Let’s Talk – Day 3

This week is National Women’s Health Week.  Their slogan is “Let’s talk!” and their logo is a delightful pink elephant in the room.  This week, I’m getting us talking about periods with an engineering spin.   Have a look at yesterday’s post to get up to speed.

We will continue to use the Engineering Hierarchy of Controls to examine this topic each day of this week.

Just a note that some of the health and medical things discussed here aren’t the right solution for every one and your doctor might have some really good reasons why it won’t work for you (like, you might have a stroke), so treat this information as if it were a casual gossip with a girlfriend and not tailored medical advice.

Today we’re up to Engineering Controls.

 

Engineering Controls

 

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to contact the original designer of the human female for comment on the design and any improvements that could be incorporated in later releases but I’ve heard that the original requirements had indicated that the body would receive the level of nutrition that would delay menarche to about 15 (not 11 as I experienced) and that the reproductive years would be spent either pregnant or breastfeeding (with no mention of taking over the world).

In terms of consequence, let’s say that a period is between a 1 (illness or injury not requiring medical treatment) and a 2 (minor illness/injury requirement medical treatment).

And your original designed likelihood was a 3 (once in the next 2 to 10 years), but its now a actually a 5 (>10 times a year).

You’ve actually gone from a risk score of 3-6 to 5-10.

 

But we’re well out of the defects liability period so we’ll have to make do with some of these technology/medicine related controls:

• Taking hormone based contraceptives that make symptoms less severe
• Taking preventative painkillers – but proceed with caution!  The last time I actually followed the directions on Naprogesic to take it preventively rather than reactively, I had an allergic reaction which caused my tongue and throat to swell.  (Note that I’m pretty much allergic to life but I wouldn’t want this to happen to anyone else.  We have too few female engineers as it is without accidentally killing them off!)
• Smart tampons – check out this article 
• Tracking apps and devices
• Stick on heat pads that you can wear under your clothes

“That time of the month” engineered!

Tomorrow, we’re looking at Administrative Controls.