Due to personal issues, the moderator is on hiatus. We hope to be up and running again later this summer. Thanks for asking!

According to Planned Parenthood, you may experience the opposite effect! Some pills may actually make pain relievers slightly less effective, but they don’t make your birth control less effective. Many people take pain relievers to combat PMS! ;) You should always tell your doctor about any medications you’re taking because the pill can also increase effects in some antidepressants or tranquilizers. Hope that helps! :) 

Omfg, 185 notes? C’mon, I’m not that funny. :P 

(Source: maytrees)

I wanted to thank you all for your continued support! I know our post on The Pill kind of went viral and you all have had a lot of great stuff to say, and while our other posts may not be quite of the same excitement, I encourage to educate yourself on those topics as well. In order to be truly healthy, you want to stay informed about all systems of your body. Though, we admit, reproductive health is kind of where it’s at. :) 

We’ve got another new blog going up this weekend, and it’s one that everyone, especially young women, should read. What you know about fat might be wrong, so we’re going to try to set the record straight, using science! 

Be well,

The Model of Health Squad ♥

In elementary school, one of my classmates had a severe peanut allergy. It was widely understood that if we had a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, we weren’t allowed to sit at her table in the cafeteria. There was one table by the windows, with a sign, that said No Peanuts At This Table, Please! and it had some kind of smiling, demonic peanut on it. That made a huge impression on me. This girl would literally die if she as much as inhaled peanut dust. Her allergy was pretty severe. Later on, I would have friends who had milk allergies, chocolate allergies, gluten allergies…and I began to wonder: are all of these truly allergies, like that girl who could choke to death on peanut dust? Or do we sometimes call our food sensitivities allergies so that we can gain more street cred?

So, what actually constitutes a true food allergy? 

The short answer is: if you have a true food allergy eating the food that you are allergic too causes an immune reaction in your body. It’s not like when food doesn’t “agree” with you; your immune system actually senses a threat. For people with severe food allergies, you don’t even have to eat something for your immune system to perk up. Sometimes you just have to touch or smell it and lo and behold, your immune system has a total shit fit. 

What your immune system is reacting to are the allergens in the food: most of the time, allergens are proteins that don’t go away when you cook the food, nor are they destroyed during digestion. 

Antibodies called immunoglobulin E and mast cells (cells that are found throughout the body but are most prevalent in areas of the body typically associated with allergies. Lungs, nasal passages, gastrointestinal tract and so on) are what instigate the reaction. A body’s tendency to produce large amounts of immunoglobulin E as a reaction to certain foods is inherited. If both parents have a food allergy, there’s a 70% chance that their offspring will as well. But in order to produce those amounts of immunoglobulin E, a person has to be exposed to the food in the first place. As the food is digested, and the immunoglobulin E (which I just like writing) is produced, it attaches to the surface of those mast cells. When the immune system is exposed to that food again, it reacts immunoglobulin E on the surface of those mast cells and it makes those cells release chemicals, like histamine. Depending on where the affected cells are, that release of histamine will cause specific symptoms, like trouble breathing, an itchy throat, abdominal pain or hives. The reaction may be within just a few minutes (trouble breathing) or may not come on for an hour (abdominal pain). 

This is how food allergies are different from food intolerances. A food allergy is not improperly digesting something. A food intolerance does not cause an immune reaction. When someone is lactose intolerant they are not allergic to milk; they actually don’t have enough lactase in their digestive tract and therefore are unable to properly digest the enzymes in milk, which can make them feel sick. If they were allergic to milk, consumption of milk or a milk product would cause the chain of reaction in their immune system outlined above. The symptoms may be similar, but the causes are quite different. Additionally, people may think they are experiencing a food allergy when really they’ve just been exposed to bacteria and are actually experiencing food poisoning, or have been eating a food that has a naturally high occurrence of histamine (like some cheeses and wines). 

Gluten intolerance is a frequently discussed topic these days. With a gluten intolerance, there is actually an abnormal immune reaction to gluten, and is typically associated with diseases like Celiac’s Disease. 

Clearly it can be extremely difficult to differentiate between intolerances and allergies or even psychological aversions (some people have such deeply rooted aversions to food that they have psychosomatic symptoms that mimic an allergy!). The way to know for sure is to have your doctor take your history, perhaps keep a food journal to identify troubling foods (or food combinations) and maybe run further controlled tests. Sometimes, within the safety of a doctor’s office, they will administer skin tests or have you consume a small amount of the food with medical supervision to observe the reaction in a way that won’t kill you. They can also run blood tests for certain suspected allergies.

But the absolute fucking best and most stealthy of all of the tests doctor’s can run is referred to as the Double-Blind Food Test. Basically, they sit you down and give you some capsules. Some of them have the suspected food allergen, some do not. But guess what? They’ve been prepared by someone in a lab, so not only do you not know which one is the placebo, your doctor doesn’t either. Ultimate objectivity! The thing is, this test obviously can’t be used on someone with a history of severe reactions, and it’s expensive, so it isn’t used particularly frequently. Basically, it’s used when the doctor wants to prove to themselves, you and everyone else that: 1. You are legit allergic to that one food you said that you’re allergic to or 2. You are not in any way truly allergic to that food you think that you’re allergic to. 

It may be a little obvious, but the main treatment for food allergies is dietary avoidance; hence that girl in elementary school getting her very own peanut free table. But if you’re severely allergic to common foods, it can be very difficult to avoid them entirely, even if you’re especially vigilant. That’s why people who are at risk of going into anaphylactic shock as a result of being exposed to an allergen wear bracelets or dog tags that have that information on them, so that medical personnel will know how to proceed with treatment if they are exposed and become unconscious. That’s why it’s very important to differentiate between a food intolerance and a food allergy. A food intolerance might make you feel very, very sick, but a serious food allergy can be fatal. 

The most common food allergies are: 

(In children) Cow’s milk, eggs, peanuts, soybeans, nuts and wheat

(In adults) seafood (shrimp, crab), fish, peanuts, soybeans and nuts. 

“CHECK OUT THESE BAD BOYS RIGHT HURRR”:

These are eosoinophils,

I learned about them today!

They are a type of white blood cell that are specifically associated with allergies. Mine were elevated in my last blood panel, so I looked it up and learned some stuff to contribute to the blog!

Knowledge is power, guys. And sideburns are too. Maybe not in food allergies, but definitely in combating grandma’s kisses.

If you get my drift. 

thedailywhat:

Plan B6 of the Day: Officials at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania were asked to explain their decision to offer students access to the emergency contraception pill Plan B through a vending machine inside the school’s health center.

“We had some conversations with them and did a survey of the student body and we got an 85 percent response rate that the students supported Plan B in the House Center,” said Ship’s Vice president of Student Affairs, Dr. Roger Serr.

One dose of the so-called “morning-after pill,” which can legally be purchased over-the-counter by individuals 17 or older, will set students back $25. The university says it uses money made from sales to purchase more pills. Some 350 to 400 doses are sold each year.

“The vending machine is just a way to dispense it,” said Dr. Serr. “It’s provided, it’s not necessarily promoted on a large scale.”

[wtae / poo.]

The Daily What posted this find today, thought it was an interesting follow up to our post on The Pill. What do you guys think of this? 

This graphic came up on our dashboard and we really like it. It really is true, isn’t it? 

(And side note: don’t you just love her skivvies?!) 

(Source: notstuckinamomenthealthblog)

Happy February everyone! I wanted to entice you all by giving you a sneak peek at what’s up next here at The Model of Health Project. As always, if you have suggestions for blogs you’d like us to run, message us (anon or not!) and we’ll put it in the queue. We want to hear about the things that you’ve got questions about. 

Here are a few things we’ve got lined up: 

• Why We Need Fat. 
• How Food Allergies Work (and why you may not even have one). 
• What The Fuck Is Lupus? 
• How (and When) To Do A Breast Self Exam
• Weird Things Your Vagina Does (and ours do too!) 

Intrigued? 

Regardless of your views on The Pill, I’m going to explain how it works. Even if you don’t believe in contraception, I think it’s important to understand what it is, how it works and more importantly, why it fails. I’ve been on it myself for quite some time now and I realized that I was sort of taking it with blind faith in it’s magical powers to prevent pregnancy. Even if you think you know how it works, I’m going to go a bit more in depth into the biology (which may make you male readers a bit squeamish, but if you don’t think this is relative information to you: think again!)

The history of contraception goes way back to Genesis (not the Phil Collins band) where the first concept of birth control is mentioned: coitus interruptus. Otherwise known as the withdrawal method. Many years went by and gradually people realized that men aren’t generally ninjas and the withdrawal method doesn’t work. Which is just as well: “coitus interruptus” doesn’t sound like much of a good time anyway. It wasn’t until the 1960s that The Pill was introduced, but the history of contraception is pretty fascinating. I highly recommend the American Experience presentation on it, which can be found via PBS. (They have a great visual component that might make more sense of the information explanation in this blog.)

We have to start our journey through contraception by talking about the menstrual cycle. Your period is actually good for something else other than getting you a day or two off school a month (in high school, my gal friends and I called them “mental health days” —and boy were they ever). When a young gal enters puberty and begins to have her period, she can then become pregnant.

Why do we have a period, you ask? Because each month the lining of our uterus (“baby haus”) builds up with all sorts of nutrient rich tissue. It doesn’t care if we’re home every Friday night watching 7th Heaven reruns, forever alone. Our bodies still say, “Look who’s fertile as fuck!” and prepare our innards to accommodate a baby. The real event is that we ovulate, and our ovaries (one or the other, they take turns) releases an egg. That egg heads down our fallopian tube to the uterus. And that’s where it sits, like a nervous preteen with awkward eyeliner waiting for their date to the YMCA dance. All dressed up and no place to go, unless that is, a sperm (or, you know, a few fucking thousand) shows up and plows her like an Amish man supporting his family. The unfertilized egg basically dies of rejection and the nice, cozy uterine lining sloughs off and…well, you know what happens next.

Thus begins the first day of the menstrual cycle. Your first day of bleeding has occurred because there are low levels of progesterone and estrogen in our bodies, and that sends a signal to the part of our brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus sends a hormone called GnRH to the pituitary gland. That hormone tells the pituitary gland to release something called Follicle Stimulating Hormone and Lutenizing Hormone. These hormones travel to the ovaries in the bloodstream and force the follicles in the ovaries to mature (grow up!) and each of those follicles contains an egg, otherwise known as an ovum, as well as the cells that produce estrogen.

Still with me? I know this is hefty, but I swear, it’s going to make sense and you’re all going to sound really fucking smart when you talk about it.

So, you’ve got these follicles with eggs, right? Well, guess what? Some of them suck, some of them are totally slow and they’re not going to get to release an egg. “There can only be one!” — literally. There’s going to one egg released. Meanwhile, there’s all this estrogen happening and that’s what’s thickening up the lining of the uterus (called the endometrium, if you wanna sound like a real smart ass). This is taking place during the early to middle days of your cycle, because around day 14 of your cycle, you actually release that egg, because the estrogen is through the roof and cranks up that LH hormone I talked about.

And now there’s an egg hanging out in your uterus and the follicle it used to be attached to starts producing progesterone. It’s the progesterone that makes the lining of your uterus all nice and homey. It also tells the hypothalamus and pituitary gland to shut the fuck up and stop making those two hormones, FSH and LH, so that no more follicles make eggs.

And when the sperm stand that egg up, progesterone stops. (If the sperm shows up and they hit it off, that’s a totally different story) The decrease in progesterone makes the lining break down, because at this point it’s totally useless. And that’s when your period starts. Then, the cycle starts all over again.

Totally rad, right? Except you’re a fine young woman who has sexual intercourse involving a penis and, frankly, you don’t want to get pregnant. For whatever reason, you don’t want no endometrium hanging out in your uterus. So, what do you do? Maybe you decide to start taking The Pill. 

Because The Pill prevents you from ovulating and that’s why it keeps you from getting pregnant. If those horny sperm show up to accost your lovely egg and she stays in the house, laughing at them from her bedroom window, you aren’t going to get pregnant.

The Pill has synthetic forms of estrogen and progestin, which is a form of progesterone, that tell the pituitary gland and hypothalamus to let those follicles be young forever; never grow up, never release an egg. Just stay immature, guys. Instead of being only one, now there’s no one. Not only that, but that constant level of progestin makes your uterine lining about as fun as the fucking Sahara. The mucus in your cervix is like a fucking sand trap. Basically? If a sperm could even get in there, he’d be all, “FUCK IT, THIS PARTY SUCKS.”

Not a whole lot happening in there. That is, until you take the “placebo pills” or “reminder pills” or “sugar pills” — in the pack, there are these pills that are a different color. Unlike the pills you’ve been taking all month, these have no hormones in them. You don’t even have to take them, if you can remember to start your next pack on the right day. During this time, when you haven’t got that estrogen and progestin in your system, the lining of the uterus will break down and you’ll have a “withdrawal bleed” which you might think of as your period, but really, it’s not. Imagine that your period is your favorite band, and the withdrawal bleed you have on the pill is some 12 year old on Youtube doing a cover. It’s just not the same.

Seems pretty easy, right? Well, more or less, it is. The Pill works well for many women in preventing pregnancy, if they remember to take it at the same time every day. Now, if you took it last night at 7pm and tonight you take it at 7:15pm, that’s okay. That is hardly enough time to throw your hormone levels for a loop. But if you take it more than four hours late or you completely forget to take it, then you’ll need to use a back up form of birth control for the rest of the cycle (until you start your new pill pack). Back up is usually a condom. Now, you might want to consider always using a condom, even if you’re on The Pill, because while it will do a pretty damn good job of keeping you from being on 16 & Pregnant, it won’t keep you from being 16 & HIV Positive. It doesn’t protect you against sexually transmitted diseases.So that means HIV/AIDS as well as things like gonorrhea, chlamydia, public lice, herpes or anything else.

Another thing to remember is that just because you took you pill at the right time, it doesn’t mean that it will successfully be absorbed into your blood stream during digestion: if you were out drinking and barfed at a frat party, you probably threw your pill up if you’d taken it right before you went out. So, it’s back up BC for you. You don’t necessarily have to puke for it to be ineffective: if you have some lo mein with friends and get yourself a nice case of Chinese take-out diarrhea, you may not have absorbed that pill. Also, there are several herbal remedies that will cause the pill to be ineffective, like St John’s Wart (which honestly, I don’t know what it’s used for, but they warn you about it). 

What you say? You’ve heard of someone’s best friend’s cousin who took her pill *perfectly* and still got knocked up?

But she had recently had strep throat and was on antibiotics?

The use of antibiotics can make your pill ineffective.

It’s hard to tell, but if you have to take antibiotics for any reason, it’s better to be safe than sorry and use a back up method until your next pill cycle begins.

So, you know the basics. Pregnancy is preventable. From a purely biological stand point, you can be in a sexually responsible relationship. The Pill is a popular way to do that. For some women, there will be side effects, but there are several types, with varying levels of estrogen, so if you start taking it and you feel really shitty for more than 3 months, you can try a different type.

But no matter what pill you’re taking, keep your ears open for recalls, like this one. It doesn’t happen often, but you have to be your own advocate.

Bottom line: if you aren’t ready to be responsible about sex, you aren’t ready to have sex. Stay educated and above all else: take care of yourself.

Really worth a read, guys.