The Blessings of the Curse: No More Periods? (Paperback)

by Susan Rako (Author)
Key Phrases: menstrual suppression, nonstop use, generation pills, United States, Women's Health Initiative, The Nonstop Birth Control Pill (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
“Dr. Rako discusses a growing body of information that deflates the notion that menstrual suppression is a viable option for women."
—The New York Times

Encouraging healthy menstruating women and even teenage girls to do away with their normal menstrual cycles by dosing themselves more or less nonstop with hormones (a multi-billion-dollar-per-year industry) is, in a word, reckless. What every woman and her doctor MUST know about the actual benefits of the normal menstrual cycle—naturally lowered blood pressure, reduced risk of heart attacks and strokes, healthy bones, rhythmic stimulation of sexual desire and creativity—and about the potential hazards of menstrual suppression (heart attacks, strokes, cervical cancer, osteoporosis, depressed libido) deserves a voice. I am determined that it will have one.
—Susan Rako, M.D.

About the Author
Susan Rako, M.D., a well respected Boston psychiatrist in active practice, is the acclaimed author of The Hormone of Desire: The Truth About Testosterone, Sexuality, and Menopause and of the memoir, That’s How the Light Gets In. Founder of the educational nonprofit, Women’s Health On Alert (WHOA), Dr. Rako is an internationally recognized authority in the field of women’s hormonal health. www.susanrako.com

Product Details

• Paperback: 196 pages
• Publisher: Backinprint.com (March 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595386555
• ISBN-13: 978-0595386550
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,572,493 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #20 in	Books > Science > Medicine > Reproductive & Sexual > Hormones
  #36 in	Books > Health, Mind & Body > Women's Health > Menstruation

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Essential Read for Every Woman in Today's World of Corporate Medicine, April 8, 2006

By	C. G. Mayell (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a medical professional with Masters Degrees in Public Health and Education from Harvard University, where I too have spent countless hours researching the stacks of Harvard's Countway Library, I am impressed with the thoroughness of Dr. Rako's responsible research. Finally a medical professional, unbiased by pharmaceutical conflicts of interest and unafraid to speak truths many would rather not to have to face, has done the work of laying out, in language we can all understand, that wholesale manipulation of women's normal menstrual cycle has costs to our bodies that the drug companies do not want us to know about -- and that too few of our own doctors know. How many of us know that "the shot" can cause osteoporosis even in young women -- and that the birth control pill is now known to contribute actively to cancer of the cervix? 6,000 American women -- many of them young women with young children -- will die this year of this cancer. In addition to the important well-documented health hazards of the pill, Rako draws attention to the fact that manipulating the menstrual cycle dislocates women from our fundamental nature. Finally, as a medical professional who was trained in graduate school to critique others' medical research, I can attest that this book is a balanced analysis of the pros and cons of doing away with women's periods. Dr. Rako has laid out the factors that will help each woman to make her own risk/benefit analysis, and will help those women for whom non-stop use of the birth control pill makes sense to choose this option. Thank you, Dr. Rako, for being a voice of sanity in a world focused on "convenience" at a cost we may know only when it is too late.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Timely Medical Resource , January 23, 2009

By	K. Mcspadden "domestic dissident" (Virginia Beach, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I can't say enough in praise of the much-needed critique of society's harmful
attitude toward reproductive options for women. The solid medical
research book only serves to confirm what I have instinctively
believed since I was a teenager-- that fertility and the
accompanying cycle was an empowering gift with which we should not lightly tamper.

Susan Rako has provided an invaluable resource to every woman seeking a knowledge-based approach to her reproductive choices. Whether you are a die-hard birth control believer or a natural babe, the clearly presented, easily understood information provided in The Blessing Of The Curse will increase your ability to make more educated reproductive decisions. It should be required reading at every gynecologist's office!

0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful information tainted with outrageous nonsense, March 25, 2008

By	Fed Up With Amazon "I don't do business with ... - See all my reviews

This book makes me angry, because so far as I know, it's the only major source of information about the possible risks of menstrual suppression. All the other books and websites and stuff I've seen about it say that there is no risk and no problems, which I find highly dubious.

So this book discusses in depth the possible risks of the hormonal meddling that menstrual suppression requires. It also questions the medical background of some of the doctors who have advocated it, documenting the dubious activities they've engaged in. This is valuable information.

The problem is that the author makes herself untrustworthy by talking about how much she loooooves menstruating. She insists that she always felt sexy and powerful and happy while she was menstruating. All the women I know - ALL the women I know - feel miserable, ugly, tired, and in pain when they're having their periods.

She also claims that before she became a doctor, she only knew one woman in her entire life who had cramps, and she characterizes this as a "rare" condition. If by "rare", she means "experienced by 95% of the women who menstruate", then I guess it is rare. Now, I know women whose periods aren't as bad as mine, but I do not know ANY woman who does not hate it or who does not have all kinds of unpleasant side effects.

Because of the ridiculous lies she tells about how wonderful menstruation is - and I'm menstruating right now, let me tell you there is nothing frelling wonderful about it - I have to wonder how much I can trust the rest of the information in her book.