Birth Control Pills and Nasty side effects--experiences??

My doctor changed mine once for physical reasons, but I was only on it for a month: I spent the entire month bursting into tears for no apparent reason. I knew it was the Pill but it didn't stop the random crying. It was bizarre!

After being on it for many years, then coming off, a friend of mine asked me if I was on 'happy pills or something' because my daily mood had become so much happier!

But both these incidents were years ago when the Pill was much stronger and so the side effects were more common.

When we moved to Florida (about 11 years ago) I had to start seeing a military Dr. He put me on a brand that made me sick. I actually threw up in the mornings. I said if I was gonna throw up in the morning - I might as well be pregnant so I stopped taking them. Next month I was pregnant - I only thew up once in the 9 months! I haven't taken anything since then since it "left such a bad taste in my mouth" for pills - no pun intended.

My only side effect was gaining 5 pounds, but I thought that was a VERY nasty one. Ortho Novum 7/7/7

I got atrociously depressed on Ortho Novum. For the first three days, it was all I could do to get out of bed. Finally I dragged myself to the student health center and the nurse said I should keep taking them, because "it can take up to three months to adjust." I said, "If I spend three months like this, I'll fail all my classes." She switched me to a lower-dose pill (maybe it was Orthocept, I can't remember) and the symptoms vanished instantly. It wasn't just the lower dose, I don't think, but also the slightly different chemicals used--there are several different chemicals they use as the estrogen, and several other different chemicals they use as the progesterone; they're not all identical. Different women have different reactions to them, and some women are more sensitive than others (and thus need a lower-dose pill), so it's a good idea to switch around until you find one that works best for you.

A friend of mine had a stroke in her very early thirties from the contraceptive patch. The patch is TEN TIMES more likely than the Pill to cause a stroke. She is now disabled.

My sister-in-law developed rheumatoid arthritis while on the pill. Whichever type she was taking, it is apparently a documented side effect. When she stopped taking it, her symptoms got better.

I didn't have many problems until after I stopped the pill. It was a good 5 years before my periods finally went back to normal. We're talking anywhere from 1-6 months between periods. NOT fun.

My acupuncturist treats a lot of women who have had problems ranging from irregular periods to chronic pain to autoimmune issues, all of which were documented (but not well known) side effects of the pill. My sister-in-law's docs never even thought about the connection between the pill and her symptoms until my acupuncturist -- 3,000 miles away and never even spoke to my SIL -- made the connection.

So...no more pill for me.

I've been on a variety of different pills since I started taking them seven years ago. The first three were really just trying to find one that matched my body but once I did, Ortho Cyclen, I was all set. Then my insurance company at the time decided to play doctor like they are wont to do and switched my pill to a generic version. I nagged the pharmacist to tell me that they were the same and nothing would happen if I switched. He assured me and I begrudgingly switched to Sprintec.

I think you know where this is going. A few days after I started taking it, I started getting really tired, near Narcoleptic. I was falling asleep during sex . . . and I was on top. I had every blood test known to man to find out (we thought it might have been Mono since my boyfriend at the time had it within the past year) but it was nothing and chalked up to stress since I was having my first surgery ever in a couple months time. Had the surgery (hysteroscopy and laproscopy for endometriosis) and now only was I still tired but I had officially broached bat-shit insane. When I say I had a murderous blood boil going on, I'm not exaggerating. The things I wanted to do to people were not things a sane person should think.

Now, I'm a little moody to begin with but this . . . I wanted to ram people off the road with my car and proceed to pummel them if they cut me off. And I'm dead serious when I say that. It took all the strength I had not to. I think I went two months of being absolutely murderous before I went to my OBGYN and begged him to fix it because this just wasn't right. I couldn't take the rage anymore. We were able to track the change in demeanor to the switch in pills and he put me on Yasmin. Three days later I was fine. The things a simple pill can do to a person.

I'm actually on Yaz now and aside from the slight love handles, I don't have any complaints. I haven't gained weight, just what's there shifts. When I came off the pill for 6 months, lost the love handles but it migrated to my stomach. Went back on got the love handles back and a flatter stomach. Very odd. Plus I want to keep my face from exploding and I can hide the handles better than a face that looks like a mine field.

i went on the pill a few years ago and it was the worst mistake i ever made.
I was deppressed the full time i was on it.
I have never felt so bad in my entire life, i wanted the ground to open up and swallow me, i couldnt leave the house all i wanted to do was stay in bed and cry.
Then about 3 months into it i started bleeding non stop for 3 months.
I went to the doctor and they sent me for tests and it was found that i was allergic to the pill so i will never take it again it was the scariest thing ever.
I have since found out that im fine there were no long lasting effects and i will be able to have children so im happy now.
hope that was helpful if you want more details feel free to contact me
thanks

Horrible, evil, mean things spewing forth from my mouth to anyone who dared to speak to me. Knew it, hated it, and totally unable to stop it.

It was like the world's worst PMS had moved in for good. No matter where I was in my cycle.

I had to go off the pill for a while for it to wear off too. It wasn't the first time I'd been on the pill, but I was almost afraid to try others after that.

I was on the depo-provera pill when I was 17 which had a lot of nasty side effects for me. Depression, for one. I also started experiencing numbness down my left side, and tingling, and lost the vision in my left eye for two days. I had been on the pill for a year at this point and when I went to the doctor my blood pressure had rocketed. She advised me to stop taking the pill, and that I should never take it again as apparently I was not far away from having a stroke!

My girlfriend was on one a few years back that made her pretty much insane. Ask her the time and she'd start to cry, if she didn't try to carve your heart out with a spoon first.

When she finally went off that crud, she turned back into a civilized person.

Pills made my moods unstable. I wasn't to either extreme with violent rage or deep-down sorrow, but I'd be incredibly sensitive to that which was around me or have no patience with anything at all.

My mom was on the pill... and had 6 kids. The doctors said that for some people it makes getting pregnant easier.

(She stopped taking it every time she thought she might be pregnant.)

Hummingbird said:

My mom was on the pill... and had 6 kids. The doctors said that for some people it makes getting pregnant easier.

(She stopped taking it every time she thought she might be pregnant.)

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Eek! I'd be pissed. And asking for my money back and perhaps a new doctor.

i know a lady who was on birth pills . she forgot her pills
and she became pregnant and the result the child's brain was a bit affected
padma

I swore my bad mood and exhaustion, and weight gain was a result of the pill I was on, Ortho Tricyclen. So I stopped.

It's been 4 years.

I'm still moody, exhausted, but a little less bloated.

I couldn't swear it was ortho, but I think it probably was - I got put on it in college because my periods were so irregular. I went off after a few months because it made me feel like a robot. Just... UNemotional. Nothing touched me, everything was just "meh." You don't realize how important emotions are, as a writer, until they're gone!

Now I'm on... uh... oh I forget. I'm on something else and I'm fine.

Ortho Tricyclene did the same to me. I felt like a balloon and I had breakthrough bleeding the entire time I was on then. That's what I love, not just bleeding for a week but for an entire month at a time. Wonder why I'm not on that one anymore?

I hated Ortho. Gave me migraines like clockwork every month. Now, I only have one every few months or so, which is so much more manageable.

What I'm on now works beautifully for me. No side effects except...well, nevermind that. Anyways, I can live with it. Migraines were intefering with my life in a big way, though, so the Ortho had to be stopped.

Ortho-tricyclen made me miserable. At the time, I had undiagnosed PCOS and POF. Instead of, you know, investigating my symptoms, my OB/GYN just slapped an ortho 'scrip across the table. Yeah. When you have almost no female hormones in your system (I started menopause at 19ish and had the testosterone levels of a teenage boy by 23) and you suddenly start taking a tri-phasic pill, well, the results are monstrous.

I became so depressed I couldn't get out of bed. I missed classes. My libido tanked. My skin was horrendous. My hair fell out in clumps. Oh, and after three withdrawal bleeds, I never got another one.

Finally, my DH (boyfriend at the time) convinced me to toss the pills. Within a month, I was back to my old self. Of course, I didn't have a period for 4 years and was shuffled from doc to doc but that's a whole other story....

Interestingly enough, Desogen (my current bcp) is a godsend. It has just the right amount of hormones to make me almost *normal*.

I was on the shot, not the pill, but -- same hormones and whatnot. I gained 50 lbs, was a total b***h to everyone, and ended up getting pregnant.

Talk about a lose-lose!

I was on them to stop terrible, terrible cramps. They didn't help much, but I gained 25 lb, which I lost when I stopped taking them. It took me about 20 years and a series of doctors to find out what was causing the cramps (endrometrious.) No one would take me seriously and one doctor even told me, "There are things about women's bodies we just don't know." This was a women doctor, too. Feh!

I was put on them to dissolve some ovarian cysts than caused excruciating cramps. They did this, but with a nasty side effects. I had to do this twice. The fist time, I was hungry 24/7. Not just craving food, it felt like I hadn't eaten in at least a day. After I ate, I was good for up to an hour. Then, my stomach hurt like I was starving. Not too surprising, I gained 20 pounds in three months. The second time (this time with a different drug), I became an insomniac.

Diane 25 Pill

SarahDavidson said:

I was on the shot, not the pill, but -- same hormones and whatnot. I gained 50 lbs, was a total b***h to everyone, and ended up getting pregnant.

Talk about a lose-lose!

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Bah, Sarah D gets the prize! That's terrible!

Last time I wanted to switch pills, the doctor gave me this Australian one (not yet approved by the FDA) called Diane 25. It gave me a feeling I can only describe as "momentum." I would sit on the couch all day and not be able to get up, even to switch on the TV. I've heard of people with Parkinson's having this problem, but birth control pills? Weird, I tell you!

My friend and I were training for a marathon at the time. She finally dragged my ass off the couch for a run. I couldn't do it. It was like dragging a mountain behind me.

I lasted three days and quit.

I'm on Yasmin now and it doesn't have any effects that I can see. Sometimes I blame it for killing my sex drive, but then I remember I'm a single girl living in Thailand. It's probably more like lack of opportunity.