birth control, health

Kissing my birth control goodbye.

standard March 4, 2009 7 responses

Yes, I’m kissing my birth control good bye. No, it’s not why you think. We’re done having babies for the time being. Four people in a two bedroom house is plenty for us. Plus, I’m never, ever sleep training another child in my own room. Ever.

But I really am kissing it goodbye. For real, not all birth control, just this particular kind.

I went off The Pill for the first time almost 5 years ago. Sure, at the time we were gearing up to start trying to conceive our first little munchkin, but I was also really, really tired of having my moods controlled by artificial hormones. I’d been on The Pill for over 10 years and I was just done. So I stopped taking it and I felt great, really, really great.

After C was born I refused to go back on it. The thought of being controlled by those hormones again made my skin crawl. So instead I tried a diaphragm on for size. It worked for us. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t bad either.

Let’s skip forward a few years past the birth of our second baby. The birth of the baby that left some painful scarring that made it suddenly impossible for me to wear the diaphragm, leaving us with limited options. Granted, options we weren’t against using, but still, limited.

Plus I started getting migraines. And painful cramps. And the controlling hormone hell memories had somewhat faded. And so I let myself be swayed by the smooth talking, Pill pushing OB.

I went back on The Pill.

Three seconds later I had put back on the 5lbs it had taken weeks for me to lose. Three more seconds after that I had put on another 2. Then my face broke out. I whined to a friend, who told me to suck it up and give it a couple months, that my body would get used to the changes.

I sucked it up. I gave The Pill not a couple months, but four months. Four long months. And now I’m calling it quits. I’m kissing The Pill goodbye. In fact, I’m kissing all forms of hormone birth control goodbye. Buh bye. Tah tah. Go torture someone else.

Not convinced? Think I’m being too hasty? Consider this:

Pill Pros:

  • No more babies. Phew.

Pill Cons:

  • More migraines, not fewer, more, yes more.
  • Odd intolerance to tomatoes. Linked to the migraines, as in they trigger them.
  • Pimple face. All. Month. Long.
  • Crazy screaming she-witch at completely random, unpredictable times of the month. Ask M.
  • Insane weight gain, despite a healthy diet and exercise.
  • Depression. Apathy. Complete and utter lack of motivation.

See? I’m not crazy. I think The Pill is slowly killing me, and frankly I can’t think of a benefit in the world worth that. Well, maybe a humongous life insurance policy, but we don’t have that, so instead I’m just going to stop taking the hateful little things. There are other ways to keep from adding on to our family. We’ll just have to find one that doesn’t destroy me along the way.

birth control, food, health

The one about tomatoes, migraines, and birth control

standard February 12, 2009 1 response

I had my first migraine when I was pregnant with C. It started as a tiny shimmer in the corner of my left eye. I kept trying to blink it away and turning my head to see what was shining off to the left. Then the shimmer spread, and spread, and spread, until I felt like I was looking through a kaleidoscope. Shiny! Pretty!

I might have freaked out a bit at that point. And also kept trying to read my email because I was obsessed with email a dedicated employee. Then when I realized that I couldn’t see anything at all anymore I decided that my usual “Eh, it’ll probably go away by itself” MO just wasn’t going to cut it this time.

So I freaked out a bit more and told my coworkers. Who told me I probably had a detached retina and I should put my head back. Word of advice, if you ever need to be calmed down, don’t ask my ex-coworkers for help.

A call to the ophthalmologist and I was somewhat reassured. It was either, as they’d speculated, a detached retina, or an optical migraine. Only time would tell. 45 minutes later my vision was clear and the verdict was in. I was suffering from pregnancy induced migraines.

Only now, I’m not so much pregnant any more and yet I’m still suffering from migraines. Even better, now they’re no longer optical. Instead, lucky me, I go straight to a blinding headache.

I’m not sure what the trigger is. I think that it has to do with tomatoes or basil, or maybe the combination of both. I’m pretty sure hormones are playing a huge part in the issue, if only because it’s gotten worse since I went back on The Pill. In the meantime I’m staying clear of any tomato mozzarella salad, margarita pizzas, spaghetti bolognese, and chicken parmigiana, which is a shame, because that, right there, is pretty much our entire menu rotation.

But really, in the end, it might all work out. You see, if I stop making all of M’s favorite meals, I probably won’t need to take The Pill much longer, so the situation might just sort itself out.