Protest the pill?

[Dreamstalker]

again treating the symptom-an OB/GYN is NOT an endocrinologist. and the pill has not "fixed" anything it's made the symptoms go away.

I am completely healthy save for that (I can't remember what-all was tested for but it was fairly comprehensive). I figured that the existing risks associated with the pill (which are few for me) were worth being able to function normally.

Once I went off the pill to "test" things (no sexual activity so that wasn't an issue)--bam, 3-week bleeding again after a day or two. Yes, I don't know if that was my body not knowing how to cope with no hormone infusions, but I know what happens when I don't take it and I have a reasonable certainty there is no underlying condition (I've been on the pill since age 16 or so, btw--if there was something worse I'm sure it would have manifested itself long before now).

[Zyanya]

For the record, I don't want to see the pill banned, but I also don't want the truth about its harmful qualities to be swept under the rug, either.

And it isn't. In fact, when a doctor prescribes you the pill, he/she goes over it's side effects for you, just like they do with any other type of medication.

However, the pill is nowhere near as dangerous as the propaganda makes it out to be and quite a few characteristics attributed to it are downright falsehoods. It's positives vastly outweigh it's mostly fictional negatives.

[Amethyst Hunter]

I'm not even sure I know what an ectopic pregnancy is...I think it's one that occurs in the fallopian tubes and not the uterus....but it just doesn't sound like something a woman can make happen to herself just to rid herself of a baby.

*nods* Ectopic pregnancy is when the fertilized egg, for whatever reason (an accident, as you said), implants itself in one of the fallopian tubes instead of the uterus. It WILL kill you if left to itself - there's no question about it - because once it reaches a certain maturity, it ruptures the tube and causes massive internal bleeding. (The uterus was meant to expand; the tubes, not so much) This is why women who get any kind of sterilization procedure done are strongly encouraged to use at least one backup method of birth control until it's proven beyond a doubt that their method of sterilization has taken.

For the record, I don't want to see the pill banned, but I also don't want the truth about its harmful qualities to be swept under the rug, either.

What Zyanya said. By far the biggest risk most women who take oral contraceptives will face is the risk of blood clots, and even that is *extremely* low (unless one is a smoker, which is why women on the pill are told not to smoke) - like a 0.0002% or something, from what I remember reading on the blurb of my pill information packet. Given that something of 80 - 90% of all American women are on the Pill at least once in their lifetimes, I call those pretty good odds.

Most women who have problems on the Pill report things like mood swings, nausea, infrequent spotting, or period irritability. Some of those symptoms are temporary and will disappear on their own in short time; some of them won't. (My biggest - and only, so far - problem on the pill in the 6 months that I've been taking it are these godawful tension headaches that hit me during the placebo pill week - Excedrin Migraine has become my new best friend.) This doesn't mean that they're in any serious danger - it simply means that the pill is having some normal side effects, or maybe isn't working for them, and they may or may not prefer a different method of birth control. It all depends on the person's health history and preferences.

Other things the pill *can* do that have been *proven*:

- lower one's risk of ovarian and uterine cancers; possibly colorectal cancer as well (studies pending on the last)
- clear up acne
- eases symptoms of PMDD (pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, which is basically PMS times a hundred)
- carries over these benefits well into years after pill-taking has ceased

Things that the pill is commonly accused of but DOES NOT and has NOT been conclusively proven to do:

- cause abortion (if it did, we wouldn't have Pill-babies)
- cause breast cancer
- cause any cancer in general
- cause infertility (Depending on the individual, it may or may not take time for the cycle to reinstate itself once someone goes off the pill; generally speaking, most doctors agree that it is relatively easy to conceive once a pill regimen has been ended)

As far as the breast cancer one goes, the reason women who are diagnosed with it are told to go off the pill (if they're on it already at the time of diagnosis) is because it is thought that the hormones can possibly stimulate the cancer cells into further growth; as far as actually causing the cancer itself? No way. Anyone who says so is either badly misinformed or outright lying.

For fun, here's a quick link I dug up:

National Women's Health Resource Center's site on the Pill Do note that all risks listed are *extremely* rare and, like with any medication, dependent more on the person's health history than anything else.

[Seshat]

I will say this:

If you have a disorder of your reproductive endocrinology (a fancy way of saying 'your female hormones are messed up'), taking a randomly chosen dosage of reproductive hormones will - big surprise! - mess you up.

Doctors should check women for the signs and symptoms of PCOS and other reproductive hormone problems before prescribing any version of the pill.

Doctors should prescribe different versions of the pill to different women, based on an assessment of their likely personal variation of reproductive hormones.

Doctors should make patients aware of the potential side effects of the pill, and the warning signs that they're getting more or less of each repro hormone than their body needs.

And yes, if they have a patient with a moral objection to abortion (or whatever else they might have a moral objection to), doctors should make the patient aware of the potential, however small, of abortion (or whatever) in any particular treatment.


If you have a doctor who does all of that, then the pill is likely to be harmless to you. Otherwise, you may well experience the side effects of excess oestrogen and/or progesterone. The most likely are water retention (bloating), menstrual disorders, and severe mood swings. All will pass if you stop taking the pill.

However, if you do have those experiences, demand to see an endocrinologist before going on any hormonal birth control (except the Mirena IUD, which I'm told doesn't add progesterone to the bloodstream, only the uterine environment).

Edit to add: I am not a doctor. I'm just an opinionated stranger on the internet. Talk to your doctor. (See your doctor if pain persists!)

[Lace Neil Singer]

I once came off the pill for a while due to various factors; and the horrible PMS, debilitating period pains, extremely heavy bleeding and headaches all came back with a vengance, reminding me that it was better on the pill than off it. My periods off it are horribly irregular, in fact, so irregular that it's impossible to predict when I have one; I bleed for at least a week and so heavily that I end up having to wear a tampon as well as a pad, and I end up extremely ill all that week, too. Not to mention the PMS that temporarily changes me into Godzilla... O_o

Plus, I don't want children. Not now, not ever. I can't get my tubes tied cuz my doctor won't let me, so I take the pill and my boyf uses a condom. Are all these fanatics ready to look after all the unwanted kids in the world? I agree with whoever said that forcing a woman to become pregnant and give birth is in a way, a form of rape. It's taking control of her own body off a woman and giving it to someone else. We might as well go back to the days when a woman and all her belongings were owned by her husband, and she spent her life barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.

[McDreidel09]

I didn't read this whole thread, so if someone already said this, sorry.

I was recently put on birth control because the doctor's found ovarian cysts. Some may know that it is normal for a female of my age to have them, but they were causing me so much pain, that in order to regulate my hormones and cease the pain, they put me on birth control. I'm not using them so I can have all the sex I want and not get pregnant. In fact, if it weren't for the cysts, I wouldn't be on them. I'm using them to function properly. The pain was so bad, I couldn't stand up at work (and that's what I have to do all shift,every shift.)

Just because some religious groups don't like the idea, doesn't mean that the rest of us, who have no problem with them and actually need to use them for big things should have to suffer for it.