Learning the truth about birth control

What I learned after taking the pill for 20 years...

A couple of years after getting my period, like many teenagers, I started having awful symptoms with my period. I would have painful cramps which were sometimes coupled with nausea that would leave me curled on the couch. I also was very irregular going a month without a period or bleeding for a month straight. And it was heavy! To say I was miserable was an understatement.

And of course life doesn’t stop for us ladies! There was still class and homework and cross country practice. I couldn’t stop doing everything just because I was having menstrual issues, no matter how embarrassing it was. Or how awful I felt.

So like many moms out there, mine took me to my gynecologist. She said, "Hey I have this pill that will take all those issues away. Do you want to try it?" I couldn’t say sign me up fast enough! So I started taking, it worked and I was feeling good.

But my doctor never once took the time to explain how the pill actually worked or that it is a synthetic hormone. She never shared what taking a synthetic hormone could do to my body, which was not done developing.

And you know what?

I never stopped to do my own research about what the pill was or how it worked even as an adult.

It wasn’t until I was in my mid-30s that I finally paused and got curious about how the pill works and how it may have impacted my health. I took the pill, a synthetic hormone, every dang day for 20 years people!

To be completely honest, I didn’t start researching the pill until I stopped taking it just about 2 years ago when my husband and I finally decided we didn’t want children and he got a vasectomy.

This is what I learned:

The birth control pill, patch, shot, arm implant and most IUDs contains a synthetic hormone (a hormone is a chemical that is released in your body that tells it what to do) that basically shuts down communication between the brain and your ovaries. I don’t know about but that is scary! I had no freaking clue it was stopping a communication path in my body!

It can slow down progesterone production in the body. This was a little confusing to me. Progesterone, when released, helps you feel calm, chill, relaxed by stimulating gaba receptors in the body. My pill was a low progestin pill which is not the same as progesterone. Progestin is a synthetic (think lab created) hormone that is supposed to replace progesterone but impacts the body differently. I struggled with anxiety in my teens. I'm sure that could partly be chalked up with normal teenage angst and wanting to fit in but maybe maybe my pill impacted this a little as well? I'm not a doctor and this is just a guess. I'm just kinda thinking out loud.

It impacts your microbiome. The pill can reduce diversity in your gut and cut off hormone communication within the gut. No wonder my stomach was such a mess when I was younger. I seriously thought I may have a slight touch of IBS. I always needed to know where the restroom was "in case of emergency".

There is something called post-birth control syndrome. You can go months without a period when you stop taking the pill. I went almost 8 months. In addition, you can experience depression, anxiety, hair loss. It also can create vaginal atrophy which is the thinning of the walls of the vagina due to decreased estrogen. It is pretty common knowledge that the pill can lower your libido (which I did know). But vaginal atrophy can cause increased vaginal dryness, increased chance of urinary infection as well as chronic vaginal infection. It also can cause pain during sex and in some cases cause pain during orgasm. Yikes! Low libido coupled with pain during sex does not create an ideal sex life!

After researching and learning about all of this, my biggest realization is that I would choose the pill again. I am not against birth control! Jake and I don’t want kids and that leaves us just a few options for preventing that. The pill is convenient and easy compared to other ways of preventing pregnancy. I think it’s important that woman can choose to have family or not on their timing and to have options to handle and manage a plethora of other health issues that birth control can help.

But I do wish I would have been more educated about how it would impact my health and what it would do to my body. I wish my doctor would have taken the time to explain everything to me.

Talking about periods is still a taboo subject which is ridiculous! Periods give us women super powers. It allows us to create life! It’s unfortunate that there is still shame around this subject.

Ok, so now what?

As I said earlier, when I finally got off the pill after 30 years I experienced a few symptoms of post-birth control syndrome.

So what do we do to help manage that? We have to work on balancing our hormones!

I was kind of lucky. I had already been following a program called the 131 Method created by Chalene Johnson and a team of registered dietitians and medical doctors that teaches you how to heal your gut, manage your weight and balance your hormones using a nutrition and lifestyle. You can learn more about it by clicking here.

You also may want to seek out a naturopathic doctor or other medical doctor to help you.

Here's to educating ourselves about our bodies, advocating for ourselves and demanding to know how any pill or medication effects our health and bodies!

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