Editor's note before we begin:
Hormone Free Period was always meant to be a community - not just a one woman show. My goal here is to open up the conversation about hormonal birth control and period abnormalities, so others can navigate their own birth control selection processes with better education than I had. When I recently connected with Claudia online, we felt kinship around this mission. She is earlier on in her #hormonefree journey, having just decided to go off of hormonal birth control a few months ago. She'll tell you her experiences in her own words, and I hope this interview will be the first in an ongoing series of real period stories. Everyone has a different body and a different HBC journey, so why not highlight as many of those experiences as possible to better reach a wider audience? Ok, cool - let's dive right into the interview!
Q: When did you first start hormonal birth control and what did you hope to get out of it?
A: Just after I turned 14, I had sex for the first time. My mom must have been psychic and asked me straight away if I was having sex with my boyfriend. I was so embarrassed and cried and told her 'yes', but she handled it the best she possibly could, telling me it was okay, she just wanted me to be safe, and never do anything I didn’t want to do. Pretty quickly, she scheduled me a gynecologist appointment for the dual purposes of: pregnancy prevention and getting some relief from my debilitating period symptoms.
My periods were so bad that I was missing school on average 1 day per period, curled up in a ball crying because of the painful cramping. I would regularly bleed through a two-pad setup I would make myself - I basically had to rig myself a diaper out of pads about two days each cycle.
Endometriosis and uterine fibroids run in my mom’s family so my doctor took that history and decided the pill was a good first option to try.
Q: What method(s) of HBC did you use?
A: In my 13+ years on hormonal birth control I only ever took the combination pill under various names and generic packaging (Yaz, Gianvi, etc.)
Q: What made you question whether staying on HBC was worth it?
A: Initially I had awful side effects for probably the first 3-4 months. I took my pill at the same time every night and I'd be nauseous if I didn’t eat something right away the next morning. To put this into context, I took a 45-minute bus ride to school and frequently had to get off to get fresh air because I was having extreme vertigo/motion sickness on top of the nausea.
I had a very regular “withdrawal bleed” about two days into my sugar pills. The bleeding and cramping was still pretty heavy for the first few months, so, over time I started my new packs one after another, skipping the sugar pills and the “withdrawal bleed” altogether.
Looking back, I attribute a lot of emotional turmoil and mood issues to being on hormonal birth control, but at the time I didn’t consider that to be the problem. Now that I’m off of it almost 3 months, I can say it definitely negatively impacted my mood in some capacity.
About 10 years into being on the pill, a few scary health concerns popped up:
I started having extreme and sudden cramps in my left leg. After a few days, I called my doctor and had an ultrasound done to try and rule out a blood clot. The pain continued a few weeks and then dissipated, but the concern of blood clots lingered in the back of my mind.
Around the same time, my left breast started very obviously looking bigger than my right breast and it often felt sore and like there was very tight tissue inside. I had an ultrasound on that too and the conclusion was that I just had dense breast tissue (also runs in my family). The soreness remained, but never increased so I just let it be and wore a bra less.
Q: When you “took the plunge” to stop using HBC what happened?
A: Mostly, I decided I needed to try and feel what my natural adult body felt like.
I’m currently 27 and have been off of the pill for 3 months, so all in all I was on it for over 14 years - more than half my life. I have now been in a relationship for 7 years, and I'm engaged.
While I felt really content in my relationship I had absolutely no sex drive - nor did I ever notice that I felt happy. I struggled to laugh, and I also struggled to feel real sadness. Reflecting back now, I mostly felt numb for the last 3 years.
I really don’t want to get pregnant right now but the overwhelming feeling that synthetic hormones might be causing all these issues made me take the plunge.
It took about 2-3 weeks to feel any difference in my body, but at about 3 weeks my sex drive picked up, my mood felt overall more positive, I started having a few pimple-like bumps along my jawline and my hair started falling out…a lot.
The skin issues were definitely hormonal and went away without much struggle and my hair fallout ended after my first full cycle, but it was definitely concerning and notable.
I definitely got my sex drive back. I’m having dreams, desires, and initiating things with my fiancee, which I haven’t done in forever.
Emotionally, I recently noticed and pointed out to a friend, that I’ve laugh-cried more in the last three months than I have in three years!
And both breasts are also pain-free now!
My periods are heavy for maybe one day each cycle and my cramps are nonexistent compared to what I experienced pre-pill.
Q: What advice would you give to someone considering their birth control options and wondering about going hormone free?
A: I would absolutely consult with your doctor first. It’s possible that some negative side effects from birth control are actually unrelated health issues, that need to be addressed. I also would make sure you have a friend or partner to talk with about your choice. It can be scary to go through body changes at any age, which is initially why I started sharing my experience online. There just wasn’t enough information out there about these possible changes. If you’re trying to prevent pregnancy there are other hormone free birth control options, but research before going off the pill and make sure you have a plan. I now track my cycle with the Flo app so that I know when my high-risk fertile days are and I can be extra careful.
Q: Any other details you want to share (i.e. do you have a partner, other conditions/ concerns that complicated things?
Sure! My fiancee was initially very concerned about me coming off of the pill because we are definitely not trying to get pregnant right now; but I think the pros and positive outcomes of coming off of the pill have won his concerns over.
If you’re considering returning to a hormone free period I absolutely recommend trying it. You can always go back to hormones or try a different hormonal birth control type.
Bodies change and I am very glad I get to experience mine naturally now.