Blog 2- Cervical Cancer

In Guatemala an issue has arose in older and middle aged women and whether or not they are going through menopause or if they have cervical cancer. This issue has come up because many women are dying of cervical cancer or are having to receive much treatment for there issue because they do not know they have cancer until the later stages. The reason these ladies do not know if they have cancer is because the symptoms for cervical cancer are the same symptoms of menopause. There are women in Guatemala who had cervical cancer and they were asked "Why did you not go to the doctor?" and many of the women said "I thought I was going through menopause." This issue is actually happening everywhere throughout the world, but this article talks about how this issue is extremely bad in Guatemala. This article also discusses how family planning may have an impact on causing cervical cancer. The reason they say this is because in Guatemala they believe that birth control can actually lead to cervical cancer. They can not prove that this is true, but it does make women wonder if it has caused them to have cancer and causes them to get checked more for cancer which is always good so maybe them believing it causes cancer is helping them.

In Guatemala this outbreak of cervical cancer has become a huge concern to the world because it is causing many women to wonder if they are going through menopause or if they have cancer. This issue could become great because women could start to overthink things and when they are actually going through menopause they could freak out and make themselves believe they have cancer when they do not. This could cause them to have anxiety and worry too much and cause women to go into depression. There is also the other side of that argument that many women may have cervical cancer, but they just believe it is menopause. This is an obvious issue and doctors need to figure out a way to make women start being tested for cancer, but also helping them to know when their menopause stage of there life is coming. This issue could also be tragic because in many countries they do not have enough health care and if cervical cancer does not get controlled then it could start to cause many more deaths in the world especially third world countries.

http://www.globalhealthhub.org/2014/02/12/menopause-family-planning-cervical-cancer-womens-voices-guatemala/