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[iguanawow]

In the last 24 hours or so, I have

Comments

[muddlizard]

Yup, bodies are confusing -- especially female ones. The first pill I tried made me prone to crying at the slightest provocation between 8pm and midnight.

[amoken]

Dude, starting and ending new hormone medication just SUCKS. It's like adolescence, but sometimes worse.

[iguanawow]

I think I preferred adolescence, then my body would just randomly skip a month or two altogether. Much less messy.

[amoken]

Ah. See I'm with kitty_tape: hormone pills have improved my period experience immensely. Before, I spent significantly more time menstruating than sleeping, and they were longer (!), less predictable, and heavier.

As a side note, I am taking Seasonale. It's a bit higher in estrogen than I might like, and I maintain more water weight on my belly, but otherwise it's great to have a period once every 3 months. And consistently! Sweet.

[iguanawow]

I was looking forward to having periods be shorter and more regular (mine generally last 7-9 days, and come every 3.5-5 weeks). I also wanted to try the Seasonale, but they don't carry it at UW's version of Baxter. Instead, I'm on Alesse, but I'm supposed to take the three weeks of active pills, then throw out the placebos and start a new pack. Essentially, it's mimicking Seasonale, but it's less expensive ($9-10/month) and the pharmacy actually carries it. According to the doctor, though, some women do get a lot more bleeding at first when they're using it that way. What I'm wondering, though, is how my body knew I was doing that before I finished the first pack, because I bled every single day of the first pack. FYI, Alesse has 2/3 the estrogen that Seasonale has, if you're interested. Course, I haven't had the best of luck with it thus far...

[kushali]

Birth Control is evil. I was on alesse for a long time, its the lowest dose on the market (but still to strong for me). Bleeding is very common on it. It happened to me, although not that bad. Periods suck. I'm glad you don't have a blood clot. I hate the question about "when was ____" too, I usually say "uh, I don't know".

[mermit]

I guess I'm luck I never had a very strong reaction to any of the hormone pills, but I still have to say I like the ring *way* better. It's low-dose, since it's going straight into your blood, and I never have that moment of panic at 10 am, "did I take my pill this morning?"

I think it's kind of funny that Seasonal is being advertised as something new, since I am pretty sure that it is almost exactly the same thing as the very first pill, except with a presumably lower dose.

[iguanawow]

The big thing with Seasonale is that they're the only pill that the FDA has approved that has you take the active pills for more than 3 weeks at a time. You actually take 12 weeks of active pills, then 1 week of placebo. The idea is, you only get 4 periods a year, instead of 13.