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Archive for the 'Men’s Health-Erectile Dysfunction' Category
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Husband and wife repeat the following sentences: “I don’t feel comfortable saying I love you.” “And I don’t feel comfortable saying I love you.” “If I say I love you, I’ll …” (Say whatever comes to mind next.)
“And if I say I love you, I’ll …” (Say whatever comes to mind next.)
“People in my family never expressed affection.” “My mother and father never said they loved each other.” “My brothers never acted lovingly to my sisters.” “My sisters never had a kind word for my brothers.” “I don’t feel comfortable when you say you love me.” “And I don’t feel comfortable when you say you love me.” “If you say you love me, I’ll …” (Say whatever comes to mind next.)
“And if you tell me how much you love me, I’ll …” (Say whatever comes to mind next.)
“My mother never said she loved me.”
“My father never said he loved me.”
“If I say I love you, that might hurt because it will make me realize how much love I haven’t had and how much of it I need.”
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GAMES FOR ABSTINENT COUPLES – INTRODUCTION
Author: admin
George and Tina were married for twenty years but never had sex. (They had fumbled with it during their honeymoon, and found that neither was particularly interested in it.) They told friends and relatives that sex wasn’t important. What was important was love and companionship. Sex, they maintained, was overrated—blown all out of proportion by the media.
In recent years, more and more therapists, marriage counselors, and sex-therapy clinics have been reporting cases of marital abstinence—cases in which either one or both of the partners claimed to be simply not interested in sex. In some instances those couples (like George and Tina) were never interested. In others, they either gradually or abruptly lost interest. Indeed, lack of interest seems to be the fastest growing sexual malady today.
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Players: Husband and wife.
Activists: Both.
Setting: Home or hotel.
Aim: Get couple in touch with their negative transferences.
Game Plan: This game is a variation of “How Do I Hate Thee?” in the previous chapter. In this version, each spouse verbalizes those things about the other spouse that are sexually repulsive to himself or herself.
As in the previous game, the couple gets undressed, goes to bed, and begins making love. When they are lying in one another’s arms, either before or during intercourse, they should take turns telling each other all the things that repel them. The wife might start by saying, “How do you repel me? Let me count the ways.” She may then say: “I’m repelled by your bald head … by your hairy chest … by the fact that you don’t bathe regularly … by your wimpy smile . . . [etc.]” The husband then takes his turn: “How do you repel me? Let me count the ways. I’m repelled by your fat hips … by your constant henpecking … by your hairy upper lip . . . [etc.]”
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This line of dialogue is confrontational and can arouse disturbing feelings. By arousing these feelings in the context of sexual intercourse (that is, in the act that recreates a traumatic sexual situation), these disturbing feelings have greater access to the repressed memories beneath them. By getting in touch with these hidden memories, feelings can be worked through and will cease to be compulsive—hence the need to act them out will diminish. Instead, the memories will become stronger and will take precedence. Sometimes this happens immediately the first time the game is played, and the couple needs to stop the game and work through the feelings right away. But sometimes the game has to be played several times before this resolution occurs.
The working-through process can take hours, weeks, months—even years. As it evolves, the sexual relationship will change. Hence, when this same game is played a few months later, the conversation may well run like this:
“You like that, don’t you? You like being degraded.”
“No?”
“I’d rather you just kissed me. I don’t need to be humiliated anymore. I’m not dirty. I’m not bad. Just kiss me.” “Kiss you?”
“Yes. Untie me and kiss me.”
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The scrubbing should last a long time—perhaps an hour for each partner. Then a second scrubbing may be in order, just to take care of any filth that may have accumulated while scrubbing the other’s body. After the cleansing, they take pains to put underarm and hygienic spray in appropriate places, to brush the teeth and wash out the mouth, and to powder the entire body. Finally, when they are both satisfied that they are immaculate, they go into the bedroom.
The bed has been made up with sheets and pillowcases that have been specially prepared for the occasion. Perhaps they have even been washed in boiling purified water and dried in the sun.
On the bed are two sets of transparent rubber gloves, such as a surgeon’s, two masks of the kind doctors and nurses wear, and both male and female condoms. After they have put on their respective gear, they climb into bed. All through fore-play—during which they kiss one another with their masked mouths and fondle one another with their rubber-gloved hands—they talk about how clean they are.
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The first step in testing for these infections is examination by a health care provider. If you have symptoms in the anal or rectal area, and if your sexual practices have involved either anal intercourse or oral-anal contact, tell your health care provider. This is important, because the range of possible diagnoses for these symptoms is greater for a person who has participated in these sexual practices. Raising this issue may be awkward for you, and even your provider may feel too embarrassed to ask you (or not even think to ask), but being open about this part of your history will help you receive the correct diagnosis and appropriate care.
Testing usually involves culturing lesions, culturing stool, and looking into the colon with special instruments to examine the infected areas.
For proctitis, a visual examination of the anal area and of the mucosal area of the rectum is necessary. The latter can be performed by anoscopy (which involves inserting a small plastic or metal scope into the anal area to allow the health care provider to see the internal tissue) or sigmoidoscopy, which involves looking farther into the colon with a flexible tube.
If areas farther up in the colon may be involved (as in proctocolitis), then a more comprehensive test, a colonoscopy, must be done. In this test, the health care provider (usually a gastroenterologist) looks into the colon through a longer flexible tube. No matter which procedure is performed, a swab is used to take a sample of material that is then examined for white blood cells under the microscope; cultures can be performed for gonorrhea and chlamydia, which are two of the most common causes of proctitis. Sometimes a biopsy of the rectal tissue must be taken to make a diagnosis; this painless procedure is performed during the sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy.
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Testing later in the pregnancy is also a good idea, to make sure that a woman has not acquired herpes during the pregnancy. Both the pregnant woman and her partner must be tested. A woman who acquires a herpes infection during her pregnancy, especially during the last trimester, runs the highest risk of transmitting the infection to the fetus.
The mother experiences a first infection, and the fetus may become infected in the uterus. A woman who is newly infected is also more likely to shed the virus at delivery, so the newborn has a higher chance of being exposed to virus during passage through the birth canal. If the infection occurs earlier in the pregnancy, there is a possibility that the mother will develop antibody and transmit it to the fetus, so that by the time the baby is born he or she will have some protection against infection. However, if a new infection of the mother occurs later in the pregnancy, such as during the last trimester, it is not likely that there will have been time for the mother to develop antibody and pass it to the fetus, so the baby, will be at higher risk of becoming infected if exposed to virus at delivery.
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STD: YEAST INFECTIONS IN PREGNANT WOMEN
Author: admin
Yeast infections can be especially difficult to treat in pregnant women. A longer course of topical treatment—ten to fourteen days— is usually necessary to eliminate the infection. The antifungal medications, if used in the first trimester of pregnancy, are potentially harmful to the fetus. After consulting her health care provider, a woman may face a difficult decision about whether to use such medications in this stage of the pregnancy.
Whenever the standard therapies are not effective for a man or woman, taking a culture to make sure that yeast is actually causing the infection is recommended, because the symptoms may be caused by something other than yeast. Occasionally an unusual yeast species—one that is not easily treated by the standard medications—is the cause, and this, too, can be determined by culture.
In addition to using medication, those with chronic or recurrent yeast infections must also try to eliminate any underlying factors that may make them susceptible to yeast infections. If a woman is talcing birth control pills, she may want to stop taking them or switch to a pill with a lower dose of estrogen to see if this helps. (Another reliable birth control method must be used if the pills are discontinued altogether.) Medications that suppress the immune system, such as steroids, can also cause a yeast infection; if the medications can be stopped, the infection may be easier to cure. Switching to looser-fitting, cotton clothing can help. Douching is discouraged.
Other approaches to treatment whose effectiveness has not been proven but that might help include using yogurt douches and eating yogurt or acidophilus tablets to recolonize the vagina, and decreasing the intake of sweets, bread, and alcohol. Although the Lactobacillus in yogurt is different from the Lactobacillus in the vagina, and the vagina does not become colonized with the yogurt Lactobacillus, some women find relief this way, and the practice is not harmful. Although treating a male partner with antifungal medication while the woman is being treated has not been proven to affect her recovery, if the man has evidence of a yeast infection, he should certainly also be treated.
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