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I need to get a cervical cancer screening. What can I expect? Can I do it myself? And what happened to the pap smear results?

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Cervical screening in Australia Changed over the past seven years. The test has modified, and ladies (and other people with cervical cancer) now have way more alternative and control. Here’s why – and what to expect should you’re between 25 and 74 and you could have to pass the test.

When and why did the test change?

In 2017, Australia became certainly one of the first two countries to use human papillomavirus (HPV) testing as a substitute of Pap tests.

HPV is the reason for virtually every kind of cervical cancer, so testing for the virus is a superb indicator of a person’s current and future risk of developing the disease.

This solution contrasts with the older technology of Pap smear testing, which involved examining cells every two years for changes resulting from HPV infection.

The screening change was supported by a very large group international AND Australian Data indicate that basic HPV testing is more accurate than cytology.

Women and other people with cervixes who don’t have any HPV detected by a test have a very low risk of developing cervical cancer in the next five years or more. This was the basis for extending the screening interval when HPV screening was introduced.

Australia now recommends five years of HPV screening starting at age 25 until age 74 for those eligible, no matter whether or not they have been vaccinated against HPV. Many other countries are following suit by moving to HPV screening.

All established screening tests – that are performed on people with none symptoms – are related to health advantages, but in addition with some harms. These can include psychological and clinical consequences of receiving a “positive” screening result, which need to be investigated further.

The HPV virus can be detected in the vagina without the need to take a cervical swab.
New Africa/Shutterstock

However, recently the World Health Organization (WHO) evidence review found:

  • HPV is a simpler screening test than a Pap smear or some other method
  • significantly reduces the incidence and mortality of cervical cancer
  • it is a approach to examining the cervix, which has best balance advantages to harm.

As a result, WHO now clearly recommends HPV screening as the best method.

Now you can collect your personal sample

One of the essential advantages of switching to HPV screening is that it opens the door for individuals who may collect your personal sample (which was inconceivable with a Pap smear). If the HPV virus is present, it can be detected in the vagina without having to take a sample directly from the cervix.

In 2022, Australia became certainly one of the first countries worldwide to introduce a universal self-sample option as a part of the essential national screening programme. This means that individuals eligible for screening, under the supervision of their primary care physician, can now select to collect their very own vaginal sample, in privacy, using a easy swab.

By the end of 2023 27% of individuals we decided to take the test this fashion, but this trend is growing and can probably proceed to grow, information campaign is scheduled to start next month.

So what happens when I take the test?

You will receive an invite from National Cancer Screening Registry to participate in your first test whenever you turn 25. If you might be older, you’ll receive reminders when it is time to your next test. You will likely be invited to see your GP or health service for a test.

You ought to be asked whether you would like to have the test performed by a physician or should you would like to collect the sample in person.

There isn’t any right or flawed way. The accuracy of the tests has been shown be equivalent for samples taken by a physician or by yourself. It is a matter of alternative.

If your doctor does the test, they’ll perform a pelvic exam with a speculum inserted into your vagina. This allows the doctor or nurse to view your cervix and take a sample.

The doctor holds a speculum
The doctor will insert a speculum to collect a sample.
Tatiana Buzmakova/Shutterstock

If you might be fascinated about the possibility of non-public collection, please check when making an appointment whether the office offers this selection.

If you select to collect yourself, you can do so in privacy. You will likely be given a swab (which looks like a COVID test swab with a longer shaft) and given instructions on how to insert and rotate the swab into your vagina to collect a sample. It only takes a couple of minutes.

What does it mean if my test detects HPV?

If the test detects HPV, it means you could have an HPV infection. These are quite common and do not, in and of themselves, mean you could have cancer and even precancerous conditions (which involve changes in the cells of the cervix that, over time, make it more likely to become cancer).

However, it does mean that you just are at greater risk of developing a pre-cancerous condition or developing it in the future and that you’ll profit from further check-ups or diagnostic tests. Your doctor or nurse to guide you on next steps in keeping with national guidelines.

If a diagnostic test is required, it will involve a procedure called a colposcopy, during which a gynaecologist or other specially trained healthcare skilled will fastidiously examine your cervix and can also take a small sample to examine the cells intimately.

If you could have a precancerous condition, you can be treated quickly and simply, often without having to go to the hospital. The treatment involves ablation, or removal of a small area of ​​the cervix. This treatment will drastically reduce your risk of developing cervical cancer.

What does this mean for cervical cancer rates?

Cervical HPV screening is a very effective approach to stopping cervical cancer. Due to HPV screening in Australia, combined with HPV vaccination in younger people, Australia is expected achieve such a low cervical cancer rate by 2035 that the disease can be considered eliminated.

Last yr the government launched National Cervical Cancer Elimination Strategy which presents key recommendations for eliminating cervical cancer and achieving this goal equitably across all groups of ladies and other people with a cervix.

One of the best ways to protect yourself is to get a cervical screening test as soon as you might be eligible, whether or not you could have been vaccinated against HPV.

This article was originally published on : theconversation.com
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Health and Wellness

“The Meskel Flower”, a series of photographs is a living archive of Ethiopia’s renewal – Essence

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Elianel Clinton

Last week, we celebrated the Ethiopian New Year, a transitional point with nuanced meaning for those celebrating outside the continent. Each September, the brand new season is symbolized by the blooming of the Meskel flower, often called Adey Abeba in Amharic. The flower has turn into a symbol of beauty and survival in equal measure, reborn flawlessly every year within the Ethiopian highlands despite harsh ecological conditions.

Elianel Clinton

In Amharic, there is a level of linguistic interchangeability when referring to the flower, taking over concomitant meanings of youth, rebirth, and expansion. For artists like Ruhama Wolle, one of many global voices documenting the outpouring of an Ethiopian cultural renaissance currently unfolding, the iconography of the flower is not static. Its radiance and revolt reflect the iconography of a recent generation of artists who convey the facility of displacement and return as a source of expansive invention. In a recent series of photographs titled “Meskel Flower: A Love Letter to Ethiopia“Wolle struggles with a self-declaration of home and identity, unconstrained by miles of distance.

Wolle, an editor and artistic producer, has spent much of the past two years in Ethiopia, returning to search out a cultural renaissance amid the country’s political turmoil and genocide. In the country and its global diaspora, young persons are creating works expanding the narrative who they’re and where they arrive from. This fertility is, nonetheless, a paradox that appears in the course of the constant reckoning with years of war, losses and anxiety which left many Ethiopians grappling with the meaning of homeland.

Elianel Clinton

Artists like Wolle, who spent much of their adolescence abroad, are actually crossing dimensions of transnational identity from the United States and elsewhere, using their heritage as a link to burdened pasts and as-yet-unseen futures. Now, as adults, these young persons are reflecting themselves through multimodal means of expression.

“I came back from Ethiopia with a feeling I just can’t put my finger on,” Wolle tells ESSENCE. “I was around people my age, younger and older, who were embracing Ethiopian life as creatives and following this renaissance that was happening.” Witnessing this had a profound effect, raising questions for Wolle about her purpose as a creative within the diaspora. She founded Meskel Flowers as a option to forge deeper meaning for the memory she carries of the country and her interpretation of its current moment of cultural vitality amidst pain. While conceiving the works, she was immediately struck by the interrupted chronology of representation, shocked by how few representations of Ethiopian femininity she could find at hand. This reinforced her urgency to embody this current moment in much the identical way she had spent her profession doing for others in visual form.

Wolle says she desired to create something intentional on her own terms. “That means really thinking about what it looks like to build the next visualization of ourselves.” She landed on a thoughtful but scalable approach. Rather than attempting to seismically change the visual profile of Ethiopian heritage, she desired to present a component of what it means to listen to, placing her chosen medium in the standard Ethiopian living room space.

Elianel Clinton

“The first person I invited here was my photographer Elianel Clinton,” Wolle said. The two had previously worked together on a deeply personal project, and the producer felt comfortable returning to an artist who knew his craft and revered the portrayal of intimate moments between family members. This recent commemorative project was something Wolle desired to share with the imagemaker, who has demonstrated a capability to traverse the size of black culture with a unified visual profile of softness and reflection.

“To recreate that feeling here, it took a team,” Wolle explained. “I had this vision that I always wanted to create an Ethiopian living room and recreate what home looks like for all of us, whether it’s home for someone living in Ethiopia or Sweden or North Carolina.”

The living room stays intact and recognizable to the Habesha community in each of these migrant homes. Wolle and her creative team desired to present the space as a microcosm of cultural transfer, a sacred space that resists the chaos of change. Within it, braided hair, the ritual of the coffee ceremony, intergenerational laughter under fragrant tendrils of incense—these are the markers that keep the culture grounded, and what Wolle desired to reflect in the pictures.

Scenography designed by a producer from Ethiopia Rediet Haddis and created on site by Zachary Adamswas created from the recognizable signatures of the Ethiopian household, achieved through the collaboration of individuals inside and in solidarity with the East African experience. The project’s achievement itself is a statement in pan-African creative practice, drawing talent from individuals acquainted with the ethos of homecoming and black connectivity, to which Wolle sought to appeal, situating herself inside the particular legacy of Ethiopian history.

Elianel Clinton

The living room, arranged with motifs of woven baskets and family photos, invites a sensory reconstruction of cultural practice, introducing the room as a place of stoicism, where memory and culture usually are not only preserved but actively transformed. In these small, intimate spaces, the Ethiopian heritage continues to breathe, uninterrupted by the distances of the diaspora, now presented with a youthful invitation. This return to childhood fascination was a key feature in achieving the tone of “Meskel Flowers.”

“I wanted us to think about play and our inner child,” Wolle said. “With coffee, just having fun with it and braiding each other’s hair – I wanted it to remind us of when we were young and in our homes. I think my younger self needed that release.”

With their inner child throughout the creative team, they’ve managed to filter the sometimes painful yet artistically fertile depths of Ethiopian history—its calls to resistance, its enduring iconography—and reimagine diasporic gifts for future generations to admire and have a good time.

Elianel Clinton

Returning to Ethiopia after years of absence, as Wolle did, means confronting the contradictions of past and present—of what was lost and what is being recreated. Ethiopia has at all times been a source of artistic energy, a source of inspiration that point and distance couldn’t blunt.

But now there is a collective return, a convergence of the old and recent worlds, and artists like Wolle are each documentarians and participants on this unfolding rebirth. “Meskel Flower” embodies this complexity, paying homage to the nuances of reconstruction while honoring Wolle’s declarations. Most importantly, it focuses on who she is as an Ethiopian-American while weaving paths to the living symbols that maintain heritage bridges across oceans.

Authors:

Photographer | Elianel Clinton


This article was originally published on : www.essence.com
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Health and Wellness

I think my child’s weight is affecting their health. How can I best support them?

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Weight fluctuations and changes in body composition as we grow are a traditional a part of development. Apart from the primary 12 months of life, the teenage years are when probably the most rapid growth and development occurs.

Your doctor will consider your child’s weight as a part of a comprehensive assessment, taking into consideration age, gender, and stage of development. growth.

Not all children who’re chubby may have Health consequences.

But as we age, excess body fat can cause health complications, including sleep apnea (stopping and restarting respiration during sleep), bone or joint problems, liver disease, hypertension or cholesterol, or insulin resistance (pre-diabetes).

If you notice any changes in your child’s or teen’s health – equivalent to dark spots across the neck or armpits (which indicate insulin resistance), headaches, sleeping problems or joint pain – consult with your GP.

What will your loved ones doctor do?

Your GP can investigate whether there are any health implications related to being chubby. They may check your blood pressure and do a blood test to examine your liver health, levels of cholesterol and blood sugar levels.

Being chubby is often related to mental health problems equivalent to depression, anxiety or eating disorders. Your GP can help assess and treat these conditions.

AND Family doctor with experience in weight management can provide appropriate support and referrals to local support depending in your area. Accredited Practicing Dietitian For example, someone with experience in pediatric care can help develop healthy eating habits for the family.

Changes that affect the entire family

Initial treatment for weight-related health problems will rely upon the age of the kid. It often involves a whole-family approach to improving health behaviors, equivalent to:

  • healthy dietary changes, equivalent to offering a wide range of vegetables and fruit of various colours and kinds, restrictive sweetened beverages and foods high in salt, fat and sugar

  • limiting screen time (the goal is not more than two hours a day (screen time outside of education for youngsters aged 5 to 17)

  • improving sleep habits (the goal 11th of September hours a day for youngsters aged 6 to 12 and 8-10 hours a day for teenagers)

  • increasing physical activity (the goal is one hour (roughly 1,000 hours of vigorous play or vigorous activity per day).

Most children and adolescents will improve physical and mental health and well-being following behaviour change interventions. This may include improving eating behaviorless symptoms depressionand higher self-esteem and body image.

Getting the entire family involved can be helpful.
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Teen Options

Sometimes, teenagers who’re significantly chubby and have complications related to their weight are advised to lose weight.

As children get older, they will likely be involved in decision-making about their treatment.

Scope of regulations diets Tests were conducted on adolescents, including those on very low energy diets.

Our latest research shows that specific diets can stabilize weight and improve it. physical AND mental adolescent health. Our study included 141 adolescents with obesity-related complications and compared intermittent and continuous energy restriction.

After 1 12 months, we observed improvements in body weight, insulin resistance, and liver function in each groups. Symptoms of depression, eating disorders, and binge eating decreased after 4 weeks of very low-energy diets, followed by a transition to intermittent or continuous energy restriction, which was maintained for 1 12 months.

However, any prescribed food regimen should only be followed under the supervision of a physician and dietitian.

Next-generation medications (equivalent to Wegovy) at the moment are available for severely obese teens to make use of together with behavioral therapy. They can help with weight loss and reduce the danger of future health complications.

Bariatric surgery could also be an option for older teens with significant health complications.

If you might be considering taking medications or undergoing surgery, discuss the risks and advantages together with your doctor.

Look out for signs of an eating disorder

Children and adolescents with higher body weight he can try lose weight yourself. Unfortunately, most publicly available information is not tailored to the needs of adolescents, could also be unsustainable, and should result in eating disorders.

Social media is filled with useless content weight loss, food regimen and exercise messages, and infrequently promotes unattainable body image ideals. Talk to your kids about what they see on social media to assist them recognize which social media content is useful.

If you notice your child you lose weight quickly, you hide food or eat in secret, you binge (eat loads of food and feel such as you can’t stop), you throw up after eating, you exercise to burn calories, otherwise you skip regular meals to attempt to lose weight, consult with your doctor about it. These might be signs of an eating disorder.

How you can support your child

Parents are essential role models for youngsters and play a key role in ensuring a healthy lifestyle for the entire family.

Start healthy habits. Make healthy eating and enjoyable exercise a part of your each day life.

Show your kids find out how to develop healthy habits.
shurkin_son/Shutterstock

Avoid doing negative comments about your body or your child’s body – and ask others to do the identical. If you hear a negative comment about your child’s weight, attempt to reframe it as a positive message. For example, “growing bodies are strong bodies.”

Beware of bullying. Some children with higher weight experience teasing or body size related bullying. This can come from peers in school, teachers, parents, and even healthcare providers. Ask your child in the event that they are being bullied or harassed due to their body and take motion.

Finally, do not forget that different treatments may go in a different way for various people. If you discover that a treatment approach is not working to your child or family, return to your doctor to debate other options.

Children and families who’ve weight problems should treated with respect and dignity in any respect times. If you’re feeling your healthcare provider is not doing this, consider money exchange.

This article was originally published on : theconversation.com
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Health and Wellness

Doechii Announces ‘Alligator Bites Never Heal’ Tour – Essence

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Photo credit: John Jay

Today, Doechii officially announced it, which might be her first headlining performance, promoting her critically acclaimed mixtape of the identical name.

The tour kicks off October eleventh in Atlanta, GA with a show at The Loft. Covering eight cities across the US, including Music Hall of Williamsburg in New York City on October fifteenth and The Roxy in West Hollywood, CA on November third, Doechii will even take his explosive performances internationally with shows in Berlin, Paris, London and Amsterdam.

Ticket pre-sale for the North American leg of the event will begin Tuesday, September 17 at 9:00 AM local time, with general sale starting Friday, September 20. Fans trying to secure tickets can find more details at www.iamdoechii.com.

Doechia’s critically acclaimed track highlights her reluctance to be confined to 1 genre. The mixtape offers raw authenticity and flexibility, from the genre-bending “Boom Bap” to the razor-sharp verses on “Bullfrog.” She embraces her darker side with a horrorcore twist on “Catfish,” while “Nissan Altima” showcases her lyrical prowess.

Look on the date below.

10/11 – Atlanta, GA – The Loft

10/14 – Philadelphia, PA – Foundry at The Fillmore

15.10 – New York, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg

10/16 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall

21.10 – Berlin, Germany – Lido

24/10 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Bitterzoet

25/10 – Paris, France – Alhambra

28/10 – London, UK – Village Underground

11/2 – San Francisco, CA – The Independent

11/3 – West Hollywood, CA – The Roxy

11/12 – Tampa, FL – Crowbar

11/14 – Washington, DC – Union Stage

This article was originally published on : www.essence.com
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