December 14, 2004

11:56 AM

BirthControl filter: Does anyone else experience fairly extreme side effects from hormonal birth control? I'm on Ortho-TriCyclen Lo (the low estrogen version) and have been for a year. Cons include complete loss of libido, about thirty pounds of weight gain, monthly morning-sickness type symptoms (during the first week of the cycle) and mood swings. Pros seem to be that the anxiety that hit me at thirteen and never lifted seems to be negated while on the pill. In fact, there is about a three-foot thick wall between me and any emotion whatsoever (unless I'm on the placebo). So...am I just a freak? Or has anyone else experienced anything like this? I'm especially concerned with the mental side effects - the extreme distance from emotion & enjoyment.
posted by anonymous to (39 comments total)

My experience with my wife was that the patch destroyed her libido and made her gain weight. Depo was pretty much the same. We've given up on all birth control besides condoms. It's just too much trouble.
posted by McBain at 12:11 PM on December 14, 2004

Please speak with your doc about these side effects. Don't wait until your next regularly scheduled visit. Give your doc a call today.

One thing I recently learned from my gyn is that if you're over 30, you may want to switch to a mono-phase pill. It may have fewer side effects, especially the mood swings. I switched from Ortho-TriCyclen earlier this year to a mono-phase pill and am loving the more stable moods. My husband likes it too.
posted by onhazier at 12:12 PM on December 14, 2004

Dear Anon,
As a dude I can only relate the experience of my special lady, but she went on one of them (supposed to be a low dose one, I think called Yasmin) and it made her so sick that she had to quit after one week, I mean like Malaria sick, not slightly uncomfortable like the info predicted but just so fucking sick, like morning sickness times a million, she felt mentally horrible because she was so ill so actual mental effects never came up and she stopped taking them and felt better asap.

So you ain't alone, here's a little google groups chatter about it, including migrane reports, it seems.
posted by Divine_Wino at 12:13 PM on December 14, 2004

Ortho-TriCyclen apparently is known to cause ovarian cysts. I've heard this from more than three people. Please check with your doctor.

nice commericals, though.
posted by petebest at 12:29 PM on December 14, 2004

The symptoms you listed are exactly what my doctor listed as side effects to watch out for. She told me to give her a call if I had any of them. She emphasized that I shouldn't wait until my next regular visit, but call immediately.

I had a few, I called, switched to the generic pill, ta! Gone with the side effects!
posted by copperbleu at 12:33 PM on December 14, 2004

like everyone suggests, you should talk to your doctor right away about this. there are tons of options, and you shouldn't go on feeling this way. your side effects sound extreme.

i have been on a few different pills, and have (like onhazier) found stability and few side effects with the mono-phase pill i've been on for about 5 months. i take seasonale, which is the one where you get your period only four times a year. basically, you take the same pill every day for three months at a time, then go on the placebo for one week. i know not everyone is comfortable messing with their systems this way, but it pretty much offers the fewest hormonal shifts (and thus fewest side effects) possible. it might be worth asking your doctor about. (sheesh - this is like the third time i've mentioned seasonale on the boards. i swear i don't work for them. i'm just stuck on BC for life because of a serious medical problem, and have really found them to be the best of the many pills i've tried.)
posted by katie at 12:38 PM on December 14, 2004

I tried four different pills, and had various nasty side effects with all of them, and finally my doctor switched me to the Nuvaring. Bam. No side effects whatsoever. I feel like myself again for the first time in years. I can't reccommend it highly enough. It would definitely be a good idea to talk to your doctor about birth control methods that limit the hormones that affect your brain.
posted by evilbeck at 12:39 PM on December 14, 2004

Wow, you've put up with those symptoms too long! Poor girl! Call your doc ASAP. There are many alternative treatments for anxiety, I encourage you to do some research and find something that will work for you without making you ill. And... your body chemistry/mental health may have significantly changed since you were thirteen (assuming that you are at least in your late teens), making your use of the pill obsolete.
posted by Specklet at 12:41 PM on December 14, 2004

Yeah, try varying hormone combinations - if pills don't work, do the ring or patch.

I'm one of the few people (it seems) who has no ill effects from the depo-provera injection. I swear by it - no periods (pill periods aren't normal periods anyway, they're "withdrawal bleeds" equivalent to your body thinking you had a miscarriage every single month), no remembering daily or weekly changing. It's wonderful for me but a lot of people have tremendous issues with it.

Anyway, if all else fails, ask your doctor about an IUD.
posted by u.n. owen at 12:43 PM on December 14, 2004

Sorry, I misread your post. Ignore last line of my comment. Apologies.
posted by Specklet at 12:44 PM on December 14, 2004

I was on the pill from 17-21. I eventually started having this sort of...all over yucky feeling, like I was exuding some noxious chemical from my pores. That might have been a psychosomatic reaction from learning about birth control hormones in biology class--how actually they penetrate right into the center of your cells. Anyway, once I went off, I lost 15 pounds I never noticed I had gained, and I regained the libido I never realized I had lost. I also started to enjoy the natural ebb and flow of my emotions and bodily sensations with my natural cycle. I never noticed them when they were gone, but when those feelings came back I felt like a different person.

There's no way I would go back to the pill. The condom failure rate is only 2 percent if you use them right. If you combine that with other methods (like fertility awareness) you can do even better. As for the anxiety, there are other, more direct ways to deal with that, like cognitive therapy and de-stressing your life in general.
posted by insideout at 12:49 PM on December 14, 2004

I have been on several forms of chemical BC, and am about to go on Seasonale as my last resort- and I did the ring (hated it- hello constant yeast infection), I have done Depo, gained a ton of weight and lost my libido entirely, Mircette and Kariva, it's generic equivalent, Ortho Tri-Cyclen, Loestrin, the patch, and on into infinity. You may not be cut out for the pill, but there are certainly a ton of options. That said, what you are experiencing definitely needs to be brought to the attention of your MD immediately. Good luck.
posted by oflinkey at 12:56 PM on December 14, 2004

I just started up on Ortho-TriCyclen again after 5 years of being off... the only difference I've noted is that my boobs got bigger. Now I want to stay on it forever.
posted by Miss Bitchy Pants at 1:07 PM on December 14, 2004

nice commercials, though.

Yeah, I like that a drug company can have the balls to actually use a song about heroin in their TV commercials.
posted by mr_roboto at 1:13 PM on December 14, 2004

Ortho made me nauseous and moody. Yasmin gave me *rheumatoid arthritis*, dried out my hair such that it came out in clumps, and just gave me a general feeling of yickiness. My doc insisted that the joint pain was mental or just "not being used to it," so I stuck it out for about a year. But I just couldn't stand the arthritis and the hair thing, and switched to Alesse a few weeks ago. The joint pain's gone, my hair's back to normal, and my libido, while not where it was pre-BCs, is much improved. I really do feel like I'm much more like my normal self with the Alesse and don't think about the BC at all, whereas with other pills, I was constantly aware of the side-effects I felt. Good luck in finding something that works for you!
posted by jenh at 1:21 PM on December 14, 2004

I recently stopped taking Yasmin, not because of side effects, but because I couldn't remember what it was like off the pill.

I relate totally to your mental wall, but for me it was more like a lack of getting turned on, not just sexually, but intellectually, visually, creatively. Now that I've stopped I feel like a child of 5 again in a world completely new to me. Sure, my boobs are smaller but a $50 push up bra will fix that. I think the main thing that shocked/worried me is that I totally did not notice a change in myself. I just slowly became this beige person and could have easily continued that way for a long time. Scary!

Maybe the best thing about BC pills is coming off them.
posted by tinamonster at 1:34 PM on December 14, 2004

The problem with hormones is that they aren't drugs--they're something we need in our bodies and amounts that are badly out of sync with our needs cause all sorts of mayhem. In particular, synthetic progesterone-analogs called progestins are a frequent culprit in negative reactions to both birth control and hormone replacement combos. Some ways of getting around this include reducing your number of cycles in a year and switching to a trickier (because you have to keep track of the pills yourself instead of using the supposedly idiot-proof packaging) combo of real estrogen and progesterone.

The libido-dampening is possibly a result of high estrogen levels (needed to suppress your own ovarian activity, which is what bcps do). You may be able to get around it by using a lower estrogen dose, boosting testosterone or using a transdermal delivery rather than oral--oral estrogens increase the amount of sex hormone binding globulin that in turns acts to bind testosterone. A bioidentical progesterone as opposed to a synthetic progestin may also help address this because of the way it can be metabolized.

I'm glossing over a whole lot of hormone info--there's a lot to the ovarian hormones and not a lot of good sources, but that's sort of where you need to go to gain enough understanding that there is no "one size fits all" to this stuff, despite what the pharmco reps want you to believe. One of the best places isn't exactly aimed at you, but is a good foundation and would get you started on the concepts: Survivor's Guide to Surgical Menopause.

You may also want to read the book Women's Moods for some insight into the mental stability thing.

The whole "one size fits all" only works if you're the one size they all fit. Otherwise, your best bet is to learn enough to try to cover the options to see what works better. There are a surprising number of variations, both in hormones and in delivery, and all of them work differently for different women. Experience with any one combo does not, thank goodness, predict what you will see with another.
posted by salt at 1:35 PM on December 14, 2004

My girlfriend is on Ortho-Tri. She has nothing but good to say about it -- primarily that it's helped regulate the time and severity of her periods.

If it's true that Ortho-Tri limits libido, though, I'd be scared to see what she would be like without it. Lord.
posted by symphonik at 1:36 PM on December 14, 2004

It only got one brief mention in this thread, so I'll bring it up again: IUD. I've had one for five years now, and it's been so much better than the pill. The insertion is incredibly painful if you've never given birth (which I hadn't), and many doctors are actually hesitant to the point of refusal when it comes to IUDs and childless women. The uterus just hasn't been stretched enough.

But if you can endure a few minutes of excruciating pain, and heavy, heavy periods for the first few months, you're good for 10 years of hormone-free birth control.
posted by damn yankee at 1:36 PM on December 14, 2004

My experience with the pill is much like insideout's--there was a post yesterday about weight gain on the pill--you might want to read that because some people wrote about side effects other than weight gain. There are good forums on womenshealth.about.com (I think that's right) that provided me with a wealth of info in terms of women with experiences like my own. The lack of emotion thing happened to me and went away after I stopped taking the pills. I also read that the synthetic hormones in birth control pills completely stop a woman's natural production of testosterone, which is, obviously, responsible for libido (or lack thereof). Good luck to you!
posted by fabesfaves at 1:39 PM on December 14, 2004

See, I have incredibly high amounts of testosterone for a chick anyway, so hormonal birth control actually brings my libido to a level that only makes, say, 90% of boys say "jesus christ can't we just SNUGGLE?"

But I understand that for a lot of women it probably sucks. Fabes, I can guarantee it doesn't stop ALL testosterone production - it simulates pregnancy and pregnancies need testosterone - that's why they tell women not to touch the anti-baldness drug propecia if they are or may become pregnant (propecia works by reducing testosterone levels).
posted by u.n. owen at 1:54 PM on December 14, 2004

Get off of the Ortho right now. It is the Devil's pill. It was responsible for the worst several months of my life. I had severe depression to the point where driving my car into a tree at high speeds seemed like a good idea. I didn't leave my bedroom for literally weeks at a time. I lived off of ramen and misery. I failed courses, and when I went to see a psychologist, I was told that since I didn't have an eating disorder and I wasn't an alcoholic, that there was really nothing wrong with me. I had no clue what was wrong until my sister-in-law (an RN) asked me if I was taking ortho-tricyclen. She was brand specific. Getting off of that pill was the best thing I ever did. It was a complete 180 within a month or two. I've been researching and writing an investigatory piece on the dangers of certain BC brands for a while now, and one would think I've collected enough information to get that shit banned forever, but the pharmaceutical lobby is mighty strong. There are better alternatives for you, try them.
posted by TheGoldenOne at 2:01 PM on December 14, 2004

Alesse here, generic form, no horrific side effects, but I am going to look into switching to Seasonale for the even-keel and convenience factor.
posted by Medieval Maven at 2:02 PM on December 14, 2004

Yeah, I've heard nightmare stories about Tri-Cyclen.

Just last year, my G/F was on Tri-Cyclen and couldn't figure out why she was having such uncharacteristic mood swings (etc.). She switched to Alesse and everything seems back to normal.
posted by RockCorpse at 2:16 PM on December 14, 2004

Just...so everyone knows...not EVERYONE has side effects with any form of birth control.

If you do, by all means get off it. But calling prescriptions that do, after all, work well with minimal side effects for most people "the devil's pill" doesn't help too much and may scare some women into unwanted pregnancies. The trick is to explore different methods until you find one your body is good with - and everyone's body is different.
posted by u.n. owen at 2:33 PM on December 14, 2004

I'll chime in with the anti-Tri-Cyclen side. I was on the regular TriCyclens when I first went on the pill (not the low estrogen kind though) and it was very very tough. Awful cystic acne, water retention and extreme emotional distress all the time. I know your concern is primarily with a lack of emotion, but I would think that everybody being affected differently may account for some of that. I have been on Alesse for the last 3-4 years (I've been taking the pill for almost 8 years continually) and they have been very good with the emotional side effects, and the acne stuff. Some weight gain, but not nearly as bad as with some others. Yay Alesse! So it may simply be a factor of the type of pill you are on.

Although, I had a friend with similar nasty side effects to what the original poster is experiencing - week long nausea, migraine headaches, water retention - and no matter what pill she was on, it was always the same. She had an awful first pregnancy for the same reasons - sick for the first 5 months or something.

If the side effects aren't life threatening, most doctors have told me to stick out a particular pill for 3 months, and then if the symptoms don't ease off, try switching pills to see if it is you or the pills.
posted by Cyrie at 2:37 PM on December 14, 2004

I'm surprised to hear so many vehemently negative answers here. I've been on the pill for 10 years (with a year or two off scattered in there) and I find it has overall improved my quality of life when I'm on it. My skin is better, my periods are short (2 days!) and painless, my boobs have grown somewhat but I haven't gained or lost any weight otherwise, libido is fine, and oh! I'm not pregnant either.

As many above have said, there are tons of different formulations of birth control pills, and they do vary quite considerably from one another. I have probably 20 friends who take Ortho Tri Cylcen and like it. I've personally liked LoEstrin and Jasmin. I tried one other brand that wasn't as good-- after two months I was having breakthrough bleeding and nausea, and my MD switched me to a different brand, which worked fine.

I wouldn't take up your torches just yet, that's all. There are some negative side-effects, there are lots of positive ones as well.
posted by bonheur at 2:44 PM on December 14, 2004

I took that version but the regular dose, not the low. I didn't experience any of those side effects you mentioned. However, I did experience one big one that resulted in me being unable to continue with it. Instead of dampening my emotions, it amplified them. If I was sad, I was depressed. If I were angry, I was in a black out rage. If I was happy, I was manic. I felt very out of control.

My problems came when I stopped taking the drug. Horrible acne that didn't clear up for a year, five pounds, and my emotions a terrible mess. It took two years after I went off, to feel anywhere normal.

If you're feeling side effects, go to your doctor now rather than later.
posted by FunkyHelix at 3:13 PM on December 14, 2004

My girlfriend was on that for a while, and had most of the same symptoms you're describing. Her doc told her to hang on for a bit, but that there was more or less no change to be expected after two months or so.

Please speak with your doc about these side effects. Don't wait until your next regularly scheduled visit. Give your doc a call today.

Yep. And unless you've got a medical need for this one in particular, it doesn't sound like it's doing you a lot of good. Maybe it's time to try another kind.
posted by metaculpa at 3:36 PM on December 14, 2004

Yes, this can happen, and no, it's not within the realm of acceptable side effects. Contact your prescribing doc so you can be switched to an oral contraceptive that suits you better.

I'm a doc, and if any one of my patients had side effects like these from a drug I gave them, I'd very much want to hear about it.
posted by ikkyu2 at 5:12 PM on December 14, 2004

u.n. owen

Way to read the whole entry, where at the end I suggested alternative forms of birth control. I'm a huge fan of the miracles of modern birth control and the opportunity that it affords women, but Ortho is notoriously nasty. I said there were alternatives. Women need to find the BC that works for them. The problem with ortho is that it is usually the first brand of BC prescribed, often because women ask for it by name and for all the women that are fine with it, there seem to be too many more who go a little crazy. I am on the Nuvaring now. I am happy, healthy, and baby-free.
posted by TheGoldenOne at 7:44 PM on December 14, 2004

Friend's wife had a stroke.

I can still remember my wife sobbing on our honeymoon. Granted, it might have just been me, but she says it cleared up once we switched to non-chemical birth control and I quit answering all of her questions in pig latin.
posted by mecran01 at 8:12 PM on December 14, 2004

U. N. Owen--

I'll look into it tomorrow but I'm pretty sure it does stop testosterone production, at least for the most part. What I read was in a medical text that I found at the library where I work.

Additionally, the pill doesn't simulate pregnancy--it works by stopping ovulation, which, yes, is related to pregnancy. No egg, no ability for egg to be fertalized, etc.

Also, to add a second dose of my two cents--some people may have zero problems on birth control pills, but as TheGoldenOne has noted, you can find much evidence, both documented and anecdotal, that these pills can seriously mess with peoples minds and bodies. Yes, the same can be said for many other kinds of drugs, but it always helps to know that others have the same experience, when you're trying to figure out what's going on. As the anonymous poster said, "Am I just a freak?"... and obviously, she's not--other people have had similar experiences. We aren't telling her that everyone does.
posted by fabesfaves at 8:48 PM on December 14, 2004

To settle the testosterone deal--you are right, U.N. Owen birth control pills do not completely eliminate testosterone production. However, if you look at how doctors commonly treat hirsutism (excessive hair growth in women), it's by using oral contraceptives, in addition to other drugs, because "The mainstay of medical therapy is low-dose combination OCPs, which effectively suppress ovarian function and reduce ovarian androgen secretion. Moreover, the estrogen in OCP's stimulates hepatic synthesis of SHBG and results in greater binding of testosterone, thus limiting its bioavailability."
Less available testosterone means decreased libido.

I'm only posting this because a) I was wrong--OCPs do not completely eliminate testosterone production, b) none of my doctors ever told me that this was a possible side effect, and c) I think that other women should be able to know why a certain medication does what it does.

I think it's important that people who are wondering why something is happening to their body/mind find answers and support. That's all.
posted by fabesfaves at 9:29 PM on December 14, 2004

I was on Mircette for a few months, I thought I was losing my mind. I would get terrible mood swings, so that during the pre-menstrual part of the month I would sometimes cry for literally no reason at all, just out of the blue. My libido also disappeared. I became depressed, at first for just a week at a time pre-menstrually but after a few months I felt sad most of the time. I finally realized that the pill could be causing or exacerbating my depression, and stopped taking it.

So no, you are not a freak. But in any case if you think your pills are giving you these affects, you should stop taking them! I was afraid that having to use condoms would be a big drag on our already (due to the pill) ackward sex life, but once your libido comes back to life it doesn't matter.
posted by mai at 1:05 AM on December 15, 2004

P. S. My doctor told me we could switch me to a different brand, but after feeling like crap for so long I just wanted to feel better and didn't want to risk the side effects continuing. It took a few months to feel better and quite a while for the libido to return, but it was the right decision.
posted by mai at 1:11 AM on December 15, 2004

I was just at my doc's office this morning, and she said "If you are weird enough to want to read about the many different varieties of birth control pills" [actually, she didn't say this and is infact very tolerant when I say I want to learn more about something] "you could take a look at the Managing Contraceptive Pill Patients book." The book looked pretty darn useful and not overly complicated. I'm going to try the local university libraries for a copy.
posted by oldtimey at 9:32 AM on December 15, 2004

Tri-Cyclen made me disgustingly sick. I was switched to Triphasil, which I was on for about 8 years. About a year ago though, I had the dead-to-the-world feeling described elsewhere on this page-- not an iota of libido, no creative brain functions, etc. I switched to Ovcon, a monophasic pill, and it's like I'm a new person. The downside is that there is no generic, and it can be expensive (I have to pay the largest copay on this drug--arrgh) but it's been so positive that I gladly fork it over.
posted by marzenie99 at 12:44 PM on December 15, 2004

Get rid of the pills and get an IUD.
posted by aacheson at 1:29 PM on December 15, 2004