uncontrolled…

Anyone who has met me wouldn’t be surprised to hear that I think I’m a bit of a control freak. It probably then doesn’t come as a surprise to hear that I like having control over my body. Having postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS) tends to throw the occasional wrench is my well-oiled wheel of bodily control. Unfortunately, as I recently discovered, so does stopping certain prescriptions.

About ten months ago, I stopped taking birth control pills. For a control freak, this was a huge mistake. Colossal.

Mom, don’t get too excited – you’re still relegated to sharing photos of your adorable “granddog” while all your friends show grandkid photos. Stopping the pill had nothing to do with trying to get pregnant, but instead had everything to do with a fear of blood clots. As you may remember, I previously mentioned having a lot of leg pain, numbness and tingling in the past year. I’m already quickly approaching the age cutoff for safely taking the pill, and my circulation issues with POTS don’t help the situation. All of that culminated in a momentary lapse of reason where I panicked and decided to stop taking the pill.

POTS symptoms tend to worsen, sometimes drastically, during certain times in a woman’s menstruation cycle. For this reason, many female POTS patients take birth control to help control symptoms during that time, and skip periods if necessary. In fact, I first went on the pill eleven years ago to help with hormonal migraines. And, I loved being on the pill. It made a huge difference in my migraines by being able to control my hormone levels. It cleared up my skin, although I’m fortunate that I never had bad acne. And, it made my boobs a little bigger which, let’s be honest, was reason enough to take it.

I loved having that amount of control over my body.

So, naturally I expected that I would relinquish some control by stopping the pill. At the very least, I thought my migraines would become more frequent. To my surprise, they didn’t. In fact, the migraines have all but disappeared. My doctor warned that I may have irregular periods for a while, and I would probably lose a few pounds. Those were the only warnings I was given.

I wish someone would have prepared me for the shit storm of chaos that was coming. If you’re planning on stopping birth control pills anytime soon, I hope this post will help you understand what could (but not necessarily will) happen.

Pros:

I noticed a couple of “pros” when I stopped the pill, although whether they really were benefits its open to debate.

1. Like I said above, my migraines improved dramatically. Super sweet.
2. I lost weight, which by itself isn’t bad, but I lost a lot of weight, without trying. I ended up dropping about 15 pounds. I’m already on the low end of normal weight for my size, so losing 15 pounds was too much. All of my pants now look like mom jeans, and I’m too cheap to buy new ones. There could have been something else going on to cause the weight loss, but if so, I still haven’t figured out what.
3. It has made me…how shall I put this…do you watch the tv show Friends? Have you seen the episode where Rachel is telling Joey about the problem she’s experiencing with being pregnant? And how she’s “erotically charged?” That’s me. That’s another effect of going off birth control pills. It’s bad. I think about sex all the time. Yes, even right now. If I weren’t typing on this keyboard right now, I would probably try to hump it. Is this what it’s like to be a man?

Cons:

1. Acne. This one was minor, but still unfortunate. I thought the only awesome thing about being in your 30s is that you DON’T get acne.
2. Painful nipples. I think we’re probably all trying to pretend that I didn’t just say “nipples”, so I’ll just leave it at that.
3. Depression. I would go from being totally happy one moment, to almost suicidal the next. It would come out of the blue and only last for a few minutes. Fortunately I was able to recognize it and control it, but it’s frightening how quickly my mind could go from loving my life to wanting to die.
4. Hot flashes. I often have temperature regulation difficulties because of POTS, where my torso will be extremely hot, and my extremities will be freezing. This was exacerbated, tenfold. I’d be shaking and sweating at the same time. I was always extremely uncomfortable.
5. Shrinking boobs. My boobs got a little smaller, although the girls weren’t big to begin with. Not a huge deal, but if I’m going to be horny all the time and want to constantly shove my boobs in the BF’s face, I wouldn’t mind if they were a little bigger.
6. Hair loss. This one was kind of traumatic. I lost a lot of hair, like over 1/2 of all my hair, all over my body. Hair loss is common in many chronic illnesses, so I will devote an entire post in the future on hair loss. The shedding finally started to slow down after about 8 months, and I’m finally starting to regrow hair now. I had my thyroid tested and everything was normal, so I think it really is just from stopping the pill.
7. Chest & throat spasms. As the spasms feel like they originate in my lower throat, I again thought it might be my thyroid. It again wasn’t. It could be mast cell related, but it started around the same time.
8. Fatigue. I already suffer from fatigue due to POTS, but for the first couple of months after stopping birth control pills I was like a zombie.
9. Irregular periods. I’m afraid that talking about it is going to make all of our periods sync, so hopefully this one is self explanatory.
10. Insomnia. I could fall asleep fine, but would regularly wake up and be unable to fall back to sleep because I couldn’t get comfortable. See #4.
11. Headaches. While my migraines decreased (which is AWESOME), non-migraine headaches increased tremendously. I now nearly always have a headache. That’s still better than the migraines.

So, in short, stopping the pill turned me into a pimply, depressed, sweaty, sleepless, hairless mess, but a pimply, depressed, sweaty, sleepless hairless migraine-reduced mess that wants to do it all the time. The BF doesn’t know how lucky he is.

Getting off the pill has been such a nightmare that at one point I considered going back on. It made every single POTS symptom worse. However, all of these effects would return once I finally decided to stop taking it, and I can’t take the pill forever. Better to just ride that shit storm now, and hopefully not ever have to go through that again. Most of the above effects are improving, but it has taken almost a year.

It is certainly possible that you could stop birth control pills without any side effects – many women do. Just know the risks, and be prepared to relinquish a little control.

Ladies, have you had any issues with synthetic hormones?

“First, think.
Second, let go.”
– The Universe

Smell ya later.
– Linds