Someone recommended this to me a while ago – thanks for the reminder!
And thanks to everyone who’s weighing in. It’s pretty amazing to see how differently people react to the very same meds, in completely opposite ways sometimes. I’ll probably give Alesse another month (says the person who’s still taking the blanks!) then talk to a doc about switching when I go in sometime next month. I hope they’re informed about all of these types – I asked about Seasonale last time and she just looked confused.
Just an FYI, but you can take any birth control pill like Seasonale. Just buy 3 months’ worth at a time, throw out each package when you get to the blanks, and start a new package for two months, then take the 3rd month as usual. I did that with Allesse for one year and aside from very occasional breakthrough bleeding it was fantastic. Four periods per year, what’s not to like?
Of course, if you have insurance paying for it you’ll have to explain to them why you need a refill 2 weeks early each time. Mine has no problem with that - they’d rather pay for generic allesse than brand Seasonale
The smartest, most compassionate OB/GYN I work with (and as an OB/GYN RN, I work with dozens) gave me this advice for hormonal BC. It sounds simple, but it saved my marriage:
Drink a lot more water
Literally walk away from your SO when the rages emerge.
Yes, you may need to change your BC dose or type, but Dr. C says the human body is still a cave man body. We are built to walk for miles every day and drink quarts of water. My SO’s testosterone triggers my progesterone at times, making me a psychobitch. After I threw a milkshake (Chocolate! I wasted a CHOCOLATE milkshake!) at my sweetheart (Drachillix: Honey, remember that time…Cyn: WHY DO YOU ALWAYS BRING UP THE PAST!!!AAARRGGHH!!!) I asked every GYN on the floor their humble opinion. Lots of advice, some seen in this thread, but walking away from the source of testosterone and walking around the block really helped.
YMMV
This has actually been my intention from the start, though I was thinking of only having my period maybe once or twice a year. Which makes it all the odder to be happy to be getting my ‘period’ (really, I’m just bleeding as much as I have been for the past few weeks) just so I can take a break from the pill.
Just because one birth control pill affects you negatively doesn’t mean they all will. It’s entirely possible to have intolerable side effects on one pill and not get much in the way of side effects at all on a different one. And every pill affects every woman differently. I had the opposite experience to Mishelle’s- the side effects on Ortho Tri-Cyclen were tolerable, but the ones from Yasmin weren’t.
Hell, I can weigh on this argument, oddly. I’m only a youngish male, but I’ve had some fun experiences with an SO and the pill, and oddly, other stories. My dad said that when my Mom went on the pill when they were first married she went totally psycho, so sometimes I guess the pill just isn’t the way to go. My last SO went on the pill, and she had some awful side effects for a couple months that I put up with, and then switched pills (I believe she switched to ortho-tri, I forget what she had at first) that completely eliminated every bad side effect she was having. I’m still not sure if it was a mental thing or what, but definitely try switching pills to see if that helps.
I had one five minute burst of random crying the first week I was on the pill. I had a slightly sad thought, burst into tears, and sat there weeping, saying “This is so weird! It must be the hormones!” Otherwise, no emotional side effects, but I was nauseous for the first three months. I woke up retching six or seven hours after taking the first one, and had steadily decreasing but still significant nausea for about 4 hours after taking each pill for many subsequent weeks. Right around the promised three month mark, it dwindled away into nothing. So it is possible for your symptoms to gradually improve, really! Over time, some of the other, milder side effects have gone away also - my nails are no longer very brittle, for example, which lasted for probably 8-10 months after I started.
Ortho Tri-Cyclen worked great for me. Yasmin made me insanely depressed. If your quality of life is highly impaired, call your doctor and ask to try something different.
If your doctor didn’t know what Seasonel was, I think you might want to take to a different one. And the should have no problem with switching your pills, although the first month is always a little rough.
After declaring my mother officially menopausal, her ObGyn gave her HRT, which is similar hormones to The Pill.
30 hours later I called up the ObGyn, because IANAD but I figured there might be a relationship between the new medication and Mom’s state. I explained that she’d been unable to eat, the sight of food made her sick, and… The ObGyn cut me and said she should just weather it out, it’s normal to get a queasy stomach the first few days. I explained that the reason it was 16yo me and not the affected person who was on the phone was because she’d been puking bile for about half an hour on her empty stomach. Would she really like me to put Mom on the phone? Uh, no no, that won’t be necessary… uh, she should stop taking the pills and if she hasn’t gotten better in four hours call 911. OK, thank you.
Just an update for those of you kind (and knowledgeable) enough to weigh in – I tried to tough it out for another month, but after insomnia, major suicidal feelings and the possible-ending of my relationship (all on my end), I finally got slotted in at the clinic. I actually saw the doctor who prescribed me the pills. He told me to stop them, and said he’d seend a few cases like mine. Not that he mentioned them when I got the prescription. File under things I could have known. Now guess which of these horror stories at askapatient.com is mine! (In fact, after doing a little research, it’s pretty scary how many women don’t even connect their depression, low libido, etc. to the pill until they get off of it).
So now I’m going to wait a month or so, try to gain back some motivation, sanity, etc. then… try another pill! That one I’m giving two weeks, tops. I must say, if I wasn’t pro-choice before, I’d sure as hell be now.
I am NOT an IUD girl (just say no to anything inserted in the uterus is good advice), but they are the most commonly used form of birth control for female OB/GYNs and my girlfriends who can stand them LOVE them. Non hormonal and effective from the day they put them in, because being in a relationship while you try different birth control pills sucks.
You’re more determined than I am, Cat Fight. I gave up on hormonal BC after one mildly bad side effect, and I’ve never looked back. Here’s keeping fingers crossed for the next one to work better. Now, what have we learned from this? If the pills make you feel incredibly bad, GO BACK TO THE DOCTOR!!! Learn to live with major side effects, my ass.
Drink lots of water - helps flush your system out.
I gave up hormonal birth control after 7 months. I didn’t realize the effects it was having on me until one night at work when everything went topsy turvy, I had a complete break down and it felt like my guts were being ripped out. I wound up in the ER. My doc eventually said the birth control caused me to have a “reverse menstral flow” which caused blood clots in my ovaries. That was some intense pain. I never bothered with hormonal birth control after that. It was Ortho Novum, and that was… uh… 1999.