gland Lecture

Craig Hassed’s Revision
Don’t worry
3 more slides to go ;-)

Effects of Stress on Immunity
•Lower immune markers
•Increase susceptibility to infections
•Increase severity and progression of infections
•Increase relapse of chronic and latent infections
•Increase activity of inflammatory illnesses
•Increase activity of autoimmune conditions (in relation to this case)
•Poor response to immunisation
•Effect the activity of allergic conditions
•Impair immune response to some cancers

How to ease stress?
•Focus on the present
–One action at a time
•Clarify perception
–CBT, mindfulness, relaxation
•Learning from but letting go of the past
–Do not ruminate over past mistakes


Mindfulness Based Therapy
•Characterised by dispassionate, non evaluative, sustained moment-to-moment awareness of perceptible mental states and processes

MCQ
The followings are basic assumptions of mindfulness, EXCEPT:
•People generally operate on automatic pilot
•Development of mindfulness is gradual, and requires practise
•Awareness makes life richer and more vivid
•Awareness replaces conscious reactiveness
•It gives rise to veridicality of perceptions

Thank you!!!
Man is not disturbed by events, but by the view he takes of them
~ Epitectus.

Labelling our posts

To avoid confusion to differentiate between pcl materials from MED2031 and MED2042 since we start with Week 1 again this semester, I would suggest that we label our work according to the title of the week.

I have entered all the pcl titles under this post and they should appear when you type in the first letter into the label slot. Alternatively, click on Show all to display all the pcl title.

Thanks.

Ji Keon