Monique Rainford

This week Dr. Monique Rainford continues to respond to readers' questions.

Dear Dr. Rainford,

What advice can you give to a woman with uneven breast sizes. As I get older I am putting on weight and the larger one is getting noticeably bigger and the smaller one obviously lagging behind.

Any bust increasing remedies I take will result in the bigger one getting bigger. I obviously don't want surgery. I asked a gym/fitness place if it is possible to increase bust size with exercise but they said it was not because breast is made of tissue and will not increase with exercise.

If you know of any way to build up my lagging one, can you let me know and how long would it take and to what capacity would it increase? If you can help me with this dire problem I would be so grateful. Thanks in anticipation.

Dear Reader,

Although most women have slight unevenness in the size of their breasts or breast asymmetry, a few, as in your case, have more significant differences in size. It is important that you have a medical exam of your breast because certain conditions which may have more serious consequences could be the cause of your problem. However, most of the time no such cause is identified.

Unfortunately, I am not aware of any method other than surgery to correct this problem. Therefore, you may want to consider consulting a plastic surgeon about this matter.

Genital herpes and miscarriages

Dear Dr. Rainford

I have had genital herpes for the past three years. During those years, I had two miscarriages. I wanted to find out whether the herpes is causing the miscarriages since I heard that viral infections do cause miscarriages. I am now very much worried that I might not be able to have any children. Please advise me on what medications to use and what I can do to stop the miscarriages if they are being caused by the genital herpes. Please help!

Dear Reader,

I am sorry to hear about your loss of two pregnancies. Certain infections including HIV, syphilis and herpes can be associated with miscarriages. However, herpes infection may only increase the risk of miscarriage in a particular pregnancy if it occurs early in that pregnancy. Therefore, unless you contracted the infection in the first pregnancy that you miscarried, it is unlikely that either of your miscarriages was due to the herpes infection.

Although there are certain tests which may help to discover the reason for your losses, most of the time no specific problem is identified. That being said, your chances of having a child are still very good and I encourage you to be optimistic.

There are two medications available in Jamaica to treat herpes - acyclovir( Zovirax) and valacyclovir (Valtrex). Both have been found to be very effective in reducing the number of outbreaks and allowing outbreaks to heal more quickly. The latter has also been shown to reduce the rate of transmission of herpes to a person's sex partner it is unlikely that these medications will reduce your risk for miscarriages, you may be treated with one of them in late pregnancy to reduce your risk of a herpes outbreak close to delivery.

Herpes may be passed on to the newborn baby and the risk of transmission is highest if a woman who has never had any type of herpes before, gets infected during a pregnancy. Fortunately, the risk is lowest in cases such as yours where your infection occurred prior to a successful pregnancy. I certainly hope that you have a baby soon.