Birth Control Pills: What You Need to Know

Jill looks up briefly as her husband, Bob, gets home and returns to scrubbing the counter. As he walks in Bob senses something isn’t right. “Jill, is something wrong,” he asks. She looks up exasperated. He doesn’t know what to do so he moves to hug her. As soon as he touches her, Jill gets so frustrated she wants to scream but she doesn’t know why so instead she starts to cry. She shakes uncontrollably as she cries and pushes him away. Neither of them connects it right away to the birth control pill Jill recently started taking.

Many women don’t connect their hormone problems and other ailments to this common endocrine disruptor. Nearly 80% of women between the ages of 15-44 have used the birth control pill at some point in their lives. (1) Very few of those women have taken out their magnifying glass to look at the insert that comes with that monthly prescription of birth control pills. If they did they would see a long list of side effects.

Some of the Potential Risks, Side Effects and Adverse Reactions Listed in the Insert:

Risk of developing blood clots
Heart attacks and strokes
Gall bladder disease
Liver tumors
Cancer of the reproductive organs and breasts
Irregular vaginal bleeding
Changes in vision
Melasma
Change in appetite
Nausea
Headache
Nervousness
Mental Depression
Dizziness
Loss of scalp hair
Rash
Vaginal infections
Allergic reactions
Gastrointestinal Symptoms
Weight gain
Vaginal candidiasis
Pre-menstrual syndrome
Acne
Changes in libido

If you can’t tell from the list- don’t mess with the female body. The balance of the female body is so delicate. The minute you disrupt one hormone in a female’s body, it sets off a cascade of so many bad things.

Birth control itself is an endocrine disruptor. It disrupts your hormones. When you start taking birth control pills you are giving your body synthetic hormones, so your body stops making them itself. This means your hormones are controlled synthetically, and body’s production of hormones goes to menopausal levels. This doesn’t help your body function. It keeps your body from normal function. This sets your body up for problems now and even more problems down the road. It sets you up to be very sick.

Birth Control Pills are Not OK

Birth control hormones disrupt your whole system. They alter your whole endocrine system and your endocrine system determines your life. When you were a young lady that started your cycle, your genes did not change, your habits did not change- your hormones changed. It changed your whole body, including your thinking, and now you’re going to take a disruptor and it’s going to be OK?

It’s not OK. We have come as a country to think hormonal birth control is OK. I’m telling you now, it’s not OK! If you choose not to listen, well then, I won’t be surprised if you get infertility, cancer, hormone imbalance, and a bad sex life. You think I’m being rude? I will stop being rude when all these conditions start a pattern of going down. I will stop when the health of women stops being sacrificed for the convenience. Are you listening now?

Birth Control Pills are Not Convenient

Jill and Bob, like many couples, decided that Jill would go on birth control to prevent pregnancy until they were ready to have kids. The pill was the option so they could have sex without worrying about pregnancy. Now think about this. I wonder how that intimacy thing is working for them with her hormones being a wreck. How intimate do women feel if they have symptoms like weight gain, headaches, depression, vaginal infections and all the other effects?

Her hormones have been disrupted for so long we don’t know what they will be like. They might find her hormones don’t just come back after she stops taking the pill. Now when Jill and Bob want to have kids they may run into fertility problems. Then we will have to work on rebuilding Jill’s hormones. If they are lucky it could take lots of heartbreak and unnecessary spending to rebuild hormones because her hormonal balance was destroyed by this endocrine disruptor. Not everyone is lucky enough to rebuild them.

Those 3-4 days a month that she can get pregnant is going to be a very small window compared to the 28 days a month she took the birth control. So, they had 3-4 days to where she might get pregnant and she took birth control as a convenience for the whole month. It’s really different when you are trying to get pregnant. They are going to wish they had used condoms for those two days instead of wrecking her hormones.

Some women do everything natural but then they take birth control because their husband tells them to. These women are the ones who have to deal with the health disruptions of increased cervical cancer rates and increased breast cancer rates. Who says there are increased rates of breast and cervical cancer? They do! Read the inserts.

Think you’re safe with the IUD or patch? Nope! You are not off the hook if you are using another endocrine disrupter form of birth control like the hormonal IUD, vaginal ring, implants or the patch you are messing with your body. There are non-hormonal options.

There are other natural methods to prevent pregnancy:

Diaphragm
Condoms
Family planning

Birth Control Pills for Virgins?

Not all women who are on birth control are taking it to prevent pregnancy. A study found 14% of women are taking the pill for non-contraceptive reasons. Many more relied on it for non-contraceptive purposes in addition to contraception with only 42% using it exclusively for contraception. (2)

Instead of researching the drugs they have or developing new ones, pharmaceutical companies are just marketing the ones they have for different purposes. Got acne? Take this endocrine disrupter. Got heavy periods? Take this endocrine disrupter. Got polycystic ovarian syndrome? Take this endocrine disruptor. Got endometriosis? Take this endocrine disrupter. Got migraines? Take this endocrine disrupter. Wait, maybe you want to look at the inserts to see the potential effects. Some of them are the very ones they are treating you for.

You shouldn’t have bad acne, horrible periods and all that comes from imbalanced hormones. If your hormones suck it’s not because you aren’t taking a birth control pill. It’s because your hormones suck. That means hormones are off balance. You can take all the medication you want to but it doesn’t fix the underlying problem. You need to get your hormones tested and to know how to best support your hormones to bring them back into balance. Not by using synthetic hormones but through a healthy diet, reducing inflammation, and herbal protocols that support your body. Not by prescribing a pill.

Time to Rethink This

Eventually you want to have children, go through menopause, have a sex drive, not have pain in your joints or maybe you will just want to live normal life, free of medication. That is going to be a lot harder if you are sick from years of taking birth control. Maybe your hormones were too high or maybe they were too low before you started birth control. When you get off the birth control pills they aren’t going to be better- they are going to be worse. Like I said, birth control can’t help your body function.

It’s going to be even harder if you are battling cancer or if you are depressed. A study followed women in Denmark for 10 years and found those women taking hormonal contraception had a 40% higher rate of developing depression. For young women, birth control pills are even gloomier. Those who were between the ages of 15-19 taking combination birth control pills, were diagnosed with depression at a rate 70 percent higher than those who weren’t taking the pill. (3) Another study tracked half a million women and found that the risk of attempting suicide doubled for those taking hormonal birth control! (4)

When we look at the risks and the impacts on hormonal balance, it’s much bigger than just preventing pregnancy. It’s wrecking your body. Stop the birth control. It’s bad for you. Stop putting your daughters on birth control and disrupting their health and future health. Don’t give them a start that even though its very common is far from normal.

Stupid thinking about birth control pills has messed up more women and more fertility than anything. Go back and look at the list of potential effects. You don’t need your magnifying glass here. We need to look closer at those inserts and pay attention to the side effects that are damaging health. Birth control didn’t bring Bob and Jill closer together. Not the way they wanted.

By Dr. Patrick Flynn

Learn more about the hormone estrogen in this quick tip.