Thread: Birth Control Pills are not without risks!! - Please read if you take BCPs

I have been on birth control pills since I was 16-17 years old. I am now going on 27. They started me on OrthoTriCyclen and I tried that for three months but couldn't stand it because they gave me migraine headaches at least once a month. My doctor was nice enough to ask me how I knew it was a migraine. I had never experienced anything like the pain, vision and cognitive issues I had during these headaches. The only thing that made it better was just sleeping it off. They switched me over to Norinyl 1/28 (generic, Necon). I was on the Norinyl relatively problem free for almost 9 years. My only issues were chronic yeast infections (BC pills can change the pH down there and lead to yeast overgrowth). And I did have a problem a few years into it with twitching "like a metronome" while I was asleep. I didn't know until years later when my husband told me I had been doing it for about 6 years (two years after I started the pill).

I then saw a product advertised on TV, Yaz. It cost a bit more but I was interested in the skin clearing benefits of it. My gyno said it was a better product than the Necon I was on which was one of the first pills developed so I switched. I have to say it did clear up my acne, my skin looked great! I took Yaz for about 5 months and in that time I started experiencing strange symptoms. I had extreme fatigue, muscle pain and weakness, bone and joint pain, burning in the hands/feet, twitching while AWAKE and some other issues including emotional instability. I was still able to work but I wasn't nearly as efficient as I once was and I was miserable.

I visited nearly every doctor I could think of. I did a sleep study and that came back normal. I did blood tests and all those were normal (later on I found that BC pills can throw off thyroid tests). I visited a rheumatologist and he tested me for all the arthritic conditions and those came back negative. I even was tested for allergies to see if I was having a reaction to a certain food or something. The only test that showed anything was that my Vitamin D was low so I was put on 50,000 IU once a week for a few months and then told to take 2,000 IU a day. The Vitamin D helped with the fatigue but I was still in pain. My rheumatologist thought I had Fibromyalgia and told me he had been treating patients for 20+ years with little or no improvement. I was not satisfied with living with this painful condition without any relief so I started looking elsewhere for answers.

Broke, frustrated, losing weight rapidly, and tired of being called crazy by my husband saying that my health issues were “all in my head” I finally found a Naturopathic doctor to help me. She did a hair mineral test to find that I had severe nutritional deficiencies to the point that my body had started attacking my muscles for protein. I also couldn’t utilize my calcium so it was being stored in my hair and joints causing my joint pain. I also had elevated levels of a few heavy metals. We are not sure which caused which since both are interconnected. I also now have blood sugar stability issues and my hormonal and endocrine system is a wreck! I stopped taking my pills back in January after reading how they can cause nutritional problems and absorption issues. It took nearly 5 months for my period to return.

I have been put on a special low-glycemic diet, told to eat only organic vegetables and meat to avoid the chemicals they have in pesticides. It has turned my world upside down and I am still not 100%. I am taking multi-vitamins, liquid minerals, probiotics, liquid vitamin B12, fish oil, CoQ10, EmergenC and Horsetail tea try to get me back to good health. My nutritional issues didn’t happen overnight and they aren’t going to be fixed quickly either. I am finally starting to maintain my weight and am not losing any more. I was thinner now than I was back in middle school and that was downright scary. I had lost so much muscle mass from my body cannibalizing myself. At least now I hurt from my exercise, not from some mysterious condition. If I cheat on my diet and eat stuff that is high carb I start to feel achy and the fatigue comes back so I know we are on to something.

So those of you out there on birth control pills PLEASE make sure you take a good multi-vitamin (not the 1 a day unless you want to take a few of them a day) and a good B Vitamin Complex to avoid this from happening! (Please see this article here: Also know that birth control pills are not 100% safe. I wasn’t informed as a teenager and honestly I wasn’t that sexually active I could have used condoms. I started on the pill at the request of my Mother who wasn’t informed on their potential risks either and the military doctor who prescribed them to me did not mention anything either. Be an informed consumer and know that when you are taking synthetic hormones there is always a risk!