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Is the Birth Control Pill Wrecking Your Health?

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
Certainly, depression and anxiety are not small side effects. And as someone who has experienced dizziness and vertigo quite a lot... it is no picnic.

I can assure you that depression and anxiety arise whenever you don't have a sex life.
If you do have it, you can never have depression and anxiety.
So I guess it's a myth. A urban legend.
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
It's basically fooling your body. A few of the common side effects are:
  • acne
  • bleeding or spotting between periods
  • bloating
  • blood pressure above your usual range
  • depression
  • fatigue
  • feeling dizzy
  • fluid retention
  • headache
  • increased appetite
  • insomnia
  • melasma (dark patches on the face)
  • mood swings
  • nausea
  • tenderness or pain in the breasts
  • vomiting
  • weight gain
I would not consider these insignificant.
These are not significant side effects. Especially compared with the benefits.

In fact, most of these are side effects of PMS, which I get every single month of my life (acne, bloating, depression, fatigue, dizziness, fluid retention, headache, mood swing, nausea, breast tenderness).
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
These are not significant side effects. Especially compared with the benefits.

In fact, most of these are side effects of PMS, which I get every single month of my life (acne, bloating, depression, fatigue, dizziness, fluid retention, headache, mood swing, nausea, breast tenderness).
He also ignores the positive "side effects" of the pill. I know a woman that is on birth control at least partially because it makes her periods more bearable.
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
He also ignores the positive "side effects" of the pill. I know a woman that is on birth control at least partially because it makes her periods more bearable.
I hear that! I recently just went off the pill after being on it for about twenty years. My cramps now are absolutely unbearable. Like, I feel like I'm giving birth for days or something. After being on it so long I forgot how bad my cramps used to be. Now I get to re-live it again. Yay. Last month, my husband was seriously worried about me.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member

Well...I was surprised that Ben Shapiro was interested in the medical effects of the hormonal pill on woman.
Honestly I realize (despite his capability of pronouncing ten words every 3 seconds or so :p)...that both people in this video hardly trust biochemists.
Biochemists have been studying women's natural hormones for decades. Since very, very long time.
They have been capable of replicating these hormones in lab and they do work perfectly.

I don't think hormonal pills can have any side effect in the long run.

My wife's overall libido was shot to pieces while on the pill.
So we decided together it was better to quit it and just be careful.
We used condoms for a while, but I hate those things. So that didn't last long.

Nevertheless, both our kids were very much planned (and we pretty much got pregnant almost instantly when we decided it was time ...)

After the second kid, the wife got sterilised. So no more worries or going out of our way to be careful now.

As for the effects of the pill... I understand it's somewhat down to the individual.
We know of people who had no issue at all with it also.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
It's basically fooling your body. A few of the common side effects are:
  • acne
  • bleeding or spotting between periods
  • bloating
  • blood pressure above your usual range
  • depression
  • fatigue
  • feeling dizzy
  • fluid retention
  • headache
  • increased appetite
  • insomnia
  • melasma (dark patches on the face)
  • mood swings
  • nausea
  • tenderness or pain in the breasts
  • vomiting
  • weight gain
I would not consider these insignificant.
Literally all of these side effects can appear with menstruation. Especially the wide variety of common menstrual disorders which have other, more serious symptoms for which hormone regulation with progesterone and estrogen are frequently administered for.
 

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
Literally all of these side effects can appear with menstruation. Especially the wide variety of common menstrual disorders which have other, more serious symptoms for which hormone regulation with progesterone and estrogen are frequently administered for.
Yeah the difference is that menstruation is not constant.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Yeah the difference is that menstruation is not constant.
Neither are the symptoms when taking birth control pills. It usually happens during the placebo days when your estrogen dips in your progesterone goes up. Which is why progesterone based birth control has fallen back out of style, and why doctors tell most women to skip the placebo phase of their birth control pills.

Also, menstruation + PMS can absolutely be constant with one of the many menstrual disorders which effect up to a whopping 25% of women. As irregular bleeding and hormone dips happen concurrently.

Symptoms are never better for me re: gastro, fluid retention, weight gain, mood swings, tenderness, etc, than when I am on regular estrogen.
 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
My wife's overall libido was shot to pieces while on the pill.
So we decided together it was better to quit it and just be careful.
We used condoms for a while, but I hate those things. So that didn't last long.

Nevertheless, both our kids were very much planned (and we pretty much got pregnant almost instantly when we decided it was time ...)

After the second kid, the wife got sterilised. So no more worries or going out of our way to be careful now.

As for the effects of the pill... I understand it's somewhat down to the individual.
We know of people who had no issue at all with it also.

My cousin tells me that as soon as she started taking the pill, she was assailed by constant sex drives.
Her husband would complain because he was tired....of a wife with that abnormal sexual appetite.

So,...I would like to understand why they all say that the pill turns off the woman's libido.
 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
Is this sarcasm? Obviously that's not true.

It's true. A woman who engages in wild kamasutra all nights, and says she's depressed...well...is not that credible.
Because a satisfying sexual activity produces endorphins and serotonin.
 
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TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
My cousin tells me that as soon as she started taking the pill, she was assailed by constant sex drives.
Her husband would complain because he was tired....of a wife with that abnormal sexual appetite.

So,...I would like to understand why they all say that the pill turns off the woman's libido.

"...why they all say..." ?

All we have here are anecdotes. And unless I missed something, I also think I was the only one in this thread to mention it. That hardly counts as "all".

What you have, is yet another anecdote. Neither of the anecdotes are representative of the "norm".
One should be careful in taking an anecdote and raising it up as being "the standard" or the equivalent of statistical significance.


In the end, the pill is a medical thing.
And medical things work by statistical significance. There is no "wonder drug" that works 100% of the time perfectly in all cases without no side-effects ever.

Even the most trivial of things, like vitamines, will come with documentation of "possible side effects" where those effects occur in like 1 in 1000 or 10.000 or 100.000 (or whatever) of cases.

If the pill can negatively affect the libido of the woman in 1 in 10.000 cases, and say 100 million women take the pill, then you will be able to find a LOT of anecdotes of women saying such. That will sound like its impressive and that there is something to it, but the reality is that it is confusing anecdotes with statistical significance. It means that it doesn't affect the libido of 99.99% of women on the pill.

So are there possible side effects? YES. As is the case with ANY medicine or medical treatment of any kind. And in some people, those side effects will be too severe to continue treatment.

To me, that's a given.
 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
"...why they all say..." ?

All we have here are anecdotes. And unless I missed something, I also think I was the only one in this thread to mention it. That hardly counts as "all".

What you have, is yet another anecdote. Neither of the anecdotes are representative of the "norm".
One should be careful in taking an anecdote and raising it up as being "the standard" or the equivalent of statistical significance.


In the end, the pill is a medical thing.
And medical things work by statistical significance. There is no "wonder drug" that works 100% of the time perfectly in all cases without no side-effects ever.

Even the most trivial of things, like vitamines, will come with documentation of "possible side effects" where those effects occur in like 1 in 1000 or 10.000 or 100.000 (or whatever) of cases.

If the pill can negatively affect the libido of the woman in 1 in 10.000 cases, and say 100 million women take the pill, then you will be able to find a LOT of anecdotes of women saying such. That will sound like its impressive and that there is something to it, but the reality is that it is confusing anecdotes with statistical significance. It means that it doesn't affect the libido of 99.99% of women on the pill.

So are there possible side effects? YES. As is the case with ANY medicine or medical treatment of any kind. And in some people, those side effects will be too severe to continue treatment.

To me, that's a given.
I perfectly agree with you. But medicine is anecdotal, unfortunately. Compare these two sentences:

The pill may cause a diminution of the woman's libido
The pill does cause a diminution of the woman's libido

As you can see, in all the drug leaflets the verb may is used, when it deals with listing the side affects.

And by the way, women are all different by age, ethnic group, height, weight.

Mediterranean women's libido is on average much higher than Nordic women's libido. That's a given. On average, of course, it's not an universal rule.
 

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
My cousin tells me that as soon as she started taking the pill, she was assailed by constant sex drives.
Her husband would complain because he was tired....of a wife with that abnormal sexual appetite.

So,...I would like to understand why they all say that the pill turns off the woman's libido.
Well obviously either one is messing with your bodies natural state.
 
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