I visit this forum often to see if anyone has posted anything. My mum had exactly the same situation, she has suffered from anxiety and depression for many years but nothing has hit her harder than after stopping the pill. She has extreme panic attacks and is in such a downward spiral which she doesn’t know if she can come out of.
How have you helped manage you symptoms, is there anything else I can suggest to my mum, it’s so horrible seeing so many women suffer from this. If you have any suggestions or anything that can help please do let me know, it would be greatly appreciated.
I am so incredibly relieved to have found this forum. I have been off of my birth control for 2 weeks now after being on it continuously for 10 years. I just got married and am an extremely happy, outgoing, energetic person but right after going off I started experiencing crazy dizzy spells followed by extreme nausea. This would last for about an hour of out the day every day for the first week and a half that I was off and then things escalated. Last week I was anxious to the point where I actually threw up. Since then, I have had the worst anxiety i've ever experienced in my life along with the following symptoms- heart palpitations, dizziness, hot flashes, nausea, shaking (all day), teeth chattering, chills, complete loss of appetite, diarrhea, stress rashes, trouble sleeping, and feelings of being detached from my body. My gyno told me I would experience some acne and weight changes- false, this is far more extreme. I am incredibly frustrated that the side effects of coming off of the pill have been generalized as hair loss, weight gain, acne, and increased libido. It is so much more than that and should be researched more thoroughly.
I went into the urgent care yesterday and the doctor there believed me! Not even my gyno would give me the time of day when I was trying to relate these symptoms back to the pill! Basically he confirmed that these symptoms are definitely correlated to going off of the pill as my body had gotten so used to the synthetic hormones that were just ripped away one day. He prescribed me Alprazolam (basically Xanax) .25 mg for those sleepless nights and whenever I feel an episode coming on. I don't even like taking advil so I am a bit apprehensive to take the meds but I am getting desperate at this point! I just want to enjoy my life again and at least get my appetite back. Does anyone have any other recommendations or can anyone can comment back if they are feeling normal again after a few cycles? I feel for all of you ladies- women have it hard enough as it is, we shouldn't have to deal with these side effects for wanting to live a cleaner, synthetic hormone free lifestyle. Sending my thoughts and prayers to you all and trying to remember that this will pass
Good luck....take care of you and remember you aren't alone. Try the supplements DIM and vitex..I think if I had taken earlier, I would have balanced quicker.
I just wanted to let you all know that I’ve been coming back to this forum every few days for months whilst I’ve been going through this experience but I am now coming up for 5 months off and let me tell you, what a difference!!
I stopped taking the pill in February and for the first 2-3 months I was anxious 24/7 to the point of not being able to be left alone, not eating for days, crying constantly, sleeping loads from pure exhaustion, genuinely thinking I’d lost my mind. I also had bouts of severe depression in between as well as body acne, hair loss, dizzy spells, joint pain etc. it’s been the hardest thing I have ever gone through but 5 months on, I’m definitely not back to normal but I’m a good 70% better than I was.
I’m able to concentrate at work, enjoy things I used to, look after myself better, eat properly etc. and with every cycle it gets better and better. I do experience new symptoms here and there but nothing major.
It’s true what everyone else has said, time is the biggest healer but I totally understand that when you’re at the worst, you can’t even imagine dealing with it for another day never mind weeks or months. I felt that way too but I does get better! I agree that seeing a naturopath is a great idea and trying to avoid going back to synthetic hormones if you can.
Wishing you all a speedy recovery :) x
Hi everyone! Sorry for the long post in advance. I hope I can make at least one person feel like they aren’t crazy
Tomorrow I will be post pill 8 weeks. I was on Junel FE and I will NEVER ever take any birth control ever again. I was only on this pill for 3.5 months and and still having side effects at 2 months off. I am feeling better…oddly good these last 3 days and that makes me nervous because I’m scared to feel the way I did at the beginning. BUT I am better. I feel like my second period is about to start in the next couple of days and that will be my second one off the bc.
While I was still on the pill, the last 2 weeks, I experienced panic attacks and uncontrollable crying. I had never experienced either of these in my life, so I really genuinely thought I was loosing my mind. Nothing in my life had changed. I was loosing interest in everything that I loved. I wanted to quit my job, ect. No additional stress or anything had been added to my life. All of this came on randomly and completely out of the blue. I felt panic. Like impending doom panic. I felt like I was about to die and nothing would calm me. I insisted on going to the hospital. All ER & doctor visits test results come back "normal" and signed off as GAD. Dr gave me Lexapro and I took it for 3 days like an id**t. I will never do that again either, because it magnified all my feelings and I was in a constant panic for the 3 days that I took it. I’ve always been socially awkward and felt like I maybe have social anxiety & separation anxiety…but I’ve always been able to manage it myself. I feel like this pill ruined my life. I do not want to be alone at all. Not even at night. My mom has been an angel and slept with me every night since this mess has started. I hate being alone with my thoughts because I get anxious still. I'm fine as long as I'm with someone or at least on the phone with someone.
**when I feel like I can’t relax at night (or even during the day) I will take a Benadryl to calm down**
I should have known when I started taking this pill that it wasn’t going to work when I wanted to argue ALL THE TIME. With anyone. About anything. I’m usually very quiet and kept my opinions to myself. Not on this pill. I had heart palpitations, chest pains, mood swings…I had no motivation. I didn’t want to get out of the bed at all. When I finally did stop taking it, I noticed I did have more energy upon waking up. After stopping though, I became so anxious that I couldn’t sit still long enough to watch anything on tv or sit at my desk at work. I had to be constantly moving. This side effect just resided this past week. I can finally sit and relax a bit. I would have a rush of heat that would come over me and the most awful feeling that something was off that would lead me into a crying panic attack. These would have no trigger. Just put of the blue. I cried a lot, almost daily (haven’t cried in 3 days now :P).. panic attacks every other day (haven’t had one in over a week :)), hypersensitivity to sound and light… and I felt like I couldn’t breath constantly from the anxiety (this anxiousness still lingers a bit). I also just felt very dissociated. I felt like I was stuck inside myself… like a switch was turned off in me… and I was inside myself.. begging to get out. I screamed daily in the car on the way home from work because I felt trapped inside my own head. I usually love loud music with my windows down, I still can barely stand music at a higher volume now. I still have some dizziness if I turn my head too fast or stand too quickly. I’m praying all of these lingering side effects will disappear this next month. There is so much more that I want to write, but I will be writing all night.
In the past week, I have been diagnosed as “severely depressed” per therapist. I’m going to stick with this one until I feel stable again because I’m tired of feeling like I’m loosing my mind. I catch myself feeling/thinking “Am I okay?” or “Am I going to have another panic attack?” throughout the day still. It’s like I’m waiting for something to happen. If I could just stop having those waves of feelings, I would probably be okay.
What really made me feel even more crazy was that no doctor believed me when I told them I thought it was the birth control causing this. People still look at me funny, but I don’t even care anymore. I know it caused these feelings and still is. It is hormones.
It’s slowly getting better for me, so there is hope. I come here and read when I start feeling anxious and it really does help. I’ll be praying for all of y’all. I wouldn’t wish these feelings on my worst enemy.
**I’ve also cut out candy/sugary snacks as well as caffeine. I take a multi vitamin, super b complex and fish oil in the am & magnesium and fish oil at night. I’ve also been trying to do light workouts as well to help ease some nerves.
I have good days and bad days. I just can’t shake this feeling of something is wrong like I’m going to die soon or something. And the random dizzy spells make me feel…uneasy. I still feel the occasional “I’m going to lose it” in my head at least once a day lately. I’m so sick of it. I just want my life back. I’m not trying to rush my life away, but I can’t wait for the next couple of weeks to go by so I can be myself again. I hope working with this therapist helps a lot.
I went on Levlen when I was 14 years old and to be honest I don’t even remember why I went on it in the first place. I had acne and period pain, so maybe one of those two reasons. My mum tried to convince me not to but I went to the GP without her and he happily prescribed it to me and I was on it for the next ten years.
Earlier this year, I had the worst panic attack I’d ever had, but I also had some form of gastro/food poisoning at the same time. Basically, the anxiety/bloating/insomnia continued. I went to see a naturopath and we did a microbiome test and he diagnosed me with SIBO. We had been treating that since, with the anxiety and insomnia going through highs and lows over the last six months. This experience led me to focus more on my health and I decided to go off Levlen because I didn’t feel comfortable putting synthetic hormones in my body anymore.
I am now six weeks off and they have been some of the worst weeks of my life. My first symptom was really intense muscle twitches and heart palpitations. The heart palpitations have continued but now the muscle twitches are mostly gone, and the palpitations are accompanied by hot flashes, intense anxiety (often feeling breathless and becoming obsessive over my breathing so I feel like I’m constantly manual breathing), intrusive thoughts, and a general kind of electric feeling in my body. I think I have just ovulated for the second time since going off Levlen and each week leading up to ovulation so far I’ve experienced terrible lightheadedness. These symptoms sent me to the ER about three weeks in to being off the pill, but they told me I’m just recovering from COVID (from seven months ago?) and I’m anxious. I’ve spoken to two GPs about my thoughts of these symptoms being caused by the pill, but both have dismissed me and told me I’m just anxious… one of them thought I was more likely to have a rare tumour on my adrenal gland than a hormonal imbalance?
I’m now beginning to wonder whether my symptoms earlier this year were as bad as they were because of prolonged pill use and the stress it caused on my body. Now that I think about it, I’ve dealt with things like extreme bloating, GERD and an emotional roller coaster every month for as long as I can remember, but I have never attributed them to pill use. I also developed two swollen lymph nodes in my neck a few months ago (before going off the pill, which I’ve had checked), but I guess they’re probably unrelated. ’m just so angry that doctors prescribe these pills without informing us of the side effects of coming off or about what these pills actually do to our bodies. I was 24 when I found out that that a pill “period” is not even a real period, and that the pill stops us from producing hormones. Ugh.
Anyway, six weeks in and every day is a struggle. BUT, the two days after my first period I actually felt okay, and I was able to get through this morning without extreme anxiety. Maybe these are signs that things are very very slowly getting better. I’m trying to focus on my diet and I take vitamins.
Sending you all lots of luck for getting through these horrible experiences. I will continue lurking on this forum and update you all at some point - hopefully with a positive update. X
Hi girls! I wanted to come back to the forum with some good news as this is often times what helped me the most when I was going through the post pill hell. I posted over 3 months ago that I had just gotten off of the pill after being on Sprintec for 10 years straight. I went off soon after I got married and then all of the horrendous symptoms started pretty much right away. For background, I am a 5'2, 113 lb, very active, happy, and energetic 26 year old. I have never experienced any mental/physical ailments before so these past few months have been some of the most challenging times of my life. Well I'm happy to report that I feel I am through the worst of it. I want to highlight what each month looked like for me and what actually helped me feel better.
Month 1: panic attacks, no appetite, crying spells, depressed, hair loss, diarrhea, choking feeling, scared of getting out of bed, hot flashes, dizziness, insomnia, nausea, internal tremors, ocd, scared of something happening to my family, husband, dog, etc. depersonalization, zero sex drive, feeling numb, brain fog (felt like I was in a video game or watching a movie of my life instead of actually being in the moment?), ringing in ears, acne, intrusive thoughts, health ocd, terrified of becoming pregnant one day and experiencing these symptoms again
Month 2: only had 1 major panic attack, still not eating a ton but better appetite than month 1, anxiety still present but less intense/ more manageable, crying spells, depressed moods, hair loss, ringing in ears, some insomnia, internal tremors, leg cramps, headaches, body acne, health ocd, able to exercise more and do things I used to enjoy, got more social, did more things to prove to myself I can get better
Month 3: little to no anxiety, ringing in ears, extreme hair loss, got my appetite back, digestive issues, sleeping better, muscle twitches, some dizziness here and there, blurry vision, migraines that come on super intense but leave after a minute or so, happier disposition, feeling more optimistic, more social, less intrusive thoughts, sex drive better, acne on face and body, better sleep
Things that actually helped:
-Seeing an integrative doctor or naturopath- I saw a great Dr. and she was wonderful in explaining what birth control actually does to your body. I had extensive labs done and found out I was severely deficient in B12, Iron, Vitamin D, Magnesium, etc. The pill depletes your body of essential nutrients so my Dr. recommended taking magnesium, a quality fish oil, iron, D3, B12, and GABA when feeling anxious. Literally 2 weeks after starting this supplement routine I felt SO much better. I thought I could just get by with multivitamins but you truly do need to replenish these supplements with higher doses of vitamins and supplements.
-Knowing that with every cycle your body is re-learning how to ovulate/ have a real menstrual cycle. I got my period back right away and its comforting knowing that with each cycle my body will become more and more used to the natural process and hormonal fluctuations.
-Therapy helped a lot because I started to feel bad putting all of these issues on my husband, parents, sister, etc. I developed new coping mechanisms and ways to manage my anxiety better. My therapist also ingrained in my head that healing is not linear; even if you have a bad day or bad moment it does not mean that you are moving backwards in the recovery process.
-Biking, walking, doing anything to be outside helped me a lot. Biking especially since you have to be present in the moment.
-journaling every day for a consistent 2 months- it helped me notice patterns with my cycle and made it easier to identify if my bad day was caused by where I was at in my cycle
-eating clean, no caffeine, no alcohol, talking on the phone with loved ones, leaning on your S/O, affirmations, sea bands for the nausea, comfort TV shows like real housewives, eating consistent meals, drinking lots of water, petting your dog, pictures of happier times, knowing and reminding yourself that you are healthy, you are going to get through this, and this is from your hormones re-learning a process that has been shut off for years depending on how long you took the pill, quality sleep, epsom salt baths, knowing that time heals all...
Stay strong girls. I hope this helps even one person know that it does get better. I am hoping it stays this way but even if it doesn't I know that I have made it through 100% of the bad days and I am a stronger person for it. I will continue to post on the forum with any new updates in the coming months. Hang in there and know you are not alone!