Erica Sloan

1 week ago | self.com | Erica Sloan

Legs harnessed in an airborne straddle. Feeble pleas from your ob-gyn to scooch up. Cold, clunky metal speculum pushed into your vagina, followed by clanging and scraping. Pap smears are, at worst, a painful, crampy, or traumatizing experience; and at best, awkward as hell. It’s only natural to wish you never had to go through with another one again.

2 weeks ago | self.com | Amy Marturana Winderl |Erica Sloan

A lost contact in your eye can be supremely unsettling, if not panic-inducing. There’s the fear that you won’t be able to find it and safely pluck it out…which can spiral all too quickly into worries about never being able to see again. Not to mention the ridiculously irritating and often painful sensation an errant contact can bring, thanks to the “incredible number of nerve endings on the surface of our eyes,” Ashley Brisette, MD, a New York-based ophthalmologist, tells SELF.

2 weeks ago | yahoo.com | Amy Marturana Winderl |Erica Sloan

Collage: Self; Source image: Jose Luis Pelaez/Getty ImagesA lost contact in your eye can be supremely unsettling, if not panic-inducing. There’s the fear that you won’t be able to find it and safely pluck it out…which can spiral all too quickly into worries about never being able to see again.

3 weeks ago | self.com | Erica Sloan

Claims about miracle foods and “natural” remedies come with the territory of practically any chronic illness, endometriosis included. After all, getting diagnosed with endo and finding out it has no proven cure can hit like a one-two punch. Learning that medical options for managing the condition are limited to hormonal drugs and surgery just piles onto the disappointment. So it only makes sense to go searching for a different answer.

3 weeks ago | self.com | Erica Sloan

This week, news broke that the Trump administration is weighing a bunch of policy proposals from advocates of an emerging “pronatalist” movement, one designed to convince more women to have more children. You could say I fall squarely in its target demo: I’m a 30-year-old woman and engaged to be married to a man with whom I have a secure and loving partnership. I’m also college-educated, financially stable, and have a support network of friends and family—which is to say, I’m immensely privileged.