20 answers

Need Some Advice on Birth Control...

I am having horrible problems with my periods. I will go months at a time without one at all and when I do finally start I bleed for a month or two straight and I mean heavy! My hemoglobin drops very low and I am tired and weak all of the time. My Dr. wants to put me on birth control to regulate them but I have not had good birth control experiences in the past. Does anyone know of anything that doesn't have horrible side effects like migraine headaches and weight gain?

What can I do next?

Featured Answers

I am on the NuvaRing and I have not had any problems with it. I have actually lost weight instead of gaining.

I suffer from migraines, I was on the Depo shot and it made my headaches much worse and I gained almost 30 pounds.

The mini pill - I asked my doctor about this and he said that you absolutely have to take it at the exact same time every day otherwise it isn't effective.

I hope you find something that works for you. Good Luck!

Hi T., I have been on the depo shot for about a year now. My daughter was born August 07 and I started it when she was 6 weeks old. I absolutely love it. I don't have a period or even cramping. I have not experienced any weight gain and I don't have to worry about anything except for every 3 months which my doctor schedules in advance. Good luck finding one that works for you.

More Answers

Try Natural Progesterone Cream. It's NOT birth control, but it will regulate your periods without any bad side effects. My periods are 3 days long!!!

1 mom found this helpful

Hmm. I wonder what your exposure to hormone disrupters is? Plastics, chemical products like household cleaners (bleach), and animal products, in particular.

Unfortunately, these things don't respond to quick fixes like a simple pill. I'm glad you're resisting going on hormone-based birth control. That would just tamp down the symptoms without addressing the cause (and without addressing the other health effects you are currently, or will in the future, suffer from exposure to hormone disrupters). Also, studies show that hormone-based birth control reverses mate choice (besides causing other problems, as you've discovered). I experienced this myself, on my honeymoon! Suddenly I wasn't as thrilled as I had expected to be. Went off the pill and was back in love as ever. I had known about the mate choice reversal effect, but didn't expect that it would happen within only a couple of days. I had only wanted to delay my period while on my honeymoon. Now that I look back on it, I would have preferred the period over experiencing watching my emotional response to my new husband seem to fade away while I was on those pills.

Anyway. It might take a few weeks or months to start to notice the difference, but take immediate action to completely detox your life of chemicals. Don't make coffee using bleached white filters, or drink hot liquids from styrofoam cups. Don't microwave your food in plastic containers. Don't even *store* your food in plastic, and avoid plastic wrap. Use foil or Pyrex or Corningware, instead. Reduce or eliminate the meat, milk, egg, and fish from your diet. Don't use harsh chemical cleaners around your house.

At the same time as you take these steps, do an herbal body cleanse. The Gaia Supreme Cleanse is great, but there are others out there, and in fact your issues are so severe that you might want to enlist the help of a professional, who can ensure that you're taking the most effective steps possible to rid your body from the hormone disrupters and actual hormones (from meat and animal products) that have upset the balance in your system so drastically.

It's not as easy as popping a pill (of any kind). But it will get to the heart of the problem, and fix the other problems that such exposures cause (help prevent cancer, for one thing, and give you some energy back - even when your iron is up, you will notice the difference).

L.

1 mom found this helpful

My daughter had some trouble with irregular periods and she went to a naturopath doctor (alternative medicine) She spent a lot of time with Becky, discussing her diet, stress levels, nursing patterns, everything. She gave her some particular diet advice, and put her on certain vitamins and suppliments and within 6 weeks she had regulated. This doctor has helped several family members and I highly recommend that approach first, before doing any thing that is going to adversly effect your hormonal balance. I can give you more details if you are interested. My email is ____@____.com H.

1 mom found this helpful

Birth control is so risky. You are very likely low in progesterone, which is the hormone that causes relaxation and blood flow decrease. If you have pms it will help with that too. I suggest going to a website of dr lee's that will educate you on being estrogen dominate, which you most probably are, and then getting an over the counter progesterone transdermal cream in 2% strength. It very likely will help. Give it three months and use from mid cycle to onset of period. If it helps but does not alleviate your problems, then you may need prescription strength cream of 5-10% which you can get from a doctor that your local compound pharmacy will recommend.
B. S. RN CCM

1 mom found this helpful

I didn't have any side affects from the birth control pills but I did from everything else.

Hey Trisha,

From very personal experience with what feels like about a hundred and one birth controls i have grown a liking to my mini pill which is pregesteron only.....I have a problem with taking normal BC because If i get too much estrogen i tend to get blood clots(that runs in my family). I have been on this pill for about 8 months now and I havent gained a pound....in fact i had a relativley easy time losing the 70 pounds i gained with my son( it took me about 4 months). So if you are going to get on a BC than my suggestion would be the mini pill, or POP(Progesteron only Pill) The only thing I dont really like about the pill is that you have to take the pill at the same exact hour every single day or you have a much higher risk of getting preggo than with the other pills. I hope i helped you out! good luck!

I'm with Liev on this one. Birth control is synthetic hormone and is more trouble than it is worth in the long run. Even those who have great results with using it in their younger years will have problems, they just will show up during menopause & it wont be pretty. If you can get saliva hormone testing that would be a great start to see if you need any kind of hormone replacement. Chances are you are estrogen dominant and need to supplement with natural progesterone (not to be confused with progestin) and or adjust your diet and exercise routine. Nutrition plays an important role in hormone balance. A huge point Liev also brought up is environmental factors. Plastics, pesticides etc. all have what are called xenoestrogens which contributes to estrogen dominance. I wont go too much more into it since Leiv sent a pretty lengthy message already :o)

If you're not planning to have any more children, ask your doctor about an endometrial oblation. It's an outpatient procedure where they basically cauterize the lining of the uterus. Many women have no period at all afterward, some have very light spotting.
I was having a heavy period (and when I say heavy, I mean using tampons two at a time, and still soaking through my clothes every hour), and I was having it every two weeks. On top of that, I was cramping so hard that I literally could not stand up straigt, and PMS that drove my family insane.
After the procedure, no more periods, no cramping, no PMS.

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