PERIODS ARE NOT usually the subject of polite conversation, but word is getting around that women no longer have to endure 'the curse' of cramps, headaches and hassle every month.
Thousands of women in Hong Kong and around the world are taking their contraceptive pills back-to-back for months at a time and having their periods only when it suits them. The attractions are clear: there can be less monthly bloating, so your stomach stays flat and you can wear a bikini all summer long. There's no messy interruption to your holiday, romantic weekend, exercise sessions or long hours in the office. And, best of all for many women, there's none of the painful cramping that often marks the start of their monthly misery.
Lisa, an Australian teacher who has been working in Hong Kong for three years, says she stopped having monthly bleeding shortly before moving here. 'I used to enter triathlons a lot and my period always seemed to be due at the wrong time, so I started doing it then,' she says. 'Now I have three or four periods a year just to avoid the hassle - it's much better.'
What occurs during the monthly break from pill taking is not a period in the true sense, but bleeding induced by the pill's artificial hormones.
Gynaecologist and obstetrician Dr Edward Loong Ping-leung says the trend is catching on. 'Women don't want to have the inconvenience and maybe they get period pains so they keep taking the pill - it's just for convenience and social reasons,' he says.
Overseas, so many women want to have less frequent periods that new drugs are being developed in the United States and Germany, specifically to allow women to stop menstruating. It is expected to be available within a few years. Tests on macaque monkeys - one of the few animals to have periods like those of humans - have shown that menstruation can be suppressed. One version of the drug allows the animals to stop having periods but still get pregnant.
