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How Menstruation Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here with us UM for oversight,
0:18
Speaker 1: and this is stuff you should know. Just a couple
0:21
Speaker 1: of dudes tucking menstruation. That's right, and it sounds totally
0:27
Speaker 1: normal when you say it like that. It sounded like
0:29
Speaker 1: the making copies guy. You signed it to me like
0:32
Speaker 1: Troy McClure. Yeah, you're right, I am. I'm definitely more
0:38
Speaker 1: right than you were. That's right, that's exactly right. That
0:43
Speaker 1: was dead on. Actually you weren't even trying. Oh I
0:46
Speaker 1: used to do Troy McClure back in the day. Yeah,
0:49
Speaker 1: that was one of my bits. Well you still got it, buddy. Thanks.
0:54
Speaker 1: And I don't know, I think long time listeners will
0:57
Speaker 1: have picked up Chuck that we're stalling right now. Um.
1:00
Speaker 1: New listeners might be like, what are these guys doing
1:03
Speaker 1: and talking about? I'm never listening to them again, But
1:05
Speaker 1: hang on, wait, just chill out. We do this sometimes,
1:08
Speaker 1: especially when we're taking on a topic that we're um
1:12
Speaker 1: only equipped to understand as researchers. Yes, I think it's
1:15
Speaker 1: a good way to put it. We are researchers. That's
1:18
Speaker 1: what we do. And anybody who researches something, um well
1:23
Speaker 1: and with an open mind, I think is perfectly legitimate,
1:27
Speaker 1: in a perfectly legitimate position to talk about whatever it
1:30
Speaker 1: is carving out our territs right here, I guess so
1:36
Speaker 1: uh yeah, but we're talking menstruation today. We are. And
1:40
Speaker 1: another bit of just upfront knowledge that we want to
1:43
Speaker 1: drop is, uh, we're gonna use different terms. We're gonna
1:46
Speaker 1: say girls, we're gonna say women. We're gonna say people
1:49
Speaker 1: who men straight because we don't want to overlook the
1:52
Speaker 1: trans community. And even though you know most websites you
1:56
Speaker 1: go to, we'll still say girls and women. We're gonna
1:59
Speaker 1: just sort of interchange words here and there to cover
2:02
Speaker 1: all our bases and to be respectful of of everybody. Yeah.
2:06
Speaker 1: Another one will be men's straight towards we should just
2:10
Speaker 1: say menstruators period. Didn't even mean that, wow, chuck, so
2:17
Speaker 1: um yeah, I think that was really good to say.
2:19
Speaker 1: And it's not like, you know, I'm sure we'll fall
2:21
Speaker 1: into women girls, um pretty frequently. Uh. And that's not
2:25
Speaker 1: to say that we are um judge or critical of
2:30
Speaker 1: the concept of men menstruating UM, it's just that it's
2:34
Speaker 1: it's a fairly new concept to us and we're still, um,
2:37
Speaker 1: we're still getting used to it. So please please accept
2:40
Speaker 1: our apologies in advance if if we do that. And
2:43
Speaker 1: also for our younger listeners, especially are the young girls
2:47
Speaker 1: who listened to our show. You know, in addition to
2:49
Speaker 1: our Puberty Female Puberty podcast, we did, we did male
2:53
Speaker 1: Puberty two. Right, we did both. Yeah, we did both. Um,
2:56
Speaker 1: this is something that you know, I think is a
2:59
Speaker 1: lot of anxiety comes with Uh, We'll go ahead and
3:02
Speaker 1: say the word monarchy, which is the first period, the
3:05
Speaker 1: first menstruation cycle that someone can undergo. We I've used
3:09
Speaker 1: that before. It's one of our favorite words from the
3:11
Speaker 1: early days of the show, from I think the Totem
3:14
Speaker 1: Pull episode. I think so because the Native Americans celebrate
3:18
Speaker 1: the monarchy in the right monarchy, that's right. But especially
3:24
Speaker 1: to those listeners, we just want you to know that, uh,
3:28
Speaker 1: we hope that you embrace this as a the wonder
3:31
Speaker 1: of human biology that it is, because it's just an
3:34
Speaker 1: amazing thing that happens, and uh, knowing more about it,
3:39
Speaker 1: I think it's just powerful for little boys, little girls
3:42
Speaker 1: across the gender spectrum. And men and grown men and
3:46
Speaker 1: uh women alike. I suspect that of all those groups,
3:50
Speaker 1: grown men are the most childish about it, probably and
3:54
Speaker 1: probably know the least about it. M hmm. But I
3:58
Speaker 1: think we're dying off slowly, but surely we're being replaced
4:00
Speaker 1: by way cooler, smarter with it um people. So that's cool.
4:05
Speaker 1: It'll go away eventually. But what we're talking about is menstruation,
4:10
Speaker 1: which is uh. And again we're gonna say some stuff
4:14
Speaker 1: like four weeks is a menstrual cycle, a biological cycle,
4:18
Speaker 1: but we know that there are wide ranges of times.
4:21
Speaker 1: There are people who don't menstright at all, or whose
4:24
Speaker 1: menstruation is occasional. Um. There are all sorts of reason
4:29
Speaker 1: for all these things. So we're using a lot of
4:31
Speaker 1: like averages and average terms here, um. So just know
4:35
Speaker 1: that going in. But it's roughly takes place every four weeks.
4:38
Speaker 1: And what is simply happening, which is amazing, is that
4:42
Speaker 1: the lining of the uterus, uh, the endometrium is getting
4:46
Speaker 1: ready to host an egg that is fertilized, and that
4:52
Speaker 1: thing sheds, and with that shedding comes blood and become
4:58
Speaker 1: in some tissue, and that's called men disease, and it
5:02
Speaker 1: starts generally without monarchy anywhere from twelve to thirteen. It
5:06
Speaker 1: ends generally at menopause somewhere around fifty to fifty two
5:10
Speaker 1: fifty three. So that means that between the ages of
5:14
Speaker 1: twelve to thirteen and the early fifties, someone will go
5:17
Speaker 1: through an average of four hundred and fifty six cycles,
5:22
Speaker 1: or about six point two years of their life. Isn't
5:25
Speaker 1: that interesting? Wow, that's amazing nice math. Yeah, there's a
5:30
Speaker 1: lot of lifetime math I figured out. So um, I
5:35
Speaker 1: think even people who have had um cycles, they're they're
5:39
Speaker 1: reaching the end of their what do you say, four
5:40
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty six fifty six cycles? Maybe they're on
5:45
Speaker 1: four fifty five and they're like one more baby. By
5:49
Speaker 1: the way, if you're just going through monarchy, it doesn't
5:51
Speaker 1: actually work like that. I'm just teasing. But my point
5:54
Speaker 1: is that I think even people who menstrate and have
5:57
Speaker 1: menstruated for years in decades don't necessarily know why women
6:03
Speaker 1: men's stright in the first place. Why would a human
6:06
Speaker 1: being men's stright? Um. There's practical reasons, which we'll get into,
6:10
Speaker 1: but evolutionarily speaking, we don't fully understand it, and The
6:14
Speaker 1: reason why we don't really understand is because so few
6:16
Speaker 1: mammals actually men's strate. There's plenty of other adaptations for
6:21
Speaker 1: getting an egg ready to be fertilized, and then what
6:23
Speaker 1: happens if the egg doesn't give fertilized what you do
6:25
Speaker 1: after that, But men's struation is is fairly rare in
6:28
Speaker 1: the animal kingdom. Humans are one of just a handful
6:31
Speaker 1: of bright, shiny um people. Yeah, they have companions in
6:36
Speaker 1: the uh, some primates like the chimp or the large
6:39
Speaker 1: headed capuchin, the vulvous fruit bat. Interestingly, Uh, there's a shrew,
6:46
Speaker 1: an elephant, shrew and a mouse. Did you look those up?
6:50
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, they're uh, and the spiny mouse. They
6:54
Speaker 1: all men straight. Um. But most mammals undergo something called
6:59
Speaker 1: an estrus psych goal. Uh. It could be a seasonal thing,
7:02
Speaker 1: which is why you have things like mating season. Uh.
7:05
Speaker 1: In the case of some other mammals like cats, it's
7:08
Speaker 1: actually or our friends squirrels, uh, friendly squirrels that we
7:11
Speaker 1: just talked about. It's actually brought on by the act
7:15
Speaker 1: of sex, which is really interesting and sort of makes sense. Yeah,
7:19
Speaker 1: but it also makes sense. It's like, let's not let's
7:22
Speaker 1: not get into anything before it's really time, right, So
7:25
Speaker 1: that to me makes a tremendous amount of sense. And
7:27
Speaker 1: the reason that there would be any kind of cycle
7:29
Speaker 1: at all, whether it's an estra cycle or a menstrual cycle, um,
7:34
Speaker 1: is because there's a really high energetic and metabolic costs
7:38
Speaker 1: to keeping the uterus prepared to host a fertilized egg,
7:43
Speaker 1: and that if you're an animal that constantly has a
7:46
Speaker 1: uterus ready to accept an egg, you're going to expend
7:48
Speaker 1: way more energy, way more of your metabolism um keeping
7:53
Speaker 1: that uterus fluffy as they say sometimes and ready for
7:56
Speaker 1: an egg, a fertilized egg, than an animal who just
8:00
Speaker 1: does it once in a while or when it's triggered
8:02
Speaker 1: by sex. So evolutionarily speaking, it makes sense for it
8:05
Speaker 1: to be seasonal or activated by sex, or even a
8:08
Speaker 1: monthly thing. Yeah, And I just that's something I never
8:11
Speaker 1: thought about. I never stopped and thought, well, why can't
8:14
Speaker 1: you just get pregnant any time evolutionarily speaking, because that
8:18
Speaker 1: would seem like a big time advantage if you're trying to,
8:22
Speaker 1: you know, put people out in if your took took
8:25
Speaker 1: and you're trying to help put people out there in
8:26
Speaker 1: the world, right, But it does make a lot of sense,
8:30
Speaker 1: and they've seen evidence in this like if someone and
8:34
Speaker 1: like a developing nation maybe just you know, have like
8:37
Speaker 1: extreme nutritional deficiencies, Uh, they may not menstruate at all
8:43
Speaker 1: because their body like it extends that kind of like
8:47
Speaker 1: that drastic of a I guess, just a workload on
8:52
Speaker 1: the body that that's that's one of the things that
8:54
Speaker 1: can get rid of if you're malnourished. Yeah, malnourished. It
8:58
Speaker 1: also pops up in the elite ath eleats because they
9:01
Speaker 1: are exercising so much and also usually have such a
9:04
Speaker 1: small amount of body fat. So there's like, I guess
9:07
Speaker 1: your your body does like a body check every month,
9:11
Speaker 1: and it's like, okay, are we equipped to do this?
9:13
Speaker 1: And if not, okay, we'll just skip it. If so,
9:15
Speaker 1: let's go through it. Yeah, And the really interesting thing
9:18
Speaker 1: is we were talking about some of the mammals that
9:21
Speaker 1: go through the extra cycle. They don't actually um bleed,
9:26
Speaker 1: they don't have an external shedding process. They re absorb
9:29
Speaker 1: it and it is literally digested in the body by
9:33
Speaker 1: enzymes that are there just to do that. So that
9:36
Speaker 1: question is still there, like why would evolutionarily speaking, why
9:41
Speaker 1: would the menstruation process to where you literally shed that
9:45
Speaker 1: lining out of your body take place. And they're not
9:48
Speaker 1: really sure why no, But there's theories. One of the
9:52
Speaker 1: predominant ones up until the nineteen nineties. And after I
9:56
Speaker 1: say this, you'll be like, you mean the eighteen nineties,
9:58
Speaker 1: and I'll say again, the ninety nineties. They used to
10:02
Speaker 1: think that the purpose of menstruation was to wash the
10:06
Speaker 1: uterus out of pathogens that might have been introduced by
10:09
Speaker 1: seamen during sex um. Until the nineteen nineties, that's what
10:14
Speaker 1: they thought that menstruation was four And then finally somebody
10:17
Speaker 1: was like, let me, let me study this, and they did.
10:20
Speaker 1: They conducted a study where they tested bacterial loads of
10:23
Speaker 1: different phases um from a woman's uterus and found that
10:27
Speaker 1: not that that's actually not the case at all, So
10:29
Speaker 1: that one finally got discarded. It did, and whoever proposed
10:33
Speaker 1: it to begin with, they're like, he's sure, Like, yeah, man,
10:37
Speaker 1: I got a Nirvana show. I'm trying to get to
10:39
Speaker 1: it sounds good to me. They went Nirvana, this is
10:43
Speaker 1: the ninety nineties. Yeah, that was kind of a dud.
10:49
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I tried to bring forth the chuckle a
10:52
Speaker 1: laugh or something, I can't do it like you. Um.
10:56
Speaker 1: The other thing they thought might at least be related
10:59
Speaker 1: to this is maybe the size of the animal, or
11:02
Speaker 1: the size of the uterus in relation to the size
11:04
Speaker 1: of the animal. But there's such a large range of
11:07
Speaker 1: uterine size and the animal kingdom that do men stright
11:10
Speaker 1: that they basically kind of toss that out as well. Yeah,
11:14
Speaker 1: and it's the reason why that was a theory, because
11:16
Speaker 1: you're like, elephant, true, spiny mouse, what kind of stupid
11:19
Speaker 1: theories that we've just very recently discovered the other animals
11:23
Speaker 1: men straight. We didn't know that at all, So that's
11:26
Speaker 1: why that theory was so longstanding. And then also they
11:29
Speaker 1: think maybe it has to do with um, the way
11:32
Speaker 1: the endometrium forms, or the fact that um, some animals
11:37
Speaker 1: for um, carry their young in placenta. Those are still
11:42
Speaker 1: the jury's out on them. But yeah, we don't really
11:44
Speaker 1: have any idea of you know, what what menstruation is
11:49
Speaker 1: actually for. We know what it does, but how did
11:52
Speaker 1: it come along? And so it remains a beautiful mystery
11:55
Speaker 1: of the springtime of womanhood. All right, should we take
11:59
Speaker 1: a break and get into the nitty gritty, Yes, all right,
12:03
Speaker 1: we'll be right back after this with details on menstruation. Chuck.
12:31
Speaker 1: No one can see me right now, but I'm holding
12:34
Speaker 1: each elbow very tightly, and I didn't realize I was
12:37
Speaker 1: even doing it. Like, I'm really anxious right now. We
12:41
Speaker 1: got this, We did. We shouldn't get nervous about this stuff.
12:44
Speaker 1: Every time we tackled something like this, we always get
12:46
Speaker 1: great support and say, you guys do what you do,
12:48
Speaker 1: which is, you know, research something. And it's not like
12:51
Speaker 1: we're not serial killers yet we've talked about them. I
12:55
Speaker 1: would hazard to say that almost all the things we
12:58
Speaker 1: talked about we don't have experience with. No, No, definitely,
13:00
Speaker 1: I'm not really anxious about that. What I'm anxious about
13:03
Speaker 1: is screwing it up and giving a thirteen year old
13:06
Speaker 1: some bad information or making it harder to understand them before,
13:11
Speaker 1: or you know, just I just want to be helpful
13:14
Speaker 1: with it, and I'm anxious about not being as helpful
13:16
Speaker 1: as we could be. That's what I'm worried about. No,
13:18
Speaker 1: I'm totally with you, Um, and I think that this
13:22
Speaker 1: nitty gritty part is straight ahead science, pretty easy, so
13:28
Speaker 1: let's do it. Yes, but we have to say so.
13:30
Speaker 1: Ed helped us with this one. Ed doesn't menstright either,
13:33
Speaker 1: but he's a really good researcher too, and our hats
13:35
Speaker 1: off for really um kind of diving into this and
13:39
Speaker 1: wrapping his head around it. But he he points out
13:42
Speaker 1: something that is not commonly seen, but I researched it
13:46
Speaker 1: and it's it's I guess, the more clinical and medical
13:49
Speaker 1: you go, the deeper into it, the more it becomes
13:51
Speaker 1: apparent that the menstrual cycle is actually what we think
13:54
Speaker 1: of the menstrual cycle is actually a couple of different cycles.
13:57
Speaker 1: And Ed did the clinical way and likely broke it
14:00
Speaker 1: out into these two different cycles that are happening simultaneously
14:05
Speaker 1: into the same end. Right. So we're talking about the
14:09
Speaker 1: ovarian cycle and the men and the menstrual cycle. And
14:14
Speaker 1: like I said, generally, like when you think about, you know,
14:17
Speaker 1: a period or something, you think about a week or
14:21
Speaker 1: so in someone's life, but it's really it's a four
14:23
Speaker 1: week cycle and each part is triggered by the release
14:28
Speaker 1: of hormones and it's sort of always going on, and
14:31
Speaker 1: these two different cycles are sort of working with each
14:34
Speaker 1: other to you know, to get ready to have a
14:38
Speaker 1: baby basically. Yeah, And an easy way to remember it
14:41
Speaker 1: or think about it that I kind of stumbled upon
14:44
Speaker 1: is that the menstrual cycle gets the uterus ready for
14:48
Speaker 1: an egg, and the um ovulation cycle gets the egg
14:51
Speaker 1: ready for the uterus. What a beautiful dance, thank you.
14:56
Speaker 1: You know. Well, yeah, I think it's in credit to
15:00
Speaker 1: you that I was biology and nature. But sure, well
15:04
Speaker 1: I consider myself God I created all. Uh. So in
15:08
Speaker 1: this case, we're gonna describe it. And I think ed
15:10
Speaker 1: does a is a does a good job of where
15:12
Speaker 1: he places this in the cycle as a listener or
15:15
Speaker 1: you know, in this case as readers. But we're gonna
15:18
Speaker 1: start at the midpoint of the cycle, um, right after
15:22
Speaker 1: the period has stopped. And at this point, like we
15:26
Speaker 1: said that the uterus, uh, the lining has been shed.
15:30
Speaker 1: That would mean it's at its thinnest point at that point.
15:33
Speaker 1: And this is the beginning of what is known as
15:35
Speaker 1: the proliferative phase. Yeah, the proliferative phase of the menstrual cycle.
15:41
Speaker 1: UM is. The big star of that is a hormone
15:44
Speaker 1: called estrati all, which says, hey, endometrium, get a little thicker,
15:51
Speaker 1: um double in size. Let's um, how about we build
15:54
Speaker 1: some new arteries and blood vessels called spiral arteries. To
15:58
Speaker 1: bring blood to all this new two issue that's being developed. UM.
16:02
Speaker 1: New structures are are being built. The cervical mucus normally
16:08
Speaker 1: kind of yeah or chill out, I think is a
16:10
Speaker 1: way to put it. UM. The cervical mucus usually has
16:13
Speaker 1: a pH of two point eight to four point five
16:16
Speaker 1: or sorry, three point eight to four point five, which
16:18
Speaker 1: is very acidic um. And the pH raises more towards neutral,
16:22
Speaker 1: like around seven during this time, which makes the um
16:26
Speaker 1: the uterus much more hospitable as sperm because sperm thrive
16:30
Speaker 1: in about a seven pH they would die very quickly
16:32
Speaker 1: in the normal acidity of the of the uterus. So
16:36
Speaker 1: that's like this the process that's it's like the very
16:39
Speaker 1: beginning of the phase of prepping the uterus for an egg.
16:44
Speaker 1: If it happens, that's right. Uh. And while this is happening,
16:47
Speaker 1: the ovarian cycle kicks in with a folicular phase. Um.
16:52
Speaker 1: There are two ovaries and they have hundreds and hundreds
16:55
Speaker 1: of thousands of eggs within these little sacks called follicles,
16:59
Speaker 1: and the hormones control all this, like we said, So
17:03
Speaker 1: in this case, it's a follicle stimulating hormone is gonna
17:07
Speaker 1: allow a few follicles to mature, and eventually most of
17:10
Speaker 1: them will die off and then there will be one
17:12
Speaker 1: follicle left. Uh. That's in to rule them all, that's right,
17:16
Speaker 1: want to rule them all. And this last about ten
17:19
Speaker 1: to fourteen days. Um, it's a little bit pre the proliferative. Man,
17:24
Speaker 1: it's such a hard word for me. Proliferative phase the
17:28
Speaker 1: menstrual cycle, and that's also about tend to fourteen days.
17:30
Speaker 1: So as you can see, it's all sort of kind
17:32
Speaker 1: of sinking up. Yeah. I saw. The follicular phase actually
17:36
Speaker 1: begins on day one of the menstrul phase, so it
17:39
Speaker 1: it has a couple up to maybe five or so
17:42
Speaker 1: days headstart on the proliferative phase. But the two work
17:46
Speaker 1: in conjunction. Right, eggs starting to get ready, the endometrium
17:49
Speaker 1: or the use of the uterus is starting to get
17:51
Speaker 1: ready to that's right. Now. We move on to two
17:54
Speaker 1: more fun phases with fun names, uh, the luteal phase
17:58
Speaker 1: in the case of the ovarian cycle, and then the
18:00
Speaker 1: secretory or secretory phase. I would say secretory me to uh.
18:05
Speaker 1: And that's part of the menstrual cycle. Yeah, and they
18:08
Speaker 1: call um the secretory phase. Um. That because no there's
18:14
Speaker 1: a lot of secretions going on. And this is when
18:17
Speaker 1: like those initial preparations that were begun in the proliferate
18:21
Speaker 1: proliferateory phase, proliferative phase, all those preparations that were like
18:28
Speaker 1: the very basic structure of the endometrium that was being
18:32
Speaker 1: developed really starts to fill out. And I said, um,
18:36
Speaker 1: the womb is frequently referred to as being fluffy. At
18:39
Speaker 1: this time, it's maybe doubled in size. It's much more
18:44
Speaker 1: hospitable to an egg. And then the reason it's called
18:46
Speaker 1: the secretory phases. The chemicals that are being secreted are
18:50
Speaker 1: all sorts of like proteins and hormones and other things
18:53
Speaker 1: that will sustain the carbohydrates too, that will sustain an egg.
18:57
Speaker 1: If fertilized egg shows up in your uterus, it's all
19:01
Speaker 1: sorts of secretions are being fed into your endometrium so
19:06
Speaker 1: that the egg will be nourished as it grows into
19:08
Speaker 1: a little bouncing baby. That's right, uh, back to the
19:12
Speaker 1: luteal phase. At this point, the follicle is going to
19:15
Speaker 1: rupture and this is called ovulation. It's when the egg
19:17
Speaker 1: is released and the egg travels down that fallopian tube
19:21
Speaker 1: towards the uterus, and if it becomes fertilized, it's you know, ideally, Uh,
19:27
Speaker 1: if everything goes right and the wide end of the
19:30
Speaker 1: fallopian tube where it meets the uterus, you can also
19:35
Speaker 1: undergo what's called an ep topic pregnancy. That's when it
19:38
Speaker 1: implants on the outside of the uterus. Uh. Emily and
19:42
Speaker 1: I went through one of these with one of our miscarriages.
19:44
Speaker 1: That leads to a miscarriage. It's very very sad thing,
19:47
Speaker 1: but also quite common. Uh. At some point we should
19:51
Speaker 1: probably do a whole episode on miscarriages, because that is
19:55
Speaker 1: something that people don't talk nearly enough about. Uh. And
19:59
Speaker 1: it happens like the time, and it's just not the
20:02
Speaker 1: sort of thing that people, you know, bring up with
20:04
Speaker 1: one another. But once it is brought up among friends
20:08
Speaker 1: and family, more people start saying, Oh, yeah, I had one,
20:11
Speaker 1: I had to I had three. Uh. And it's all
20:14
Speaker 1: very sad stuff. So we'll cover that at some point.
20:16
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't have the daughter I have now had
20:18
Speaker 1: our life not taken us in that direction. So I
20:22
Speaker 1: can't imagine things any other way. You know. It's like
20:25
Speaker 1: Garth Brooks said, Chuck, some of God's greatest gifts are
20:28
Speaker 1: unanswered prayers. Are you sure that one? Chris Gaines Chris
20:34
Speaker 1: Kaines covered that brook song even head spinning dose of
20:38
Speaker 1: postmodern irony. But at this point, if everything is going well,
20:41
Speaker 1: you have the egg again at the wide end of
20:44
Speaker 1: the fallopian tube. Yeah, so that's where it's fertilized. If
20:49
Speaker 1: it's fertilized, it goes poop and falls into the uterus
20:53
Speaker 1: where it sticks to the endometrium and gets secreted all
20:56
Speaker 1: over and nourished and fed with lots of carbohydrates and proteins,
20:59
Speaker 1: and there's horn one's going berserk and the pregnancy begins.
21:02
Speaker 1: That's if the egg is successfully fertilized. And we should
21:05
Speaker 1: say that ovulation phase is the shortest phase of this
21:08
Speaker 1: whole cycle. It lasts only twenty four hours. That's how
21:11
Speaker 1: long you have for your egg to become fertilized into
21:15
Speaker 1: a blast assist is what they call it. It's a
21:17
Speaker 1: very unromantic name for a fertilized egg, but that's that um.
21:22
Speaker 1: So you've got twenty four hours and if that doesn't happen,
21:25
Speaker 1: the the luteal phase keeps going. So you've got that
21:29
Speaker 1: that follicle that the egg came out of that turns
21:32
Speaker 1: into like this kind of conductor that's conducting the symphony
21:35
Speaker 1: that's going on in your uterus, that's making it just
21:39
Speaker 1: more and more hospitable for a fertilized egg if it
21:42
Speaker 1: shows up. So the egg has twenty four hours, but
21:44
Speaker 1: the lootal phase keeps going on well beyond that twenty
21:47
Speaker 1: four hours. It doesn't know immediately that there's um there,
21:50
Speaker 1: like the fertilized egg isn't coming, so it keeps preparing
21:53
Speaker 1: for it as if it's going to for many days
21:55
Speaker 1: I think, um something like a week and a half
21:57
Speaker 1: the louteal phase lasts, and then if actually they realize
22:01
Speaker 1: that the fertilized egg isn't gonna show up, and so
22:04
Speaker 1: that follicle that's a conductor, it's putting out um progesterone
22:08
Speaker 1: suddenly just stops putting out progesterone, and all of a sudden,
22:12
Speaker 1: you have a huge imbalance between your progesterone levels and
22:15
Speaker 1: your estrogen levels, and it can make you extraordinarily irritable, sad, anxious,
22:22
Speaker 1: and a bunch of other stuff just a few days
22:25
Speaker 1: before your actual period starts. And that's what they call
22:28
Speaker 1: pre menstrual syndrome a K. A p MS. That's right. Uh,
22:32
Speaker 1: it is a very normal thing to happen. Uh. This
22:35
Speaker 1: is something that we maybe could uh we could probably
22:38
Speaker 1: get a whole episode out of this. Uh. It can
22:41
Speaker 1: be very severe in some cases and be very disruptive
22:44
Speaker 1: in some cases. Uh. And and when that is the case,
22:48
Speaker 1: it's called pre menstrul dysphoric disorder. Uh. And it's funny,
22:53
Speaker 1: you know, Emily and I were talking about menstruation, you know,
22:55
Speaker 1: because I was researching this, and she just got back
22:59
Speaker 1: from the doctor and they told her flax seed is
23:04
Speaker 1: uh can really aid with PMS symptoms. And you know
23:08
Speaker 1: it's like here we are. You know, she's cruising up
23:11
Speaker 1: towards fifty years old, and it's you know, just learning
23:13
Speaker 1: this stuff about flax seeds. So there's always room to learn,
23:18
Speaker 1: I guess, is what I'm saying. Um, you said that
23:23
Speaker 1: the progesterone and estrogen are gonna cease to be produced
23:27
Speaker 1: at this point, But what does happen is a substance
23:31
Speaker 1: called prostaglandin is gonna come along and it's gonna constrict
23:37
Speaker 1: all those spiral arteries that made those connections to get
23:41
Speaker 1: ready for you know, their big scene and that's going
23:44
Speaker 1: to cause them to tear themselves apart, and it's gonna basically,
23:48
Speaker 1: you're not gonna get the blood flow to the endometrium
23:50
Speaker 1: that you had going on, So it's gonna start breaking
23:53
Speaker 1: down away from the uterine wall. And so that that
23:57
Speaker 1: is the minsies, that is the menstruation, and that's what's happening.
24:00
Speaker 1: Is aos blood vessels, that's where the blood comes from,
24:03
Speaker 1: right um. And then the tissue is your actual endometrium,
24:07
Speaker 1: that lining of your uterus um that was built up
24:10
Speaker 1: into like this fluffy um fertilized egg loving habitat. Uh.
24:15
Speaker 1: That's no longer needed because the fertilized egg never showed up,
24:18
Speaker 1: So you got to get it out somewhere. And again,
24:20
Speaker 1: animals that go through estrus they reabsorbed this. UH. Animals
24:24
Speaker 1: that men's stright get rid of it. They discharge it.
24:26
Speaker 1: And the reason why is because if you didn't, that
24:28
Speaker 1: stuff would build up awfully quick over the course of
24:31
Speaker 1: even just the first year, you started to have periods.
24:34
Speaker 1: And also, as we'll see, UH, it could cause you
24:36
Speaker 1: a whole host of health problems. So it's actually really
24:39
Speaker 1: good and really smart evolutionarily speaking and biologically speaking to
24:44
Speaker 1: have um the menstruation phase of the menstrual cycle. UM.
24:49
Speaker 1: And one of the things with that endometrium that I saw, chuck,
24:52
Speaker 1: it can come out almost intact as a whole, like
24:56
Speaker 1: it can come out in the shape of the uterus,
24:58
Speaker 1: like the whole lining just comes out as in as
25:02
Speaker 1: in one chunk. It's very rare, but if you go
25:05
Speaker 1: look on the internet, it's actually a real thing. They're
25:07
Speaker 1: called decidual casts, like a cast of something, um, not
25:12
Speaker 1: a not a cast of like a play, a cast
25:15
Speaker 1: of like like you'd make of a statue. All right,
25:18
Speaker 1: So I mean that's that's it in a nutshell, right, yeah.
25:22
Speaker 1: I would say even more than a nutshell, Like that's
25:25
Speaker 1: several nutshells worth, uh acorn squash shell. I yeah, I
25:30
Speaker 1: think that's good. But we should say that you wouldn't
25:32
Speaker 1: need an acorn squash shell to hold all of the
25:35
Speaker 1: blood that comes out, because typically when you go through
25:38
Speaker 1: the menstrual phase of the menstruation phase of the menstrual cycle,
25:43
Speaker 1: what you call your period, usually it's only results in
25:45
Speaker 1: about five or six tablespoons of blood over the course
25:48
Speaker 1: of like five to seven days, that's right. But it
25:51
Speaker 1: can come in inconvenient times, people can be caught off guard. Uh,
25:55
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about all that stuff, but um, first
25:58
Speaker 1: let's get into some of the disorders and problems that
26:01
Speaker 1: can happen with the menstrual cycle, because it can be
26:04
Speaker 1: a very finicky thing. Um. If if you are someone
26:07
Speaker 1: who has just a super regular, very um, you know,
26:13
Speaker 1: straightforward menstrual cycle, then you should count yourself lucky. Because
26:17
Speaker 1: it can go in all sorts of different ways. Uh.
26:20
Speaker 1: There's one way you can go called dysmenorrhea, and these
26:25
Speaker 1: are cramps. Basically that there changes to the uterus that
26:29
Speaker 1: can cause these muscle contractions, and that cramping is very
26:32
Speaker 1: normal and I think most people who menstrate have some
26:35
Speaker 1: amount of cramping generally, but it can get really severe
26:39
Speaker 1: and also, uh, as with other things, very disabling and disruptive. Right.
26:45
Speaker 1: There's also um a man a rhea, which is where
26:48
Speaker 1: you just don't menstrate when you should be menstruating, at
26:51
Speaker 1: least biologically speaking. Right. So they say that there's two kinds.
26:55
Speaker 1: Primary man arhea is after a girl who has turned
26:59
Speaker 1: age five teen still hasn't had her first period, that's
27:02
Speaker 1: primary a manorrhea. And then um, a woman who has
27:06
Speaker 1: had periods regularly before and then all of a sudden
27:09
Speaker 1: misses three of them. And we should say, who is
27:12
Speaker 1: also not pregnant at the time. UM, that would be
27:16
Speaker 1: secondary men a man aihea, and both of them are
27:19
Speaker 1: nothing necessarily to be super scared about or anything, but
27:22
Speaker 1: they're probably something you would want to go talk to
27:24
Speaker 1: your guynecologist about. UM. One other thing, well, a bunch
27:29
Speaker 1: of other things that can cause a man aihea to UM.
27:32
Speaker 1: Like I said, UM, elite athletes get it from too
27:36
Speaker 1: much exercise and not enough body fat. You can be
27:38
Speaker 1: malnourished for whatever reason, or maybe have an eating disorder
27:42
Speaker 1: that causes you malnourishment. Stress can do it. UM. Your
27:46
Speaker 1: doctor might say, I think you're sniffing too much cocaine.
27:49
Speaker 1: That can definitely bring on a manorrhea. UM. There's a
27:52
Speaker 1: lot of lifestyle changes that you can make that are
27:54
Speaker 1: probably fairly easy. UM. That would that would bring your
27:59
Speaker 1: period back in if you want that kind of thing, right, Uh,
28:03
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about it. But birth control pills are
28:06
Speaker 1: sometimes people get on birth control pills to regulate their
28:08
Speaker 1: period and it really has less to do with getting
28:12
Speaker 1: pregnant or not. Yeah, So what else is there menorasia minoragia.
28:20
Speaker 1: I heard, and you know, I've looked it up. But again,
28:23
Speaker 1: with these pronunciations sometimes that you'll get three different ones,
28:26
Speaker 1: so it's kind of frustrating. But I saw or heard
28:29
Speaker 1: rather uh miner agia. Okay, you're gonna go with minora gia. Well,
28:37
Speaker 1: this is essentially heavy flow, right, yes, And again usually
28:42
Speaker 1: you're looking at what three to five table spoons of
28:45
Speaker 1: blood that comes out again over the course of five
28:48
Speaker 1: to seven days on average. That is that is not
28:50
Speaker 1: There plenty of people who men straight out there who
28:52
Speaker 1: are like, um, yeah, like quadruple that or whatever. Um.
28:57
Speaker 1: There are there are people who have heavy bleeding um
29:00
Speaker 1: and either it's they bleed for longer, like beyond seven
29:04
Speaker 1: days is considered menorasia um or. If you apparently soak
29:10
Speaker 1: five sanitary products a day, or you soak more two
29:16
Speaker 1: or more in two hours, you definitely have minorasia. And
29:20
Speaker 1: the two or more in two hours actually means you
29:22
Speaker 1: want to go to the emergency room because you're losing blood.
29:25
Speaker 1: Don't forget. And there's all sorts of things that can
29:27
Speaker 1: happen when you're um blood levels drop like um iron
29:31
Speaker 1: deficiencies like anemia, um, all sorts of terrible stuff. So
29:36
Speaker 1: you want to go to the e er. If you're
29:38
Speaker 1: bleeding that often or that much, Yeah, you're probably passing
29:42
Speaker 1: more clots as well, and you're probably also going to
29:44
Speaker 1: be having much more severe cramps if you're undergoing menorasia.
29:49
Speaker 1: Sounds no fun. It does sound no fun. And I
29:52
Speaker 1: guess we should talk about dealing with periods. I mean,
29:55
Speaker 1: that's all part of it, right, Or should we take
29:56
Speaker 1: a break and do that? Yeah, I say we take
29:59
Speaker 1: a break. Can we come back? Um? Uh? All fists
30:03
Speaker 1: and elbows talking about dealing with periods. All right, let's
30:06
Speaker 1: do it all right? Uh. We talked a little bit
30:33
Speaker 1: and talked a little bit about in the beginning about
30:36
Speaker 1: just getting past monarchy can be very anxiety inducing. Getting
30:43
Speaker 1: into the world of menstruation for someone at the age
30:47
Speaker 1: of thirteen or so can be very anxiety inducing. Um.
30:52
Speaker 1: But it's again, it's a wonder of nature. It's not unusual,
30:56
Speaker 1: it's not gross, it's not weird. Uh. Um. At the
31:01
Speaker 1: same time, it is blood coming out of your body.
31:04
Speaker 1: So it's something that uh, you want to you know,
31:07
Speaker 1: take care of. You don't want to. I read that, God,
31:10
Speaker 1: I can't remember the statistic of the amount of ruined
31:12
Speaker 1: underwear that a person goes through in their lifetime of
31:16
Speaker 1: menstruation and just the simple cost of that. So if
31:20
Speaker 1: for no other reason than that, uh, and you know,
31:22
Speaker 1: health and sanitation, it's something that you're gonna want to
31:25
Speaker 1: take care of with what's called a sanitary product. Yeah,
31:29
Speaker 1: And from what I can tell, the desire and the
31:33
Speaker 1: drive to use sanitary products UM is almost innate to
31:38
Speaker 1: where it's, like you said, there's nothing to be ashamed of,
31:41
Speaker 1: but at the same time, you will want to use
31:43
Speaker 1: the sanitary products so much so that I've seen it
31:45
Speaker 1: described as a human right. Access to sanitary products for
31:49
Speaker 1: menstruation is considered a human right. Everyone should have it
31:53
Speaker 1: because if you don't have access to them, it can
31:56
Speaker 1: induce so many hits to your well being, like anxiety, UM,
32:02
Speaker 1: hits to your social life, like you might stay home
32:04
Speaker 1: from work, you just you you just don't want to
32:07
Speaker 1: leave your house or interact with people. You just don't
32:09
Speaker 1: feel comfortable doing that because you have no protection between
32:13
Speaker 1: your period and the rest of the world, which is
32:15
Speaker 1: one of the big points, one of the main points
32:18
Speaker 1: of sanitary products in the first place. Yeah, I mean,
32:21
Speaker 1: it's an evolutionary thing. If you see your body bleeding,
32:24
Speaker 1: you either want to stop the bleeding or if you can't,
32:25
Speaker 1: you are going to be wiping it off your arm
32:28
Speaker 1: or your leg or wherever it's coming out, right exactly,
32:31
Speaker 1: and nobody wants that, and most of all the person
32:35
Speaker 1: who's menstruating. That's right. There are many different ways to
32:39
Speaker 1: deal with this. I think most people, um sort of
32:43
Speaker 1: probably experiment around until they find something they like or
32:47
Speaker 1: can at least tolerate. Um. I think the word like
32:50
Speaker 1: it is probably not the right word to use there.
32:52
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think so. I mean, there's definitely
32:54
Speaker 1: like a fit to it, you know, I think that
32:56
Speaker 1: they can you can feel reassured by it. Maybe, yeah,
32:59
Speaker 1: I mean absolutely in that kind of way. But I
33:02
Speaker 1: don't think any of them or any kind of picnic
33:04
Speaker 1: to deal with, Okay, you know what I'm saying. So
33:07
Speaker 1: the one that you tolerate best, in that you deal
33:11
Speaker 1: with the best, I think, is probably what you're going
33:12
Speaker 1: to end up going with after you kind of try
33:14
Speaker 1: different things out. Um. One of them is a menstrual cloth.
33:18
Speaker 1: This is sort of the non disposable diaper of the
33:21
Speaker 1: sanitary product world in that it is fabric that is
33:26
Speaker 1: washed and rewashed and re used again. Um, you're probably
33:31
Speaker 1: not gonna see this use very often in you know,
33:36
Speaker 1: developed nations. It's mainly in places that are poverty stricken
33:40
Speaker 1: or in an emergency, or if there's like a refugee
33:43
Speaker 1: crisis going on. Right. Um, If you take that menstrual
33:47
Speaker 1: cloth and you add wings to it, um, so that
33:51
Speaker 1: it stays fast into the underwear, what you have is
33:53
Speaker 1: a reusable pad basically, And with both of them, you
33:58
Speaker 1: can actually remove them after they become saturated, wash them
34:02
Speaker 1: out really really well, and then reuse them so they're reusable.
34:06
Speaker 1: And as because they were usable, reusable pads in particular,
34:09
Speaker 1: starting to see an upticking use in countries like the
34:12
Speaker 1: United States because environmentally speaking, their way preferable to things
34:17
Speaker 1: like disposable pads and tampons. You also have the disposable
34:21
Speaker 1: pad and the tampon. These are the two, um, I
34:24
Speaker 1: think the two still to the two most common used
34:27
Speaker 1: in the US. A pad is gonna, you know, have
34:31
Speaker 1: some absorbent material, there's gonna be some plastics in there,
34:35
Speaker 1: there will be an adhesive to hold it in place
34:37
Speaker 1: in the underwear. These like I said, are disposable. Um.
34:41
Speaker 1: Along with the tampon, which is a cylinder, it's also absorbent.
34:46
Speaker 1: This is inserted into the vagina and is gonna soak
34:49
Speaker 1: up that menstrual blood on the insite before it actually
34:52
Speaker 1: leaves the body. UM And again obviously disposable. And we'll
34:58
Speaker 1: talk about toxic chuck syndro them in one second. But
35:01
Speaker 1: I did a little calculating, uh, or actually I went
35:04
Speaker 1: to websites that did the calculating formula because we could
35:07
Speaker 1: get it wrong. And I was just wondering about costs,
35:10
Speaker 1: like we we hear about the the pink tax. Isn't
35:14
Speaker 1: that what it's called? Which is just sort of the
35:16
Speaker 1: amount of money that uh, that women pay over their
35:20
Speaker 1: lifetime and for stuff like this and other things that
35:23
Speaker 1: men don't have to pay for. Uh. And I think
35:26
Speaker 1: that they said for tampons, you're looking at close to
35:30
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars for a lifetime, pads about forty seven
35:35
Speaker 1: hundred dollars dollars for a lifetime. UM, Far and away,
35:39
Speaker 1: the the the best deal going is the minstrel cup.
35:45
Speaker 1: This is a sort of like a bell shaped cup
35:48
Speaker 1: that's flexible. It's usually like silicone and this is reusable.
35:53
Speaker 1: It's it's washed through and I think you're supposed to
35:56
Speaker 1: boil it like once a month. That's about You're still
36:00
Speaker 1: not going to use that one for your whole life,
36:01
Speaker 1: but they say about eighty bucks maybe over your life.
36:04
Speaker 1: And there are also minstrel discs, and the difference between
36:08
Speaker 1: a menstrel disc and I think that they're newer than
36:11
Speaker 1: minstrel cups if I'm not mistaken. But a cup sits
36:14
Speaker 1: in the vagina below the cervix UH and extends into
36:18
Speaker 1: the canal um. It depends on the brand, of course,
36:21
Speaker 1: but the disc UH fits back into the vaginal fornix,
36:27
Speaker 1: which is where your cervical canal meets your cervix. Thank
36:31
Speaker 1: you healthline dot com for that direct quote. Very nice.
36:36
Speaker 1: Menstrel cups they're usually made of like silicone, and yeah,
36:38
Speaker 1: you can. I saw that you use them for about
36:40
Speaker 1: two years before you need to get another one. They're
36:43
Speaker 1: also considered fairly green, especially considered compared to pads and tampons,
36:49
Speaker 1: But like you said, pads and tampons remain far and
36:52
Speaker 1: away the most popular sanitary products in the United States,
36:56
Speaker 1: so much so Chuck that in the same paragraph, I
37:00
Speaker 1: saw that six of Americans use pads while for use tampons,
37:07
Speaker 1: which means that there's a hundred and four percent Americans
37:10
Speaker 1: out there who men straight. In the same paragraph this
37:16
Speaker 1: it wasn't from like two different sources either. The other
37:20
Speaker 1: thing I did want to mention if Alan was interesting,
37:21
Speaker 1: is we didn't get into too much history here, but
37:24
Speaker 1: apparently in ancient Rome they use wool uh in Africa
37:28
Speaker 1: they rolled up grasses sort of like a tampon, and
37:31
Speaker 1: they used home about Hawaii ferns and then beautiful in
37:35
Speaker 1: a way, I think, so, yeah, it sounds like I
37:39
Speaker 1: would hope it's like very pleasant and not like not pleasant.
37:44
Speaker 1: But yeah, ferns I saw that. I wouldn't think they
37:46
Speaker 1: be very absorbent, but I guess I don't know. I
37:49
Speaker 1: guess it's better than nothing. Who knows. Um. There's also
37:53
Speaker 1: hormonal birth control or the birth control pill, which we
37:56
Speaker 1: did an entire episode on a while back, and you
37:59
Speaker 1: can actually prevent menstruation on birth control pills. UH if
38:05
Speaker 1: you don't do don't eat the sugar pills or placebo
38:08
Speaker 1: pills that fill up the week at the end of
38:11
Speaker 1: the pill pack. If you just jump right into your
38:15
Speaker 1: next birth control pill immediately you want mens stright. And
38:18
Speaker 1: the reason why is because those hormonal pills keep your
38:21
Speaker 1: estrogen levels nice and even so there's no spike, and
38:25
Speaker 1: if there's no spike and estrogen levels, there's no um.
38:29
Speaker 1: There's no signal to trigger the follicular phase or the
38:32
Speaker 1: luteal phase, because both of those phases, which are really
38:35
Speaker 1: important in dropping an egg um are are triggered by estrogen.
38:40
Speaker 1: So if there's no estrogen spike, there's no egg that's
38:43
Speaker 1: going to come out of the um the follicles. Very interesting. Yeah,
38:47
Speaker 1: I'm sure we talked birth control right, I'm sure we
38:51
Speaker 1: had to too. Yeah, but apparently they've they've decided now
38:55
Speaker 1: once and for all that it's totally if you're not
38:58
Speaker 1: trying to get pregnant, you you could just stay on
39:00
Speaker 1: birth control um constantly and never have a period if
39:04
Speaker 1: you didn't want to. And from everything that's guynecologists in
39:09
Speaker 1: biologists can tell there's not really any ill effects that
39:13
Speaker 1: come out of that. It's supposedly safe to just do. Uh. Well,
39:18
Speaker 1: a minute ago, we mentioned toxic shock syndrome with their
39:22
Speaker 1: promise to go back to it, and this is something
39:25
Speaker 1: that can happen if you leave a tampon in too long. Uh.
39:28
Speaker 1: It is a pretty rough bacterial infection, uh. And it
39:33
Speaker 1: can include you know, dizziness, vomiting, diarrhea, It can include
39:38
Speaker 1: organ failure and death. And it is a very specific
39:42
Speaker 1: toxic staff bacteria that can really grow and flourish in
39:47
Speaker 1: the fibers of a tampon. And this has led you
39:51
Speaker 1: know a lot of people, especially UM, you know in politics,
39:55
Speaker 1: women in Congress, to say, hey, you know, what these
39:58
Speaker 1: tampons are all have is proprietary uh constructions, and what
40:03
Speaker 1: goes into a tampon, and we need to know, like
40:06
Speaker 1: there needs to be more transparency here of what what
40:10
Speaker 1: is in these things. I mean, it's generally thought to
40:12
Speaker 1: be like cotton and rayon and quote synthetic fibers, but
40:16
Speaker 1: like I said, each one is proprietary, so they don't
40:19
Speaker 1: release the ingredients, and these bills just repeatedly die in
40:24
Speaker 1: uh you know, die on the floor, and to spend
40:28
Speaker 1: years and years and still haven't gotten through. I don't think, right, No,
40:31
Speaker 1: that's absolutely the case. UM. Supposedly, in response, the UM,
40:35
Speaker 1: like the pads and tampon makers have started to release
40:40
Speaker 1: more information about what goes into their products on their websites,
40:43
Speaker 1: but they also still point to the f d a UM.
40:46
Speaker 1: A lot of people don't realize this, but tampons are
40:48
Speaker 1: regulated as a medical device in the United States, which
40:52
Speaker 1: means the f D a UH supposedly tests them, verifies
40:57
Speaker 1: their safety, UM, and make sure that the stuff that's
41:00
Speaker 1: being sold in the US is fully safe. Again, ostensibly,
41:04
Speaker 1: we've done plenty of episodes about how the FDA has
41:06
Speaker 1: dropped the ball here there UM, but there there is
41:09
Speaker 1: still kind of this like ongoing struggle to find out
41:13
Speaker 1: exactly what is in tampons and UM and pads UM.
41:19
Speaker 1: But yeah, again, the FDA regulates tampons at least so UM.
41:22
Speaker 1: I find that curious. But I think the reason why
41:26
Speaker 1: they got into it, Chuck, was UM from that toxic
41:28
Speaker 1: shock syndrome and realizing that that staff can grow on
41:31
Speaker 1: the fibers of the tampon. And I think that's when
41:34
Speaker 1: the FDA got involved and started claiming domain over tampons
41:38
Speaker 1: in particular. Interesting UM and then Chuck, we talked about
41:42
Speaker 1: all these different UM sanitary products again, which is what
41:46
Speaker 1: they're called UM. And even if you use them, there
41:51
Speaker 1: can be times where they just malfunction or don't work
41:55
Speaker 1: or it wasn't in right or who who, however you
41:57
Speaker 1: want to put it. And accidents happen. And I think
42:00
Speaker 1: if you are a teenager in high school and this
42:03
Speaker 1: happens to you, you probably feel that your life is over.
42:07
Speaker 1: And I just want to take a moment to assure
42:09
Speaker 1: you that, as embarrassing as that probably is for you, UM,
42:13
Speaker 1: your life is not over. Eventually, it's going to become
42:16
Speaker 1: something that you laugh about, make fun of, UM, and
42:19
Speaker 1: you will get past. So please don't let that. Don't
42:21
Speaker 1: feel like that's going to frame the rest of your life,
42:24
Speaker 1: even though it does feel like it now of course. Uh.
42:27
Speaker 1: And you know that kind of leads us to uh,
42:31
Speaker 1: just sort of the culture around it period, not only
42:34
Speaker 1: here in the United States, but worldwide, because in some
42:37
Speaker 1: countries it is UM. It's really awful how menstruation is
42:43
Speaker 1: treated and how people can be ostracized for menstruating or
42:48
Speaker 1: even if they might be menstruating. I think Ed points
42:51
Speaker 1: out that the k h o I, the coy people, UM,
42:55
Speaker 1: they eat their meals separated by gender just in case
43:00
Speaker 1: someone might be menstruating. Yeah, those are the people from
43:03
Speaker 1: the gods, must be crazy from the Kalahari. Um. Yeah,
43:07
Speaker 1: so there's like that's a really good example of a
43:09
Speaker 1: very ingrained social taboo UM against menstruation that you find
43:15
Speaker 1: in um undeveloped or less developed cultures. And you know,
43:19
Speaker 1: those of us in the West tend to be like,
43:21
Speaker 1: you know, that's so undeveloped. Of course there's a weird
43:24
Speaker 1: social taboo. But we should not judge so fast, because
43:28
Speaker 1: it was not very long ago that UM. Europe had
43:31
Speaker 1: its own well and grained social taboos against menstruation as well, right, Yeah,
43:36
Speaker 1: I mean we're talking you know, late eighteen hundreds, which
43:39
Speaker 1: is not that long ago. Uh. France, which you would
43:43
Speaker 1: think is a very advanced country, they barred women who
43:46
Speaker 1: are menstruating from working at food production jobs, like if
43:50
Speaker 1: you're a winemaker, you had to take off and not
43:52
Speaker 1: work and therefore not get paid when you were menstruating.
43:56
Speaker 1: And as late as the eighteen nineties in Britain even
43:59
Speaker 1: there were doctors that refused to perform surgeries on women
44:02
Speaker 1: who are menstruating. Right, And so I mean there's like
44:06
Speaker 1: reasons behind this. I think part of it is just
44:08
Speaker 1: simple UM misogyny, UM, just just a way to to
44:14
Speaker 1: keep women UM feeling ashamed, UM, feeling controlled by society. UM.
44:21
Speaker 1: I think that's a big part of it. And then
44:22
Speaker 1: also definitely tied into it is the idea, I mean,
44:25
Speaker 1: there's blood, and you know humans are just hardwired to
44:30
Speaker 1: not be comfortable at the sight of blood or want
44:32
Speaker 1: to go toward it or anything like that, you know.
44:34
Speaker 1: So I think those combined probably at least partially explained
44:39
Speaker 1: where some of these social taboos came from and how
44:42
Speaker 1: they've remained for so long. Yeah, and you know this
44:45
Speaker 1: is uh, there are some countries that actually celebrate it.
44:48
Speaker 1: We did talk about the monarchy being celebrated in certain
44:51
Speaker 1: Native American cultures. There are other um, there are other
44:55
Speaker 1: countries where they really take care of women who are menstruating,
44:58
Speaker 1: whether it's UM. Like in Ghana, menstruating women have an
45:02
Speaker 1: umbrella that they sit under, in little tints that they
45:05
Speaker 1: sit under so they can at least be in the
45:07
Speaker 1: shade when they're having their period. And you found another
45:10
Speaker 1: country too that did something similar, right, Well, it was
45:14
Speaker 1: a Native American indigenous group, the Ojibwe, and they actually
45:19
Speaker 1: they consider women um who are menstruating actually on their period,
45:23
Speaker 1: in that phase of their menstrual cycle. As being spiritually powerful,
45:28
Speaker 1: like this is a time where um, they might have
45:31
Speaker 1: visions UM where they they usually use it to self
45:36
Speaker 1: reflect or to learn from elders. And they actually would
45:40
Speaker 1: seclude women, um who were menstruating on their period. They
45:44
Speaker 1: would put them in like these little houses that were
45:46
Speaker 1: purpose built for it. But it wasn't to be like,
45:49
Speaker 1: oh good away from us. It was like, you're in
45:52
Speaker 1: a really um significant place right now, and you should
45:56
Speaker 1: go use this time to again reflect on yourself, orflect
46:00
Speaker 1: on you know, what you're learning from your elders, and
46:03
Speaker 1: just basically making the most out of the spiritually powerful
46:08
Speaker 1: you know, a few days out of this month. Yeah,
46:11
Speaker 1: And I mean it's great hearing those stories. There are
46:14
Speaker 1: far too many places, though, where where it is the opposite. Uh.
46:17
Speaker 1: There's a term we should talk about briefly called period poverty. UH.
46:23
Speaker 1: These are cultural barriers, political barriers, economic barriers to sanitary products,
46:29
Speaker 1: to services UH, to education UH. And they they affect
46:34
Speaker 1: everything everything from hygiene to your job, to your health, UH,
46:40
Speaker 1: to your education and going to school. And it's a
46:43
Speaker 1: it's a problem in the world. And they are all
46:45
Speaker 1: kinds of great UM organizations that if you want to
46:49
Speaker 1: help provide menstal products to people in need. There are
46:51
Speaker 1: some great charities out there doing it. Um just you know,
46:56
Speaker 1: just google that, like Menstrual Product Charity and they are
46:59
Speaker 1: all are many, many of them. There's one called Freedom
47:02
Speaker 1: for the Number four Girls, but there are there are
47:05
Speaker 1: lots of them, and you should just check them out
47:07
Speaker 1: if that's something that you feel like it's worthwhile, because
47:11
Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, I mean, it's a really easy thing
47:14
Speaker 1: to overlook in you know, the United States or Canada
47:17
Speaker 1: or Australia or the UK, um. And then it's especially
47:22
Speaker 1: easy to overlook in those countries as a man like
47:25
Speaker 1: you just don't think about that kind of thing. But
47:27
Speaker 1: even in those countries people do experience period poverty. So
47:31
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not like you're just helping people in
47:33
Speaker 1: less developed nations, like you're helping people in your own
47:36
Speaker 1: country too who don't have access to it. And again
47:40
Speaker 1: that access to sanitary products is considered a human right,
47:43
Speaker 1: or it's becoming more and more considered a human right. Absolutely. Uh.
47:47
Speaker 1: Should we close with some menstrual myths? Yes, this is fun,
47:51
Speaker 1: It is fun. Uh. This is a myth that I
47:54
Speaker 1: heard so much in my life. I assumed it was true,
47:57
Speaker 1: which is that women if they hang out a lot together,
48:00
Speaker 1: like in an office or or a small business, or
48:03
Speaker 1: in a dorm or a sorority house, that they will
48:07
Speaker 1: sync up. It can be called minstrel synchrony or the
48:12
Speaker 1: McClintock effect, which is named after who was to blame
48:17
Speaker 1: for this, which is the nineteen seventy one study by
48:20
Speaker 1: Martha McClintock about women in a college dorm. It was
48:24
Speaker 1: published in Nature magazine and it got a lot of attention.
48:28
Speaker 1: And I think people still I think that women can
48:31
Speaker 1: sync up, and that just has proved not to be
48:34
Speaker 1: the case. It's been debunked over and over, and they
48:37
Speaker 1: found a lot of problems with the initial study. So
48:40
Speaker 1: I saw a couple of things I saw that was
48:42
Speaker 1: discredited and debunked, and um, I also saw that it
48:46
Speaker 1: remains unproven. And apparently McClintock's initial study was, you know,
48:52
Speaker 1: left a lot to be desired, so her methodology was
48:56
Speaker 1: not really great, so the whole thing couldn't be reproduced
48:59
Speaker 1: using her exact methodology. But apparently, anecdotally speaking, it's so
49:05
Speaker 1: prevalent um that like people just refuse to believe, it
49:08
Speaker 1: just doesn't exist. And say we just haven't figured out
49:11
Speaker 1: how to how to prove it yet. Well, what I saw,
49:14
Speaker 1: and again maybe maybe the jury still out, but what
49:16
Speaker 1: I saw was that the variable, the variability of the
49:21
Speaker 1: menstrual cycle among people who menstraight, and the days that
49:25
Speaker 1: it can change and get thrown out of sink and
49:28
Speaker 1: it can last longer, be shorter than that overlap is
49:32
Speaker 1: what accounts for people thinking that they're sinking up. Um.
49:35
Speaker 1: But who knows. I mean, I think maybe the jury
49:39
Speaker 1: is still out, but we can definitely say that no
49:41
Speaker 1: one proved that women sink up. That's fun. Let's both
49:45
Speaker 1: say that what other myths are out there? We've got
49:51
Speaker 1: some good ones, Chuck, this is one that I didn't
49:53
Speaker 1: realize either. Um. The idea that you can't get pregnant
49:57
Speaker 1: on your period, news flash, you totally can. Yeah, and
50:01
Speaker 1: in like really take that to heart. You can get
50:05
Speaker 1: pregnant in your period. And the reason why is, if
50:09
Speaker 1: you'll remember back to what we were talking about when
50:11
Speaker 1: we kind of were doing the nitty gritty of UM,
50:14
Speaker 1: the minstrreul and um ovulation cycles, they kind of overlap,
50:19
Speaker 1: so that follicular cycle it starts when you start your period.
50:24
Speaker 1: And if you have a short follicular cycle, you might
50:27
Speaker 1: drop an egg pretty shortly after you stop your period.
50:32
Speaker 1: That's fine and dandy. The problem is is sperm is
50:35
Speaker 1: viable for up to five days in the human body,
50:39
Speaker 1: in a woman's body, So if you drop an egg
50:42
Speaker 1: and they're sperm, that's saying hanging out on day five,
50:45
Speaker 1: it can fertilize that egg even though you're still on
50:49
Speaker 1: your period. You had sex while you were on your period,
50:52
Speaker 1: that's right, So again, you can get pregnant on your period.
50:56
Speaker 1: Very important if you're just getting started in your uh
51:01
Speaker 1: sexual life, to understand this or at any time in
51:04
Speaker 1: your life. Yeah, I was gonna say, or you don't
51:05
Speaker 1: want a big surprise, you know, in your midlife? Uh?
51:10
Speaker 1: What about sharks and bears? Despite what Steve Carrell said
51:15
Speaker 1: an anchorman, which is one of the very funny scenes,
51:19
Speaker 1: it really is Apparently some people think that's true. And
51:23
Speaker 1: what's weird is there was a study that was conducted
51:28
Speaker 1: that the National Park Service hosts on their website mentions
51:31
Speaker 1: on their website that UM said that it's entirely possible
51:37
Speaker 1: that UM a period could attract bears because bears have
51:40
Speaker 1: such an amazing sense of smell um, but that they
51:43
Speaker 1: would not be any more attracted to that odor than
51:46
Speaker 1: any other odor that might attract them. So it's not
51:49
Speaker 1: like you're just guaranteed to be attacked by a bear
51:51
Speaker 1: if you go into the woods while you're menstruating, right,
51:54
Speaker 1: like the bears smells, it might as well be a
51:57
Speaker 1: uneaten hot pocket to bear. That's the equivalent of menstruating
52:03
Speaker 1: as far as bears are. Keep saying, Uh, did you
52:05
Speaker 1: see the part about polar bears though no, huh, they did.
52:09
Speaker 1: This was on the same NPS site. They did an
52:12
Speaker 1: actual study and it seems that, or at least in
52:15
Speaker 1: the study, polar bears actually were specifically attracted to menstrual blood.
52:23
Speaker 1: Oh my god, So we not only didn't bust a myth,
52:26
Speaker 1: we actually supported a myth. Well it's it's they said,
52:29
Speaker 1: grizzlies and black bears. They did test where they had
52:31
Speaker 1: like you know, tampons and stuff out with other things,
52:35
Speaker 1: and the grizzly bears and black bears didn't really care,
52:38
Speaker 1: but um, the polar bears did. And I don't know
52:41
Speaker 1: like how full proof that study is, but they they
52:45
Speaker 1: basically said, the jury is still out on polar bears.
52:47
Speaker 1: And polar bears are just super aggressive anyway. They're one
52:51
Speaker 1: of the only animals that, like, we'll stalk a human.
52:55
Speaker 1: I think polar bears, lions, and I think there's one more,
52:58
Speaker 1: but um so that it may be due to that,
53:01
Speaker 1: but jury's still out on that. I think sharks is
53:04
Speaker 1: a definite note right, Yeah, from what I saw from
53:07
Speaker 1: what our friends that you buy co tex say, it's
53:09
Speaker 1: definitely no, that's where that one came from. Um, just
53:15
Speaker 1: a couple more things to button up before we go.
53:17
Speaker 1: We definitely didn't want to scare you about toxic shock syndrome.
53:20
Speaker 1: It's actually exceedingly rare. I think there's something about like
53:23
Speaker 1: fifty eight cases a year um. And you can stay
53:27
Speaker 1: on top of it by staying on top of changing
53:29
Speaker 1: your tampon regularly, I think, no longer than eight hours.
53:33
Speaker 1: And then also don't use one that's more absorbent than
53:35
Speaker 1: you need, because again, they proliferate on the fibers, So
53:39
Speaker 1: more fibers means more chance for that bacteria to proliferate
53:43
Speaker 1: and create those toxins. That's one and then also one
53:45
Speaker 1: other thing, even if you're not worried about getting pregnant
53:48
Speaker 1: on your period. You can still catch sexually transmitted diseases
53:51
Speaker 1: on your period, so you should be wearing a condom
53:53
Speaker 1: in that case. Anyway. That's right, Good job, buddy, thank you,
53:58
Speaker 1: Good job to you. There's also a tamp on shortage
54:00
Speaker 1: going on right now, Chuck, did you see that? I did. Uh.
54:04
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things that there's a shortage of
54:06
Speaker 1: right now. So that's um obviously worrisome, especially with these
54:11
Speaker 1: organizations that try to send these two places where they
54:14
Speaker 1: really really need them. Yeah, for sure. But there's few
54:16
Speaker 1: shortages that can be attributed to Amy Schumer. Uh, And
54:21
Speaker 1: this one has been at least in part. There was
54:23
Speaker 1: a big tam PACs ad campaign featuring Amy Schumer that
54:27
Speaker 1: tam pac said was so colossally um impactful, and sales
54:33
Speaker 1: went up so high that they blamed part of the
54:35
Speaker 1: tampon shortage on the ad campaign. I'd buy anything Amy
54:39
Speaker 1: Schumer told me to buy. I love her. Sure, She's
54:43
Speaker 1: America's greatest national treasure. She's one of them. She's better
54:47
Speaker 1: than the Declaration of Independence and Abe Lincoln's hat rolled together,
54:52
Speaker 1: which is what some people used as tampons during the
54:55
Speaker 1: Civil War. That's right. Nice, Uh, you got anything else.
55:00
Speaker 1: I got nothing else, All right, Chuck, way to go, buddy.
55:03
Speaker 1: Um we did it. Since I just said that it's
55:06
Speaker 1: time for a listener mail. Uh. We had our drowning
55:11
Speaker 1: episode run on our Saturday selects recently and got a
55:14
Speaker 1: lot of people writing in again about that. And this
55:17
Speaker 1: is a water safety p s a from um someone
55:21
Speaker 1: who worked as a lifeguard. Her name is Ella Fineberg,
55:24
Speaker 1: and ellis as a couple of things, one of which
55:26
Speaker 1: is water wings are not safe parents. And these are
55:30
Speaker 1: the things that the parents put their little kids in
55:33
Speaker 1: that goes around their chest and then their arms. They're
55:36
Speaker 1: called float ees. You know. They put their little tiny
55:38
Speaker 1: arms through their Uh. Many parents think they're legit flotation devices.
55:43
Speaker 1: I don't blame them, um, but they don't secure under
55:46
Speaker 1: their arms very well. And there's a very real risk
55:48
Speaker 1: that if a kid goes under the water, wings will
55:50
Speaker 1: float up to their wrists and not do anything to
55:53
Speaker 1: keep their actual head above water. Uh. And newsflash, you
55:56
Speaker 1: can't breathe if your hands are above the water. That's
55:59
Speaker 1: the second news flash of this episode. If only your
56:02
Speaker 1: hands for buff water. Let should say. Uh. And here's
56:06
Speaker 1: another news flash, Um, Ella says something you didn't mention
56:11
Speaker 1: is if you are not a strong swimmer and you
56:14
Speaker 1: don't have a flotation device with you, do not help
56:18
Speaker 1: someone who is drowning. Uh. And it fights probably most
56:23
Speaker 1: people's instinct. But you see stories all the time about
56:27
Speaker 1: two people drowning instead of one person drowning. Um, or
56:31
Speaker 1: you know, maybe causing that person to even drown quicker
56:34
Speaker 1: because you're not a good swimmer. But Ella says, just
56:38
Speaker 1: reiterates a few different times, just do not attempt to
56:42
Speaker 1: rescue a drowning victim. If you can't swim very well yourself. Uh,
56:47
Speaker 1: call your local emergency number, wait for someone go screaming
56:51
Speaker 1: for help. Uh, and fight that instinct. And that is
56:55
Speaker 1: from Ella Fineberg, former lifeguard. Nice. Thanks a lot, Ella,
57:00
Speaker 1: I think you really did some good work here and
57:02
Speaker 1: we appreciate it. And hello to your husband because they
57:04
Speaker 1: listen together. Nice. Um. Well, if you want to be
57:08
Speaker 1: like Ella and share some really great important information, we
57:11
Speaker 1: would love to share it with everybody else. You can
57:14
Speaker 1: share it with us via email at stuff podcast at
57:17
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
57:23
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
57:26
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever
57:29
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.