Thread: PMDD, acne and Ocella

Supposed to start Ocella today for PMDD and acne...anyone been through this? ANY feedback would help...scared to start the pill. Thanks

Ocella is the new generic for yasmin. I was on yasmin for many years and then ocella specifically for a few months before switching to nuvarings. I had no real problems with it. It does tend to cause dryness in most people. That's easily solved by a little lube. It got rid of my acne from absolutely horrible to 100% gone as well as dandruff and fixed all the problems I was having with my periods. I haven't tolerated many other birth control pills or the mirena IUD so personally I think it's great and the side effects minor.

However it is somewhat controversial. It's considered one of the higher risk pills for things like blood clots and can increase potassium levels in the blood which I don't think is a common effect of other synthetic hormones. Not that increasing potassium levels is guranteed to do anything bad and probably won't in most people but it can cause serious health problems for some. The company has even faced lawsuits for some of their actions or lack of action. Some of that prompted a lower dose version of yasmin called yaz to become available in 2006.

Personally I find it well worth the risks and would take yasmin/ocella before some of the more extreme acne treatments that exist. While birth control pills could cause problems the odds of them causing serious problems really is pretty low compared to most anything else you need a prescription for. Nothing is without side effects. Several of my medications say "may cause death" among the side effects. So encouraging.