anxiety attacks after stopping birth control

Anyone taken hormonak test blood and come normal but taken other type of hormonal test such as urine etc and come out unbalanced??? This has happened and im confused

Can we get an update? As i stopped over a month ago and going through the same thing.

Hi Heather

I know it’s been awhile since you posted this but how are you feeling now ?

I had the same experience and was put on lexapro.. the side effects are horrid.

Hey!

How did your hormone test come back? Mine came back normal but I don’t believe it.

Hi Everyone,

I originally posted in another forum... the one called "feeling depressed after stopping the birth control pills" but wanted to post in here too, because after about 6 weeks off of the pill I still continue to experience crippling anxiety and panic attacks. I have always had generalized anxiety and been on the same dosage of medication for the past 3 years with no issues and after this whole BC mess happened my doctor had to increase my dosage for me to get any relief from the anxiety. I'm not sure if it was the pill itself or going off that caused it...but my manageable anxiety took off a life of its own along with other symptoms... here is what I posted in the other forum:

I was happily on one type of birth control for over a year with no issues and then was suddenly told by my insurance that they don't cover it anymore, so would have been a lot out of pocket. I switched to another one, which was supposedly the "generic" for the brand I'd been taking. First few weeks on it were fine, no major issues. It was the third or fourth week that I started feeling awful. I had symptoms included, but not limited to: very foggy brain, feeling like I wasn't really present, staring off into space multiple times a day, feeling VERY anxious and like I was going to pass out and becoming more anxious because of it, muscles randomly feeling lose/relaxed/weak, hard time focusing and took me a longer time to process things, everything started to feel like it was in slow motion, nausea, heartburn, waking up in the middle of the night with my heart racing, I also suffered a few panic attacks (mostly when waking up in the morning), sensitivity to light (I actually couldn't watch TV for a while and had to have dim lighting in my home at night), feeling dizzy, very low sex drive, not feeling like myself at all, and I'm sure there are others I'm missing. Anyway, I went to my doctor and he said I need to get off these immediately. He told me it might take a while (weeks or even months) but eventually, those symptoms/side effects should go away. I have now been off those pills for two weeks, as of yesterday. While some of my symptoms have gone away or gotten better since then, I am still suffering. I now have awful mood swings - literally from moment to moment my mood changes, I have crippling anxiety, I am depressed a good deal of the time, I have lost my love for life and barely want to do anything anymore, I either have no appetite or I can eat anything and everything, very little energy, poor concentration, I have become paranoid for my health and always worry that something bad will happen to me, each morning starts off with anxiety and nausea, sometimes dizziness. I have been on anti-anxiety medication for 3 years, and they help some. I used to be very active and go to the gym/run/walk almost every day - now I can barely leave the house for more than 30 minutes at a time. The worst is the foggy/dream like state I am in sometimes. Usually in the evening, I feel like I am barely here anymore and I just want to sleep for days. I have some good moments/days, where I feel almost normal again and I try and make the most of those times, but its hard knowing that it won't last and pretty soon I'll go back to feeling like a zombie. I have been to the ER twice and seen my doctor as well, all blood work, CT scan, etc... came back normal. I have not started taking any new medications or changed anything else, so I am sure that these awful things are happening to me because of the hormones. I can only hope that with time, I will get back to normal at some point. This is not how I want to live the rest of my life. Since it has only been 2 weeks, I will try and post an update later on down the line in a few more weeks. I hope everyone going through this knows that they are not alone. I will never take birth control again - my future boyfriend/husband/whatever can deal with protection if they don't want kids.

I posted that over a month ago at this point and while some of the symptoms are dulled or gone, I still continue to experience anxiety as well as that weird foggy feeling. I realize that I am only 6 weeks off the pill, but I was only on it for a little over a year. I am terrified that the anxiety will now always be like this and things will never go back to normal. 

Hello everybody! I’ve been following this post for a few months now and it’s the only thing that has been keeping me sane. So i have good and bad news. The good news is i am on month 7 post birth control and my symptoms aren’t nearly as bad as they were in the first few months. The bad news is i still very much have symptoms.
In the beginning when i first got off birth control i felt fine until a month, that’s when all hell broke loose. I had crazy strong panic attacks that made me feel like i was going to pass out. It seemed like being in public/driving made it worse. I had to call off work a bunch of days because i couldn’t even drive myself there! I started having weird thoughts and obsessing over bad things happening to me and my family members.. it felt like my thoughts weren’t my own and i had no way of controlling them. It felt like i was possessed! Then i started getting depressed and not wanting to do anything just stay in bed all day. It seems like when once symptom disappears it’s followed by something new. So lately for the past few months my panic attacks are gone and so is my depression/crazy thoughts but now i can’t sleep!! When I’m trying to fall asleep i get these strange leg cramps, internal tremors that you can’t see but i can feel myself shaking, heart palpitations, this strange stomach dropping feeling with cold flushes that go through my body. It ONLY happens at night when I’m trying to sleep.

I’ve had every test in the world done, ultra sounds ekg blood test u name it. Only thing that came back bad was my vitamin d levels my hormone levels are perfect . I’ve been put on vitamin d pills and i was prescribed anti depressants but refuse to take them. The only thing that helps me is exercise. Days when i exercise i notice i sleep better.

I’m on month 7 and i could use any advice you guys have to give me. I’m ready for all of this to be over!

I'm sorry to hear it's still an issue for you. Like you I read this blog for sanity check. I am on month 8 and although better I still suffer daily. The anxiety is better, it's more like nervousness, but sleep is still an issue. I am tapering off an OTC sleep aid, and taking homeopathic compounds that help a bit. I take Epson salt baths at night which help too, and liver pack ( castor oil and then 20 min of a heating pad.) I am wondering why it is so long to heal, but try to focus on how bad it was and I guess there is improvement. My cortisol level is still high at night, maybe another test to try? But like you, I welcome any sleep advice and survival skills from other recovering women.

Thank you so much for replying. When you say sleep is an issue what do you mean exactly? Like you can’t fall asleep or you wake up frequently? I’ve read a lot of symptoms on here but it doesn’t seem like many have my sleeping symptoms which of course is causing me to worry. Also I’ve had this plugged ear for a little over a month now off and on. It’s like i can hear my heart beating in my ear. Thank you so much for your recommendations, I’m going to try the Epsom salt tonight

That is so funny because my ear is often plugged and I have noise in it too ( tinnitus) which was listed as a side effect of the pill I was on, but 8 months later I am not sure why it is still there. It disappears only to come back a few weeks later. My sleep issues are both falling asleep and then waking up at like 3 am and not going back to sleep. The OTC sleep aid helps a lot, but I don't want to take it too long and I still have like 3-4 nights a week where I wake up way too early regardless. I also have troubles with super tight muscles, my naturopath says that's also related to insomnia/ anxiety issues. I was taking magnesium at night and natural sleep aids from a health food store and they helped but I think my body gets used to things and after awhile it's not effective anymore. I am trying to remind myself daily that it WILL get better, gotta focus on the positive! Hopefully you will find something that works for you, please post if you find something useful too!

All of this is not cool! This is drastically effecting our lives and yet nobody knows about it. Has anyone thought of a class action suit or some type of action we could take to make birth control companies have to inform people about the side effects of getting off birth control?! There’s a lot of people on this forum it would be great if we could actually help women in the future

I agree with you. I have thought of this from the begining. I’m not sure how we could organize a class action suit since there are multiple birth control pill brands involved but it would be great to help women in the future and make them aware of these issues because no one mentioned it to me prior to going onto BC or when they said it was okay to come off it. It definitely would have changed my mind about it altogether.

Hey guys! Same thing is going on with me...it is horrible. I went off my birth control (Alesse) while I was on vacation and three days after I went into full panic mode. What was rest of my vacation was horrid, stayed on the couch and was scared to get on my flight home even though thats all I wanted to do. I went to the hospital twice while I was there and all tests came back normal. So I flew home and went straight to my doctor, she said it sounds like anxiety and prescribed me with cipralex 10 mg.. horrible experience that was but I was eager to feel better. I started taking 5mg, had horrid side effects for three weeks while starting. I continued on the medication for a few months until it started making me depressed when I have never been depressed in my life! So i took myself off it, experienced withdrawals after 5 days of stopping so I went back on and then had a bad reaction to the reinstatement and had intrusive/suicidal thoughts. Saw my doctor who told me to stop it again because the side effects were too intense. Im currently going through the discontinuation symptoms again. At first it wasn't so bad, but today has been the worst day so far and I am starting to wonder if it is going to get better. I realized that this was from the birth control after I had already went on the SSRI. I was on the pill for 8 years so I guess it sprung my hormones into a whirlwind and now I have to but myself through the withdrawals of antidepressants.
Everyone stay strong, I will be informing everyone I know to be careful on coming off birth control.

Hi everyone! I was experiencing extreme anxiety that started about a week after stopping my birth control. Everything seemed foggy to me and I couldn’t focus on anything because I couldn’t take my mind off of all the terrible thoughts going through my head. I did a lot of research and found a few things that I think have helped me a lot! I’m not sure which of these things actually helped because I started them all at the same time but I’ll just list all of them. So every morning I’ve been taking fish oil supplements (helps brain function), a one a day multivitamin, vitamin c, and maca (helps your body produce progesterone) and at night I mix bentonite clay and psyllium husk(these help cleanse and detox your body) with water and drink it! I’ve been doing so much better and know how miserable getting off of birth control can be so I hope these things help other people too!!

Thank you so much for the tips! I also found a good liquid Magnesium called ReMag and it’s been helping my body to feel relaxed & at ease especially at night. I feel like most of my symptoms happen at night with my anxiety peaking in the mornings

Can anybody list their symptoms?

I found when i read the long list of someone’s symptoms it helped ease my anxiety because i related to most of them. Mine are panic attacks, palpations, this strange feeling in my chest like my heart is skipping beats, internal tremors that feels like I’m shaking but I’m not, trouble falling asleep, eye floaters, rashes, leg cramps when laying down, nervous stomach, butterfly’s in stomach for no reason, food sensitivities I’ve never had before, social anxiety, compacted ear, swooshing noises in my ear off and on for months, etc. all of the symptoms come and go.