I've been writing since the age of 7, when a serious operation put me in a wheelchair for 6 months and there was nothing to do so I started writing stories to entertain myself. By the end of my 6 months of home schooling during my recovery from surgery, I was so good at English, I became the top of my class.
I had my first piece of work published at the age of 13 (poetry). In 1997 I set up a support group for people injured by vaccines and it was then that I realized I perferred to write about health topics so I have written on a variety of health related subjects, including pregnancy and childbirth, breast feeding, vaccination, disability, infertility, sexual health and women's health problems. I have regular columns at Suite 101 and The Mother magazine in addition to writing one off articles for other publications and helping with the creation of reference material on disability, for students of social studies.
The menstrual cycle occurs in all females from the onset to puberty (average age 11 or 12 years) to the menopause in middle age (average age between 45-55). The lining of the uterus is shed via ...
August 3, 2018 - 12:00am
Menstrual periods occur in all females from the onset of puberty (average age of onset 11 or 12 years) and last until menopause in middle age. They occur when the lining of the uterus is shed via ...
February 24, 2018 - 7:15am
Vaginal yeast infections are often treated using antifungal medicines. But if you keep getting yeast infections, you may want to try a natural remedy.
Thrush is a very common yeast infection ...
August 19, 2016 - 5:40am
If you are going to have chemotherapy for cancer you may be concerned how this will affect your sex life.
Often, it is difficult to discuss this intimate subject with medical professionals so ...
October 30, 2012 - 7:19am
One in three people will experience cancer at some point in their lives. There are more than 200 types of cancer that can affect various parts of the body. About 22,280 people will be diagnosed ...
October 27, 2012 - 10:58am
Ovarian cancer will affect an estimated 22,280 women in the United States by the end of 2012 and will result in the deaths of around 15,500.
In the U.K. in 2009 there were 6,955 women who ...
October 18, 2012 - 4:12am
According to a large study in Denmark that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), hormone replacement therapy (HRT) definitively increases the risk of ovarian ...
October 10, 2012 - 8:30am
Ovarian cancer (malignancy of the ovaries) is the fifth most common female cancer. In the United States, there will be an estimated 22,280 women that will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer in ...
October 8, 2012 - 6:52am
Inflammatory breast cancer is a rare type of breast cancer that only amounts to 1-4 cases of breast cancer out of every 100. (1) Cancer cells block tiny lymph channels in the breast.
These ...
September 25, 2012 - 6:14am
Invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) is the most common type of breast cancer and accounts for 80 percent of all breast cancer cases in women and 90 percent in men. Men have milk ducts too, but they ...
September 22, 2012 - 5:15am
If you have been diagnosed with lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS) it means that doctors have detected some abnormal cells in your breast lobes. Despite the name carcinoma, it is not cancerous. ...
September 19, 2012 - 3:05am
Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is a type of breast cancer involving the milk ducts of your breasts. The cancer cells are only found within the ducts and have not spread to other areas of the ...
September 17, 2012 - 9:42am
Did you know that 25 percent of cancers could be prevented just by modifying our diet?
Some research suggests as many as 35 percent of cases could be prevented by changing diet. (1) That’s ...
September 14, 2012 - 10:03am
When my first child was born 16 years ago, I was told by my health visitor that under no circumstances was I ever to bed share with my baby.
She warned me that to do so was tantamount to a ...
August 25, 2012 - 6:34am
Absent periods are referred to as amenorrhea. There are two types of amenorrhea, primary and secondary.
Primary Amenorrhea
Primary amenorrhea is when, as a teenage girl, your periods never ...
August 22, 2012 - 7:30am
If you’re a pre-teen or teen girl who has not yet had a menstrual period, you may be wondering when your first period will start. And you may be feeling nervous about it.
If you’re very ...
August 18, 2012 - 7:15am
Not producing breast milk in the period immediately after birth is common in medicated deliveries.
The milk is designed to "come in" after about three days. Before that your baby drinks ...
August 8, 2012 - 4:11pm
Breast milk is the natural milk meant for a human baby and is tailored perfectly for him. It contains exactly the right amount of fat and nutrients he needs for his particular stage of infancy. ...
August 5, 2012 - 9:54am
Did you know you can use food to reduce period pain, hot flashes and other female disorders including problems in pregnancy? If you eat the right things, sometimes a drug approach is not ...
July 18, 2012 - 6:48am
People often complain that they have tried to lose weight by skipping meals and it hasn’t helped them lose weight or they have even gained weight since reducing their number of meals. ...
July 16, 2012 - 6:16am
Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a respiratory condition where insufficient oxygen gets into the lungs and blood. It is life-threatening and is caused by injury to the lungs.
What ...
July 10, 2012 - 5:05am
Are you single and sick of it? Tired of sharing other people’s Kodak moments instead of making your own?
Here’s a five point plan to help you get noticed!
1. Love yourself.
If you don’t, ...
July 7, 2012 - 11:31am
Chronic diseases are diseases which last a long time, or are permanent or progressive in nature.
Chronic disease is now the number one cause of death worldwide and is responsible for 63 ...
July 4, 2012 - 10:05am
Men sometimes say that women are more complicated than they are, and this may be true physically. There are a whole myriad of problems that can occur with the female reproductive system. ...
June 27, 2012 - 7:20am
The adrenal cortex is the outer layer of the adrenal glands. The adrenal glands sit on top of the kidneys. They have several functions.
The adrenal cortex stimulates three steroid hormones, ...
June 26, 2012 - 4:31am
Adult acquired flat foot was first described in the late 1960s as something that occurred after trauma, as a result of a tear to the tibial posterior tendon. However, by 1969 two doctors called ...
June 21, 2012 - 8:21am
Aplastic anemia is a condition where the bone marrow doesn’t make enough new blood cells. With regular anemia, the person doesn’t have enough red blood cells but with aplastic anemia, they don’t ...
June 19, 2012 - 2:56pm
Alcohol induced hepatitis, also known as acute alcoholic hepatitis is a form of alcoholic liver disease (ALD).
Alcohol induced hepatitis is a major cause of liver cirrhosis in first world ...
June 18, 2012 - 6:08am
In one word, no. Very small amounts may do no harm, but the medical profession have limited evidence on the effect of small amounts of alcohol on the fetus. They don’t really know whether ...
June 12, 2012 - 4:39am
If you already suffer from acne you may find it gets worse once you are pregnant. This is because of the changing hormones associated with pregnancy. In fact, even if you’ve never had acne, you ...
June 11, 2012 - 6:23am
Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese traditional medicine (TCM) that goes back thousands of years. Traditional acupuncturists believe that illness occurs when the body’s vital energy cannot flow ...
June 6, 2012 - 4:14am
Experts agree that a good diet should contain balanced amounts of food from five main food groups. These are:
Fruit and Vegetables
At least five portions of fruit and vegetables should be ...
May 31, 2012 - 4:40am
The menstrual cycle occurs in all females from the onset of puberty (average age 11 or 12 years) and continues until the menopause at middle age. Each month, the uterus develops a deep, cushioned ...
May 23, 2012 - 4:53am
The menstrual cycle occurs in all females from the onset of puberty (average age of onset 11 or 12 years) and continues until the menopause in middle age. Blood is lost from the uterus via the ...
May 21, 2012 - 4:47am
Normally, when a woman takes the contraceptive pill she has a week off where she either doesn’t take anything or takes "dummy" pills that are inactive. During this time she will have her normal ...
May 17, 2012 - 1:47pm
Threatened miscarriage is bleeding in pregnancy that occurs within the first 20 weeks, which happens to one in four pregnant women.
About 50 percent of the time, the baby will be fine, so ...
May 12, 2012 - 5:46pm
Vaginal bleeding in the first trimester of pregnancy is very common and occurs in 1 in 10 pregnancies. In the very early stage of pregnancy, you may get bleeding at around the time you would have ...
May 9, 2012 - 5:38am
Women’s health clinics are doctor’s offices that specialize in the care and treatment of women. Basic care is covered by health insurance programs and available to all women, even those on low ...
April 28, 2012 - 6:35am
Trisomy 21, the most common type of Down syndrome, is a chromosomal abnormality where the developing embryo receives three chromosome 21s instead of the usual two.
Normally, a baby inherits ...
April 25, 2012 - 7:25am
There are many vitamins, available as supplementary tablets or through their natural food source that can help enhance the health of girls, women and babies.
Period Pain
Vitamin E
This has ...
April 24, 2012 - 7:45am
If you think you’re pregnant, choosing the right pregnancy test for you can be confusing as there is such an array of different tests it can be difficult to decide which one to buy.
There are ...
April 23, 2012 - 8:23am
By week 12 of pregnancy, your baby has already completed the embryonic stage and is now a fetus, which is Latin for "offspring".
All of his organs are fully formed (they just need to get a lot ...
April 19, 2012 - 3:14pm
The contraceptive pill is thought to be one of the most effective types of contraception. When it was first introduced in the 1960s it changed the lives of women who could, for the first time in ...
April 18, 2012 - 8:42am
If you’re a woman it can sometimes seem as if there are a million and one things that can affect your health. Luckily, the modern woman now has access to a wide range of natural supplements that ...
April 12, 2012 - 6:26am
In March 2012, 45-year-old Chris Bainbridge was found dead in his wooden cabin on a campsite, his wife unconscious next to him. The couple had wanted to keep warm and so had brought their ...
April 11, 2012 - 5:30am
Corticosteroids are used for a variety of reasons, for instance, to ease painful skin conditions or suppress symptoms of allergy. As they are hormones, they can have side effects. The side ...
March 30, 2012 - 10:22am
Asherman’s syndrome is a scarring of the uterus that can become so extensive, the uterus can be scarred shut or become a solid mass of scar tissue, completely incapable of carrying a fetus. ...
March 29, 2012 - 6:33am
Topical steroid cream is the first choice of doctors in the treatment of eczema and other inflammatory skin conditions. However, they do have side effects such as lowering your immune system ...
March 28, 2012 - 5:34am
Asherman’s Syndrome is scarring of the uterus resulting in infertility that occurs after dilation and curettage (D and C) or an operation on the uterus. Asherman’s Syndrome is the cause of ...
March 27, 2012 - 11:15am
Are you single and sick of it? Tired of sharing other people’s Kodak moments instead of making your own? Here’s a five point plan to help you get noticed! 1. Love yourself. If you don’t, ...
Joanna Karpasea-Jones commented on Joanna Karpasea-Jones' post 5 Tips for Women Who Are Single And Sick Of It