Seasonale and sciatica

November 30, 2004 5:55 PM

I just started Seasonale about six weeks ago, and everything is going great, with one exception, the back pain. About ten years ago I ripped a disk in my lower back, which produced the inevitable sciatica. After working through it with physical therapy it pretty much went away, until recently it came back, about a week after I started the new pills. I have looked up the side effects, but back pain isn't mentioned. Has anyone else noticed a similar side effect with their b.c. pills?
posted by lilboo to health & fitness (3 comments total)

That seems like a real hard connection to make. Is it similar, sciatic type pain?

I've never seen hormonal contraception cause musculoskeletal pain, but I've seen almost anything else, so it seems pretty unlikely. One way to find out, to a degree, is to stop for a time and then restart.
posted by docpops at 5:58 PM on November 30, 2004

It is pretty much exactly the same pain I had ten years ago. (I was working as a cook in a resturaunt in St. Louis, and the freezers were in the basement. I fell on the stairs and ruptured a disc in my lower back, which of course put unwanted pressure on my sciatic nerve. It took me six months of physical therapy to get off of the pain pills for good.) Could the hormones cause those tissues to swell again? It's possible that I re-injured myself, but I can't think of anything out of the ordinary...
posted by lilboo at 6:27 PM on November 30, 2004

I tri-cycle on regular monophasic pills and I have not experienced anything like that.
posted by Coffeemate at 6:46 PM on November 30, 2004