Q I am a 36-year-old woman with no children. I am also a smoker. For the last two years, I have been experiencing severe migraines prior to my menstruation. I also get nausea, vomiting and cramping during these attacks. Can you recommend any pill/medicine/herbal remedy that may help to ease my migraines?

ASorry to hear about all the pain you have been experiencing. In your email, you also include a lot of detail about gynaecological problems. However, these are too complex to sort out in a newspaper reply. So you need to see a doc who is experienced in such matters - preferably a gynaecologist.

Turning to your migraine, this is a very common condition in women. The most important thing you need to know is this. Whenever migraine attack starts, the belly 'closes down'. This means that you CANNOT absorb any tablets from the stomach until after the attack is over!

It is possible to get round that problem by taking the anti-migraine medication through other routes - like by injection or suppository. However, another approach is to make sure you take the treatment very fast - before the stomach has time to close down.

Good medication for fast relief from migraine includes paracetamol (acetaminophen), codeine, almotriptan and sumatriptan. In addition, if you also take a tablet called metoclopramide, that will help delay the shutdown of the stomach.

QI am an 18-year-old woman and I started taking the Pill around six weeks ago. Since then, I have had several headaches and also breast tenderness. Is this OK? Or are these signs that I might be having a heart attack?

ASorry to hear about all the pain you have been experiencing. Heart attacks are nearly unknown in women of your age, so relax. Also, they do not produce symptoms like yours.

Have you read the leaflet which should be supplied with the Pill? If you look at it, you will find that in the early months on the Pill, women frequently get minor and passing side effects. These are:

Breast tenderness

Mild headaches

Slight weight gain

Slight nausea

Slight bleeding in-between menses

So the symptoms which you have had are nothing to fret about. They will probably go away real soon. But if they do NOT, you can ask your doc to switch you to another brand of Pill.

QI am a young guy who has not had the opportunity of much advice about hygiene and sex. I am 19 years and three months.

Should a young man wash under his foreskin regularly, as some of my friends say?

A A lot of stuff can get collected under the foreskin, notably some white material which is called smegma. Germs can lurk there.

So you should pull back the foreskin and wash under it, preferably once a day.

This simple routine helps protect you against cancer of the penis. Although that condition is not very common, it can arise in later life. And it nearly always affects guys who have not washed themselves.

Q I am a 19-year-old guy. I would like to know if it is true that during intercourse you are supposed to make the male organ rub against the clitoris?

A That is real difficult to achieve, particularly for a young and inexperienced man. It is easier to stimulate the clitoris with the fingertips.

For great advice on medical problems, email questions to saturdaylife@gleanerjm.com; fax 922-6223; or mail to Doctor's Advice, c/o The Gleaner Company, 7 North Street, Kingston.