Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Oh, Snap!


You always do a real good job of brushing your teeth right before you go to the dentist, and you make a similar effort right before you go to see your gynecologist, if you're polite. I was in the shower doing the best I could, but it never really seems like enough. I'm presentable, but not exactly minty-fresh. All of which got me thinking about vaginas with teeth. Brushable, presumably.

It's a thing. There have always been rumors about toothed vaginas, but for the most part they're a myth, a natural outgrowth (as it were) of male castration fears. There's something deeply frightening to men about the possibility of being personally abbreviated when you least expect it. I can only compare it to my fear of Congress cutting off my pension. It's not a very sensible fear. After all, men frequently entrust their most treasured parts to an area that actually has teeth, and they don't seem to take much persuading, either.

Still, it is possible to find teeth in a vagina. Evidently there are special cells that can turn into any old thing they have a mind to--teeth, or hair, or little personalities--and sometimes they begin rummaging around the body looking for a likely spot to land. Mostly they show up in the ovaries, which are safely tucked inside, ideally, but those Fallopian tubes are right nearby waving their little fingers. And if they have enough room to rear back, I imagine they can sling those suckers like so many numchucks. And
Fallopian tube rearing back.
that's how you get your vagina teeth.

My gynecologist is a very nice woman and she did not find any undue dentition to report. There's always something, though. For the last few years, she's kept me apprised of various interesting changes, beginning with "pale, thinning tissues," which evidently are to be expected at my age. In fact, a number of things are to be expected at my age, and they all fall under the umbrella of some nice acronym which (kindly) replaces the old term "vaginal atrophy" or "senile vaginitis." I am grateful for the acronym, although I can't remember it. Whatever it is, it means "old lady bits."

She's real chirpy about these developments. The latest was a "caruncle." Previously I had only associated this word with the bumps and wattles and snoods and whatnot hanging off a turkey's head that makes it attractive to other turkeys. And, in fact, that is what it looks like.  She let me check it out in the mirror. It's just one more reason it's a good idea to wear pants in a turkey pen.

All of this stuff has something to do with my having evicted all my estrogen a few years back, and she says if any of it bothers me, it can be treated by adding estrogen, but I distinctly recall that estrogen was directly responsible for a lot of shenanigans its own self--ridiculous stuff! Outlandish! You wouldn't believe it if I told you!--stuff that I'm not anxious to revisit, so I'll stay the course.

At any rate my doctor is not concerned. Apparently I am deteriorating right on schedule, and should be good to go. At any time.


36 comments:

  1. Doctors are always ready to get their patients on any pharmaceutical that must be taken for life. Speaking from the same side of menopause as you, I think there is much that has improved in my life with the loss of estrogen. I no longer suffer from acute bouts of depression (which doctors are also always ready to provide a pill for!)... my skin has finally cleared up, after having acne since puberty (of course, now they have drugs for that, too.). Sure my libido has gone to wherever my estrogen went, but considering some of the bad decisions and trouble that got me into, it's not such a tragic loss. And I have lots more time to spend doing and thinking about other things, which sometimes feels like having blinders taken off and seeing the complete picture for the first time. Rather than look at it as a loss of estrogen, I prefer to frame it as no longer suffering from estrogen poisoning.

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    1. I love your attitude. I feel the same way. The only thing I'm not wild about is the closer-to-death part.

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  2. Puts me in mind of the line of that song "every day I'm shuffling" ... toward the end, that is. Every day a new and interesting development in the body.

    The rest of the lyrics do not apply, by the way. Only the shuffling part, and only if it's not actually code for something disgusting, in which case, just forget the whole thing.

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    1. Yeah. Just the other day I got a hand tremor. Then I concentrated and made it go away. But it do not bode well, do it?

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    2. I dunno, it would make a good parlour trick.

      But I know what you mean. I've had a strange tremor in some of my fingers for a couple of years now. It comes suddenly, it leaves within a few seconds, and it makes me think of circuitry shorting out as the connecting wires get bent or worn ... zzzt ...

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    4. PSA. Hand tremors. Think thyroid. Another body part that can head south with age. Get it checked out. That is all.

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  3. Only you could make a visit to the gynecologist funny.

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    1. It's all a matter of perspective--which is one reason I wouldn't want to be a gynecologist myself.

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  4. Like Mimimanderly, my skin finally cleared up. But it has taken to developing spots and outgrowths and flakey spots. The rest of me is doing pretty good but I am not fooled. I guess it isn't a bad trade for all that soggy reproductive issuances.

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    1. Yeah. Whenever something starts growing on me, however benign, I register my disapproval. One's skin shouldn't suddenly go condo on one.

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  5. Just out of morbid curiosity, what is that evil-looking contraption that your gynecologist is holding in the photo? A vagina flosser?

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    1. Let's just call it a "spreader" and see if we can think of how many ways we could use one.

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  6. My body is a treacherous beastie with several minds of its own. I hope it was somewhere else while I read this. And, given my chalky prone to breaking teeth I am sure my dentist would agree.

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    1. My friend often says of people "he don't have two brains that touch each other." Do yours?

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    2. Does shouting at each other count?

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    3. Oh God yes darling. Entire marriages are built on that kind of communication.

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  7. A colonscopy is always a challenge. Have you tried that one?

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    1. Susan, please don't bait that hook. Not sure my sides can take another splitting.

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    2. Well for heaven's sake. Of course I have. Twice, actually, but here's the one people remember--and it's in Trousering Your Weasel, too! Please note that I have dropped some pounds since this photo was taken.

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    3. I had one last year and was told I didn't have a single thing to worry about, cleanest colon they'd seen in a person my age.

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    4. Did you pay close attention to how long it took your next food to make the complete trip? Two days for me. I was so ashamed. But some people take up to a week.

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    5. I did pay attention out of curiosity. Dinner that night was evacuated before dinner the next day. I have an excellent elimination system apparently.

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    6. Dave was a 24-hour whiz also. I'm not proud I was a laggard.

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  8. No comment: this is beyond my pay grade,
    the Ol'Buzzard

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    1. I won't ask what it would take for you to get a raise, then.

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  9. Murr, you made me laugh, as always! It seems our bodies are determined to remind us that we are not young any more. This has gotten me in trouble more than once and I am still recooperating from the last exuberant outburst!

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    1. Eww, yeah, I saw the pictures. That did not look good, my friend.

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  10. "Now, if the vagina could only develop a tongue instead of teeth..." Saint Mikey said as he bolted from the room as fast as his crossed legs could carry him.

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  11. I knew about thinning tissue in that area but not about any other changes The most my gyno does is check for rogue cells that may turn cancerous. Doesn't explain anything else and I've never been curious enough to ask, nor did I think there was anything to be asking about.

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    1. See, you don't THINK there's anything to ask about, but what if you had a whole turkey head down there and nobody bothered to tell you about it?

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  12. I clearly have the wrong "new" doctor as she has no desire to check my insides and I have not had such an exam in years. Guess I have to add GYN to my list of doctors. Maybe I need to brush down there as well.

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    1. Maybe if you brushed, your regular doctor would be more interested in having a look see.

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  13. This side of menopause is a very good place to be. Not so much the skin issues, though. My body is being populated by many little structures, which my doc calls "barnacles".

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    1. Oh hey, I like your doc. Barnacles they be, matey.

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  14. Thank you Murr. For some reason, I've always had an avid interest in vaginas and learning more about them. Very glad to hear that horror stories about vaginal dentation are probably an urban (or drunken campfire) legend and that I can pass on the fact that it is--except, perhaps, in very exceptional cases--a lie to younger generations of the more vagina-shy males. "Don't worry, sonny, have a closer look. It won't bite you!"

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