To start, I issue a full disclaimer: This is not medical advice and I only provide my experience on this topic. Please do not make any decisions without properly talking to a medical professional.
I have had a long, difficult journey with birth control. It has involved more gyno appointments than I would have liked, and I have a permanent scar to prove my loyalty to the birth control practice.
Over the last two years, I have tried three different forms of birth control. Each has had it’s pros and cons.
Here are my experiences:
Nexplanon
This is a form of birth control implant that goes into your upper arm and can stay there for up to three years. I had the procedure to get it implanted in August of 2022. The procedure was short and besides the shots of numbing shit they stuck repeatedly into my arm, relatively painless.
I didn’t have many side effect other than the constant bleeding that it caused. From about August to November of that year, I was constantly bleeding without any stopping.
In November I finally decided that it was time to talk to my doctor about it. She recommended that I go on the birth control pill, Lo Loestrin, to combat this bleeding.
According to my doctor, this bleeding is normal for people of my BMI (Body Mass Index). But the pill helped to stop that bleeding and after that I didn’t have any bleeding at all.
I got my implant taken out in December of 2023. I chose to do this because I had been having other health problems and decided to take a break from all non-essential medicines that I had been on to make sure they weren’t causing the problems.
Once I had it taken out, I noticed a huge shift in how much anxiety I was feeling. It was almost as if as soon as I got it out, my anxiety eased slightly and it made living so much easier.
Getting it out wasn’t all rainbows though. I almost passed out after I got it out because I was so nervous for it to hurt that the adrenaline after the procedure was over left me with spotty vision and the sweats.
Overall, I think that looking back on it, I didn’t mind the Nexplanon implant. The bleeding was easily controlled and the anxiety was also most likely caused by some pretty huge changes in my life: graduating high school, going to college, living in the dorms for the first time and just everything about freshman year of college.
I would give my experience of the Nexplanon birth control implant a 3 out of 5 stars.
Lo Loestrin Fe
Lo Loestrin Fe is a progestin and estrogen birth control that is taken orally every day. I was prescribed this birth control to combat the bleeding from the Nexplanon implant.
My thoughts on Lo Loestrin Fe is largely tied with my thoughts on Nexplanon as I was on both at the same time.
I didn’t notice any major changes in my body or mood when I went on the pill and I didn’t really have any negative side effects that I could attribute to just this pill.
I didn’t take the placebo pills in the package that are meant to imitate the natural cycle of your period so I didn’t have any bleeding while I was taking it.
One of the main reasons I stopped taking Lo Loestrin Fe was because it felt as if I was taking another medication just to combat another medications negative side effects. I decided that if I was having this much trouble due to a medication, it would be smarter just to get rid of it.
Overall my experience with Lo Loestrin Fe, taking into account that I never took it on it’s own, was a 4 out of 5 stars.
NUVA RING
The NuvaRing is a small plastic ring that’s worn internally for a cycle of 3 weeks in and 1 week out. I just started this form and have already felt the side effects.
It didn’t take long for me to feel the effects of the new hormones.
It only took 5 days for me to go insane. All of a sudden, on a Wednesday night at my boyfriends house, I couldn’t handle being around another person. I felt as if there was a constant buzzing in my head and I FELT my skin on my bones.
From that moment on, my mood swings felt as if they were ruling my life. I went from smiley and bubbly one moment to wanting to crawl into a hole and pass away in about 2 seconds flat.
It was wild. I had never really experienced this drastic of changes on a birth control before and I am still trying to figure out what I am feeling.
I had to constantly apologize and remind my boyfriend that I didn’t actually hate him, that it was just the insane amount of hormones coursing through my body that has changed the way my brain is working.
I did my research online, looking at what people have said about their experiences, and found that this change in mood is pretty common for women using the NuvaRing. Many people said they also experienced this change in mood and that it went away, or at least leveled out, after the first month of use.
This is what has made me push through. I have vowed to myself to give it the full 4 week cycle to level out and if I still feel this way, I can always look at different options. I already have a follow up gyno appointment scheduled where I will talk with my doctor about how I am feeling about this form of birth control.
Overall, knowing that I haven’t even completed a full cycle of the it yet, I give the NuvaRing a 2 out of 5 stars (it is only above a one star because it is convenient).