Personal Hygiene--Tampons (one perspective)

Are Tampons Really that Dangerous?
By Jeanne Faulkner

Tampons are among the most popular feminine hygiene products. But rumors claim they contain asbestos, rayon, and dioxin-chemicals that are associated with cancer, Toxic Shock Syndrome, and other serious health risks. But are these fears realistic?

Tampons are among the most popular feminine hygiene products. But rumors claim they contain asbestos, rayon, and dioxin-chemicals that are associated with cancer, Toxic Shock Syndrome, and other serious health risks. But are these fears realistic? Let's sort fact from fiction about tampon safety.

The Food and Drug Association (FDA) regulates the safety and effectiveness of all medical devices, including tampons. They say the available scientific evidence does not support Internet rumors that tampons are dangerous when used correctly.

Let's look at the three biggest rumors about tampons:

The Asbestos Rumor:

• This rumors claims tampons contain asbestos, which causes increased bleeding. Increased bleeding means you'll buy more tampons.

The FDA says there's no evidence of asbestos in tampons or any reports regarding increased menstrual bleeding from tampon use. Every brand of tampons sold in the US is carefully inspected for safe design, materials and production. Asbestos is not an ingredient in any US brand of tampon.

The Dioxin and Rayon Rumors:

• This scare claims that tampons contain dangerous levels of dioxin (a known pollutant consisting of a combination of chemical compounds) and rayon that could put consumers at increased risk for uterine, cervical or ovarian cancer. This rumor is based on old information and current manufacturing techniques have made it obsolete.

It's true that tampons contain cotton, rayon or a mix of the two. Rayon is made from cellulose fibers from wood pulp. The FDA says, "At one time, bleaching the wood pulp was a potential source of trace amounts of dioxin in tampons, but that bleaching method is no longer used. Rayon raw material used in U.S. tampons is now produced using elemental chlorine-free or totally chlorine-free bleaching processes."

Additionally, the Environmental Protection Agency has worked with wood pulp producers for decades to promote dioxin-free methods. Even so, dioxin can still be found in the air, water and ground. Today's tampon manufacturers use dioxin-free processing, but since dioxin still exists in the environment, trace amounts may make their way into the cotton and wood pulp used for tampons.

Bottom line - The FDA says. "State-of-the art testing of tampons . . . has shown that dioxin levels are at or below the detectable limit. No risk to health would be expected from these trace amounts."

Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) Rumors:

• Toxic Shock Syndrome is a potentially fatal disease caused by bacterial toxins. We first became aware of it in the 1980's when hundreds of tampon-users became ill. Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) occurs in non-menstruating people too and though scientists have studied the connection between tampon use and TSS, they're not able to identify a direct cause/effect relationship.

The Centers for Disease Control suggested that a few specific tampon designs and high-absorbency materials may have been associated with some cases of TSS. These tampons are no longer produced or sold in the US.

An Internet rumor spread that rayon in tampons caused TSS. The FDA says, "Tampons made with rayon do not appear to have a higher risk of TSS than cotton tampons of similar absorbency."

Menstrual TSS is now considered a rare and affects only about one in 100,000 women. The National Institutes of Health says menstrual toxic shock syndrome can be prevented:

• Avoid use of super absorbent tampons.
• Change tampons frequently.
• Use tampons only once in a while (not regularly) during menstruation.

Tampons and Asbestos, Dioxin, & Toxic Shock Syndrome
http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/Safety/AlertsandNotices/PatientAlerts/ucm070003.htm

National Institute of Health
www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000653.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2519460/

10 Rules for a Happy Day

1. Today I will not strike back...
• if someone is rude, if someone is impatient, if someone is unkind, I will not respond in a like manner.
2. Today I will ask God to bless my 'enemy'
• if I come across someone who treats me harshly or unfairly, I will quietly ask God to bless that individual. I understand "enemy" could be a familiar member, neighbor, co-worker, or stranger.
3. Today I wil be careful about what I say...
• I will carefully choose and guard my words being certain that I do not spread gossip.
4. Today I will go the extra mile...
• I will find ways to help share the burden of another person.
5. Today I will forgive...
• I will forgive any hurts or injuries that come my way.
6. Today I will do something nice for someone, but I will do it in secret...
• I will reach out anonymously and bless the life of another.
7. Today I will treat others the way I wish to be treated...
• I will practice the golden rule--"Do unto others as I would have them do unto me"--with everyone I encounter.
8. Today I will raise the spirits of someone who is discouraged...
• My smile, my words, my expression of support, can make the difference to someone who is wrestling with life.
9. Today I will nurture my body...
• I will eat healthy and reasonable portions. I will thank God for the body He gave me.
10. Today I will grow spiritually...
• I will spend a little more time in prayer today. I will begin reading something spiritual or inspirational; I will find a quiet place (at some point during this day) and listen to God's voice.

~Unknown Author Online

Preparing for Marriage

I have learned a lot in the 3 and a half years of my young marriage. I have some things to share with you that I have learned since being married and I hope that you can learn this BEFORE you say "I do". There's no need to sit around twiddling your fingers or texting all day, waiting for "Mr. Perfect" to come along. Be pro-active!! http://fineartamerica.com/images-medium/waiting-tahirih-goffic.jpg

(photo from Fine Art America)

Here are a few practical ways you can prepare yourself now for marriage and help make the transition a little bit easier:

1. Have personal DAILY devotional/prayer/worship time with God. I cannot stress this enough! This is the most important one! If you do nothing else in preparation for marriage you might get by with grace from God. It really is the foundation of all other things.
(photo credit)
2. Make dinner for your family at least once per week. You plan, you make the list, you cook (having help if necessary), you serve, you help clean-up (choose to cook on a day it's already your turn to do dishes).

3. Have personal DAILY devotional/prayer/worship time with God. I cannot stress this enough!
4. Make a Meal Plan and stick to it. Start with one week at a time, once per month. Perhaps you can do this with your mother so that you are not taking over as much as you are assisting, helping, and learning. HERE you can print out templates to help you get started, as well as get ideas from Money Saving Mom. HERE is an article on menu planning made simple from a High and Noble Calling. She also has a bunch of postings HERE about menu planning. Check them out!

5. Have personal DAILY devotional/prayer/worship time with God. I cannot stress this enough!
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6. If you have any type of income, make a budget and stick to it. Ask your parents or a responsible adult to help keep you accountable. It can be simple (i.e. savings, spending, and donating) or detailed (i.e. gas, clothes, savings, donating, car expenses, entertainment, gifts, etc.). When you get married, a budget will be vital in your relationship. Knowing now how to do this will REALLY help you after marriage! Dave Ramsey has great material for young adults/teens called Generation Change. THIS is good stuff!! HERE is an article written about young adults choosing to be different than their parents on finances. HERE is an article about how teens CAN become millonaires.
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7. Have personal DAILY devotional/prayer/worship time with God. I cannot stress this enough!
(photo credit)
8. Keep up with chores your parents ask of you. Help your parents keep the kind of home you want to have. Trust me, you will not become a clean homemaker on your wedding day unless you are already in the habit of it before you get married.

9. Have personal DAILY devotional/prayer/worship time with God. I cannot stress this enough!
 (photo credit)
10. Help to make the shopping list for food and household items, then help shop for them. The sooner you learn to get good deals the better. Very few go into a marriage making $75,000 or more per year. Even if you did, there's no point in paying waaaaay more than an item is worth! Save a few bucks and then use it for a date night--now that's being financially frugal!

11. Have personal DAILY devotional/prayer/worship time with God. I cannot stress this enough!
(photo credit)
12. Entertain company. I am not talking about reciting your recently learned piano lesson. When your parents or you have company over, plan a meal, snack, and/or drinks to have ready to offer them. Serve them food and/or drinks, then clean up their plates when they are done. I once knew a woman who would plan the meal, serve the food, offer drinks and refills, and clean up the dinner plates when her parents would have company over. The adults never had to leave the table, couch, or break conversation. She was practicing being a hostess. To this day, she is one of the most amazing hostesses I've met! She is gracious, smooth, lays out a beautiful setting, polite, and almost a bit subtle.

(photo credit)

1 Peter 4:9 "Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling."

3 John 1:8 "We ought therefore to show hospitality to such men so that we may work together for the truth."

Like I said before, you will not become a great cook, a gentle hostess, a frugal shopper, a spiritually strong and wise help meet, or any other great idea you have that will happen in your marriage just because you said "I do". It takes work. Some things will take less work & other things will take more work, but you can be a beautiful help meet, as God intended, if you put forth your heart and efforts. Whether you realize it or not, a true man & a man ready for marriage will look at your attributes beyond how you look or dress.
 
Let him be more attracted to HOW you will make a great help meet to him and not so much on how you LOOK to be a good woman at his side.
 
Practice helps, but God makes perfect!!

Guest Post: To Many To-Do's of My Own

The following is a guest post from Amber over at Beauty in the Broken:

To Many To-Do's of My Own

I tend to be the kind of person who always has tons of ideas rolling through my mind. I am also the kind of person who writes down those thoughts (like, try all of them) =D Things like ideas I have, things I want to learn, things I need to do/want to do, ect.... I am always afraid that I will forget all the things I am thinking, so I guess writing them down helps. So at the end of the day I sit at a desk covered in sheets of paper/notebooks that I have filled with all the stuff I have written throughout the day. The problem with that is that I also have the tenancy to get to ambitious and write down WAY to many things that I want to get done that day... so I sit down, and read all the things that I DIDN'T end up doing that day and disappoint myself. Now I realize that no human being could get done HALF of the stuff I write down in one day, but it still would feel better if I at least knew that I could.


So last night, (while reading all the things I didn't do) I began to think of how I do the same thing in my relationship with God. I get over-ambitious and write I mental list of all the things I "have" to do to...often things that are not humanly possible. And what happens at the end of the day when I sit down and look back on my mental list? I fall short. Again & again....

So what should I do? Stop thinking of ways to please God? Not write "to do lists" anymore? I don't know that is the answer I need (though it may help) So after much thinking, I decided that the smart thing to do would probably look in the handy-dandy book (you know, the one that had been sitting open in front of me the whole time) with all the answers. And what did I find?

"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed." (Proverbs 16:3)

Surprisingly, not something totally new.

I have grown up in a christian home all my life. I have heard "Jesus loves you" more times than I can count and don't ever remember a time when we didn't go to church. Don't get me wrong, those are all GREAT blessings from the Lord that I am thankful for. But since I have never NOT been surrounded by the truth of God, I hear them over and over. You would think that they would be sinking into my head better and better and that I would be putting them int practice more and more, but no. I let the exact opposite happen.... I stop thinking about them as a new truth and they become "normal", just another sentence spoken form the mouth of God. No big deal, right? But then after a while of these things just being spoken as empty words on a page, are given BACK there true meaning again. He brings them BACK to life for me (he is known for that huh?). He says "hey, Amber... I think you kinda forgot what that REALLY means, so why don't I remind you?" Often times I am reminded the hard way (haha) but the reminder is needed. All of the things I have learned about that specific truth come flooding back. That is what hapened when I read this.

ALL of my plans need to be coming from God. How else can they be his will? I am pretty sure that if I thought up my own plans for my life and said "God, now lets see if they line up!" mine would be QUITE off. But if I let HIM make the plans, let HIM make the to-do-list, then they will ALL succeed. Every last one of them.

So I think that instead of making my OWN to do lists and disappointing myself, I am going to let HIM make the list and do the thinking. =)

Dimethicone

What is "dime-what-a-cone"?!?!

Well, according to Wiki-pedia, it is also known as/called "Polydimethylsiloxane". Big word, I know. If that is not difficult enough to pronounce, try reading about it. I will try to simplify the article as best I can and put it into words that someone other than a scientist can understand; hence "normal" people.

Dimethicone is considered, for the most part, to be non-toxic and non-flammable. It varies from a thin pourable liquid to a rubbery semi-solid. It has an unusually high level of viscoelasticity; meaning sometimes dimethicone can flow like honey and other times it acts more like rubber. It can even be rolled up into a ball and bounced like a rubber ball.

This product has so many uses because of its ability to be liquid-like that is similar to honey or more solid like a rubber ball. Because of that, its uses are numerous. It found in consumeable and non-consumeable products.

This product is known for it's unusual flow properties and is, therefore, used in shampoos, lotions, contact lenses, lubricating oils, cosmetics, and heat-resistant tiles. Polydimethylsiloxane is an important ingredient in Silly Putty.



Dimethicone is also used in caulks, adhesives, and aquarium sealants. It can be found in defoaming agents, mold release agents, damping fluids, heat transfer fluids, polishes, cosmetics, hair conditioners and other applications. Kind of an interesting use for dimethicone is filler fluid in breast implants, although this practice has decreased somewhat, due to safety concerns, despite some evidence that it may be protective against breast cancer. It is in over-the-counter drugs to help with anit-gas and used as an anti-foaming agent. I assume the anti-foaming agent is for use when making and producing the over-the-counter drugs or preventing foam from forming in your system when you take the drug.

Dimethicone is used as a food additive for anti-foaming and anti-caking (no lumps) of ingredients (such as in McDonald's chicken nuggets). It is found in many processed foods. Read the back of the box next time you buy a pre-packaged food item. Dimethicone is also found in Rain-X (keeps rain from sitting on your car windshield when driving; it runs right off the window and makes driving in the rain much easier).

Did you know that this item is also used as an herbicide (weedkiller)? On one hand this item is found in McDonald's Chicken Nuggets and then on the other hand it is found in week killers. Wow, talk about being multi-functional!

It is good to know what is in your food so that you can decide whether to consume it or not. Is this a healthy product to consume? My answer to that would not be a "yes" or "no", but simply that the further we get away from purely-natural ingredients (meaning that it is coming from the earth & untampered with, which some might call "raw") we risk it being hazzardous to our health.

HERE is another article about Dimethicone in relation to skin and hair use.