Chemotherapy sometimes creates a problem with infertility. I stopped having monthly periods at the age of 41 when going into early menopause after chemotherapy. Women want to be aggressive in treating their cancer but worry about how to protect themselves from becoming sterile. Especially those women who have not yet had children and are planning a family.

One option for women who are getting ready to undergo chemotherapy is to harvest some of their eggs involving freezing and storing them for later use. Lots of campaign issues against egg harvesting are actively being discussed but for women undergoing chemotherapy and still wanting to have children, this has been the number one option they have faced. Now research is being done on using a new drug to temporarily shut down the ovaries. Then when chemotherapy is completed, doctors work on restoring your periods.

Mercy medical oncologist Dr. David Riseberg of the Institute for Cancer Care at Mercy Medical Center said the idea is that putting a woman into temporary menopause will protect the ovaries from chemo. Studies about that are going on right now. "There are still questions about whether -- with these injections -- whether there is still impairment in the ability of women to have children, but we think getting the periods to return is an important first step," Dr. Riseberg said.