Are you sure you want to be on the Pill?
If you have been wondering if the Pill if right for you, or you have been searching for a reason to stop taking it, you have come to the right place.
The oral conceptive pill or just ‘the Pill’ is the most popular contraceptive in Australia, with over a million women currently using the drug. And yet so many of these women are unaware of or choose to ignore the potential serious health risks of ongoing use.
For many women (including myself until a while ago) the convenience of the Pill outweighs the risks of potential chronic illness. The ease of access to the drug and encouragement from health professionals allows women to disregard concern for current research indicating the health issues of long-term use.
Most often prescribed as a contraceptive, the pill is also touted as therapy for various health concerns ranging from regulation of your cycle to reducing facial acne and treating Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome. PCOS is in fact most often caused by insulin resistance (which can be caused by taking the Pill!) and all the Pill does is artificially regulate your period without addressing the underlying dysfunction. You can read more about PCOS and insulin resistance here.
Why I stopped taking the Pill
As a woman who took the Pill for around 5 years I can understand how easy it is to justify the risks. The convenience of the pill made me ignore my own research on the side effects, and warnings from my Mum to stop taking the synthetic hormones which were causing damage to my body.
I was recommended the Pill by my Doctor to help treat ovarian cysts when I was 17 years old, and continued to take it for the next 5 years with some short breaks in that time. My Doctor told me the Pill would help prevent the cysts, and when I thought that the cysts had cleared up I discontinued my prescription. However, after a few months the cysts and pain returned and I went back on the Pill. Of course, all the Pill was doing was dealing with the superficial symptoms by regulating my cycle, not the underlying issues and as soon as I stopped the symptoms reappeared.
In my own experience, the continued use of the pill caused severe mood swings and irrationality, uncontrollable emotional and stressed responses to trivial occurrences and I believe it was the root cause for the large varicose vein now residing on my leg. The changes in my mood put a great deal of unnecessary stress on my relationship, and after speaking at length with my partner I decided to stop taking the Pill.
I realise that the prospect of being without a convenient and fairly reliable form of contraception is terrifying, but I think avoiding the possibility of serious illness and feeling happy and emotionally stable is much more important. I am very lucky to be in a relationship in which I feel comfortable discussing different options, but I knew I needed to stop either way because the Pill was causing both psychological and physical damage to my body. If you are worried about the effect which stopping the Pill may have on your relationship, take it step by step. Consider the risks and talk about it with your partner.
I didn’t expect any miraculous change in the way I felt after discontinuing the Pill, and I knew it would take a while for my cycle to regulate after being on it for extended period of time, so I started getting acupuncture and TCM herbs to speed up the process.
I have written previously about my experience with Chinese Medicine here, and I absolutely recommend it to anyone who wants to stop taking the Pill. In the book The Pill; Are you sure its for you? (J. Bennett, & A. Pope, 2008), Jane Lyttleton, a TCM practitioner, says that ‘the Pill interferes with normal liver qi (energetic flow) function in the body leading to liver stagnation in many women’. I had acupuncture once a month for about six months and also took herbal pills to help balance and regulate my hormones as well as cleansing my liver. At the time I started the acupuncture my cycle became fairly regular, but it still took a while for things to get back to normal. I no longer have any issues with ovarian cysts, and my cycle is now almost perfectly regular.
The risks you should know about if you take the Pill
While I am not claiming that woman shouldn’t take any drugs at all– many drugs do provide benefits in certain situations – I am arguing that the Pill is a drug that most women could do without. And there is a great deal of evidence providing support for this claim.
Research by the World Health Organisation (WHO) has proven that the Pill’s synthetic oestrogen and progesterone are known carcinogens and increases the risk of breast, liver and cervical cancer. It is known to cause around 150 chemical reactions in the body, many of which are yet to be understood!
In return for a convenient contraceptive you are putting yourself at risk of not only the above cancers and chemical reactions, but also:
Blood clots – The Pill (whether progesterone and oestrogen combination or progesterone only) increases your risk of blood clots and stroke, and if your pill contains the synthetic hormone degestrel, the risk almost doubles for fatal blood clots.
Inhibited muscle gains – Research indicates that long term use of the Pill can inhibit muscle gains from resistance training.
Low bone density – The Bone Mineral Density (BMD) of women who take the Pill is lower than that of women who have not taken the drug.
A loss of libido – The Pill can have detrimental effects on your sex life due to drug affecting the release of testosterone which plays an important role in arousal
Heart disease – Women who remain on the Pill for long periods of time may experience an increase of plaque build-up in the arteries, raising the risk of heart disease.
Aside from these major chronic illnesses which you may be at risk of by continuing to use the pill, you may also be subject to these unpleasant side effects:
• Mood changes and depression
• Weight gain
• Irregular bleeding between periods
• Breast soreness
• Thrush and infections
Regardless of these serious health concerns, doctors continue to recommend the Pill to women, whether as a contraceptive or for other health concerns. There is some research which indicates the drug may lower your risk of ovarian and uterine cancer and improve symptoms of PMS, however, are you prepared risk all of the previously mentioned side effects to reduce the chance of ovarian and uterine cancer? Surely no cancer at all is better! Simply taking a good look at the possible damage which the Pill could be causing your body clearly shows that the risks are significant and warrant taking a look at alternative options.
Original Image: Gnarles Monkey