I originally went on The Pill when I was 17 because my periods were really irregular and very heavy and uncomfortable. The first pill I used didn't work out for me as I got bad acne scarring and break-through bleeding. I then went and changed it and I was on Cilest for about 5 years.
I first thought about coming off The Pill, or at least changing to a different one, last year; I was feeling very low and I had a lot of stress that I wasn't dealing with properly so I went and spoke to my doctor, as at the time there had been a lot of news coverage about certain pills causing mental health issues. After speaking with him, he told me that he thought it was more likely to be the stress than my pill that was making me feel so rubbish, so he advised to give it another 6 months before coming back and in the meantime to try some methods to help me deal with the stress a bit better.
Fast forward to this year, and although I can recognise when I'm letting things get on top of me and deal with it appropriately, I was still finding that my mood swings were all over the place. There have been times when I've started crying for no reason, or just a small comment could really upset me. It got to the point where I was bawling my eyes out down the phone to my mum and I made a decision that I was going to come off The Pill. I just had a gut feeling that it was causing all of this unnecessary emotional drama. It's only been a month or so since I made that decision, but honestly, I have never felt better. The only way I can describe it is feeling "lighter" like I'm not on edge all the time or over-reacting to things. I still got a bit emotional around my period, but that's fairly normal for me and it was nowhere near as bad as it has been.
In terms of finding a new method of contraception, I've decided I'm going to give it at least 6 months before I try and mess around with my hormones again; since both me and my boyfriend are happy using condoms, I don't really feel a lot of pressure to find anything unless anything changes with my period or condoms aren't working anymore.
I'm by no means a medical professional, nor an expert in mental health and I would like to stress that if you are having problems then you should definitely speak to your GP first. I would also love to see more women feeling like they can open up about their contraception struggles - I know if I'd seen Alex's post sooner then I would have felt more prepared and less alone, knowing that I wasn't the only person having these issues.
A really interesting blog post. I know it's a conversation me and my partner has been having at the moment but more related to my overall health. I suffer with overall body pain and doctors are looking at diagnosing me with fibromyalgia, which does seem to fit the bill of whats going on. but since my doctor put me on a new depo injection where I inject it myself I was able to actually see the side effects and such. A lot of stuff I seem to suffer with. Now my mum being a nurse in a gp is assuring me that's most likely not the case, as with any medication and such you'll have side effects, but it's something that made me think a little, and really bothered my partner. We're both hoping to get into uni, though it will be different uni's which means not seeing each other has much, but he's talking about me completely coming off contraception such as the pill and depo, and going to condoms too. At the end of the day it might not make a difference and it might just be the case I do have an illness that's effecting me, but as he said it's no harm in trying and really we're getting to the age where we may possibly be wanting kids, I know right now I can't have kids, and it could be a few years before I can have kids because of the depo injection, so at least we can get ready for when we make that decision and not have to wait, and wonder if there'e something wrong with one of us. For now we can play it safe in other ways, and hopefully it might help in my condition.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that women need to talk about these issues together more so they don't feel alone, I know seeing your blog has made me feel a bit better.
Yeah, I completely agree with you! My boyfriend was really supportive too, which has helped massively. I hope you manage to find what's going on and get it all sorted! x
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