But What About Birth Control?



Uterus-owners have a love-hate relationship with hormonal birth control. Some put themselves through it to confidently engage in partnered sex, some do it just to cope with their own wayward hormonal shifts. Often, we feel we have little choice in what we put in our bodies. Here's a post by Minerva, reminding you that not all bodies are alike and hormonal BC can be dangerous even when prescribed.

I see and hear this all the time from my friends, and even sometimes relative strangers. Women seeking out better birth control because the one they're using is iffy, or maybe they're not on any at all and are nervous about which to choose since there are so many hormonal methods for women.

Inevitably, everyone turns to their various friend circles and asks for recommendations. However, while they may be reassuring, recommendations mean virtually nothing. I've come to realise this over the few switches I've done myself: everyone works differently. Just like your friend telling you about this great new toy, then when you go out and buy it, it simply doesn't tickle your fancy. There's nothing wrong with it, you, or your friend. You're just different. Birth control is more or less the same. What works for your friend may just play havoc with you. 

My own birth control journey started just after I turned twenty. Nervous as all hell, I went to the university health care centre, and when I got into the yellow-walled doctor's office, I had no idea what to say. I just said "Hi there. I want to start on the pill?" Yes, there was a definite question mark. What little sex ed I had received growing up had left me with absolutely no idea how oral contraceptive pills worked. Was there more than one? Did I have to take blood tests? How do I figure it out, what do they look like, what do they actually do inside me -- I had no clue. I knew they prevented pregnancy; and sometimes were good for acne for some reason. 

The doctor did little to inform me either; she simply asked me a few vague questions about my menstrual cycle and sent me home with a few little yellow boxes.


The devil incarnate

 

And I was on the pill.

I was on it for almost a year. During that year I had a massive sexual awakening, which spurred on questions. Endless questions. Eventually, after a pole dancing class, I opened up to the wisest woman I knew and told her about how weird I was feeling. Like I had lost the plot entirely. I had uncontrollable anger that my psychiatrist had given me Lorazepam to try tame. I was at the mercy of crazy mood-swings. I would be fine and happy and content one second, then the next I would be out for blood and biting the heads of any friend I had in the vicinity. I couldn't seem to pull myself out of the worst depression of my entire life, I had lost nearly forty kgs, and I was terrified to say anything because I was so scared that the psychiatrist might be right and I might be bipolar.

My friend immediately recognised the symptoms, having been through them herself. I was on the wrong birth control. She took me to the government clinic she visited and sat with me for the hour or two in line, even chose her favourite nurse to help us. She stayed with me through the consultation, made sure the nurse asked the right questions, and did the right tests (it's a bit fuzzy, but there was a pregnancy test, and an iron test involved to make sure I was healthy before putting me on weird meds), and finally arrived at the same conclusion she had: I was completely out of balance due to these pills. She immediately wrote me a scrip for Nuristerate (the injection), and injected me. My mentor had made sure I had been off the pill ever since I had told her about my issues, and had organised it so that we went to the clinic on just the right day in my cycle. She did all this to minimise the distance and ignorance I had experienced with the first doctor.


Marginally tolerable

 

I was happily on Nuristerate for the next few years -- very happily so. My body felt just fine, and when I discovered I had lost my period I was ecstatic (yes, I'm one of those weird ones who doesn't appreciate the inconvenience of having to find a tampon in the middle of the day because it sneaked up on you).
I switched again to the Implanon chip in October 2015. This time it was due to a combination of factors: I was fairly nomadic at the time, and finding a nurse to inject you at no cost is hard in a new town/city, which is the situation I kept finding myself in every three months.

One night, I woke up with this blinding, stabbing pain in my gut. It was where period cramps usually are, but about a hundred times worse. I crawled to the bathroom in tears, with a slight urge to pee. Of course no pee came out, and I was trapped on the floor of the bathroom after my knees collapsed from the pain. It took about twenty minutes to subside. The next day I thought perhaps it had been a kidney stone or something. But it happened again. And again. And again. No painkiller even made a dent in those stabbing pains. I scraped some cash together and went to a doctor. She eventually ascertained that the pains were cysts bursting in my uterus.

Nuristerate has the unfortunate side effects of building up small cysts on your uterus. Usually these guys are pretty harmless, and you should get them checked every few years or so to make sure they remain so.


Evil

 

However, the last nurse I had trusted had made a mistake with my Nuristerate injection. She hadn't used the full ampule. This resulted in a drop in my progesterone levels, which in turn caused my cysts to start bursting one by one. I resolved to get the Implanon chip implanted in my arm to control this while I was moving around so much.


Unfortunately, this comes with a whole new set of issues. It's been over a year on the Implanon now, and I can't wait to get it out and go back to my Nuristerate. While the implant was fine for a while -- quite glorious actually -- the side effects have steadily gotten worse and worse. Irregular periods, some for as long as two weeks, some for a just a few days. Some Niagara Falls, some tiny spots just enough to ruin a cute pair of panties. And the cramps have been awful. Not to mention I have been through worse depressions than I have experienced in  along time. I am constantly on PMS. You know that itchy brain feeling where everything around you makes you want to murder because it's so irritating? This has been my life. While I haven't had any bursting cysts, I think I would prefer to take my chances with those guys than live in this hormonal hell.

Now if you asked your friends who had this chip implanted, some might tell you rainbows and spin tales of gloriously free life without worry or fuss. And that might very well be true for them. Hence why I say recommendations are virtually worthless. In the end, you should check with your doctor, and communicate with your friends. They will notice the changes in you even when you don't. I have discovered that failing birth control is a slow thing for you to recognise: both times I waited for a year before clicking and going "oooooh right, I'm not crazy, it must be the hormones!" So having friends you're comfortable with and vocal about these things around is quite important, and useful. And just nice and comforting.

Nobody likes going to the doctor alone.

Update: I did a follow-up post!