Birth Control: Advice and Anecdotes

I remember reading somewhere that women now have way more periods than women used to because in ye olden times women spent the majority of their reproductive years either pregnant or breastfeeding (which for a large majority of women stops them from getting their periods) so that you can sort of view the way women get their periods now as "unnatural".

I've never minded mine tbh. I actually kind of like it because it reminds me of what I'm (presumably) capable of and that's pretty fucking amazing to think about. Also, I think I have it pretty easy in terms of pain and duration etc.

I like it bc it reminds me that I'm not pregnant.

Here's a q: Can long term use of bc pills/hormonal bc cause the growth of or exacerbate ovarian cysts?

no -- given that increased gonadotropin stimulation is thought to contribute to the development of ovarian cysts, and given that oral contraceptives work to block the secretion of gonadotropins from the pituitary, if anything the use of OCs should be beneficial in people with cysts. in fact OCs are first-line therapy for people with PCOS

that article kate posted was pretty good for the most part btw

thank you for the thorough and informative answer!

i read about half of this before i had to nope out due to omfg it reminds me of something from a cronenberg movie
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/style/2017/07/26/essure/?utm_term=.63970eddcc94

I got to 'There, the inserts, which do not contain or release hormones, help generate scar tissue that blocks the tubes.' and thought 'hmm sounds reliable' :/

Other factors might also have influenced doctors’ enthusiasm for Essure. For one thing, it takes less time to implant the device than to perform tubal ligation surgery in a hospital. Then there are the reimbursement rates. In 2011 documents created by Conceptus for its sales team, the company estimated that a doctor who inserted 60 Essure devices a year would net $66,747.78, or slightly more than $1,100 per device. By contrast, a physician is reimbursed about $510 by private insurance for surgical sterilization in a hospital, according to Amino, a company that uses U.S. insurance claims data to help consumers estimate health-care costs.

Barbara Levy, vice president of health policy at the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and a former consultant to Conceptus, says the higher reimbursement rate is meant to cover office overhead and the equipment necessary to insert Essure, not to serve as an incentive for doctors to recommend Essure over tubal ligation. But Robinson argues that the rate does present an incentive, “and it’s supposed to.” He believes that the idea behind the Essure reimbursement rate is to steer doctors away from the more costly hospital-based procedure.

The problem with a procedure that reimburses well, Robinson contends, “is that everybody jumps onboard: ‘Oh, I’m going to do Essures and I’m going to pay my kids’ college tuition.’ ” But Essure isn’t appropriate for every woman, he says, and should be inserted only by doctors who understand and can manage the risks.

Like many of the women I spoke to, Angie Firmalino, 45, says that her doctor recommended Essure. Shortly after her 2009 procedure, which she says was excruciating, the Tannersville, N.Y., woman began having constant bleeding and pain. She developed joint problems that she attributes to an autoimmune response and had to have surgery to remove the coils. The operation left fragments behind and resulted in a hysterectomy. She’s still dealing with chronic pain, muscle weakness and blood circulation problems, which she also thinks are autoimmune related.

In 2011, Firmalino decided to start a group on Facebook to share her experiences with female friends. Then, strangers started requesting to join and “telling their horror stories, some worse than mine,” she says. Soon the Essure Problems group had hundreds, then thousands of women. They wrote graphic descriptions of their pain and blood loss, fatigue and weight gain; they posted pictures of their thinning hair and bloated bellies that could be mistaken for marking the weeks of pregnancy. And they shared the stranger symptoms: joint pain, sudden muscle weakness, skin rashes. “That’s when the talk started about what is this device made out of?” Firmalino says. “Then we discovered there’s nickel in the device. None of us knew.”

did not know there was nickel in it
did not ask women if they were allergic to nickel
bodily horror follows

even shitty Etsy sellers tell you when their jewellery contains nickel ffs

seriously
why does it take investigative reporting to find out that these fallopian-tube hosted coils of pain aren't working the way they are supposed to?! "i could pay my kid's tuition with this" not a good answer.

god... horrific

corrosive coils of horror

tooth decay? what the ever-loving hell

when I was partway into the article I was thinking it sounded similar to some of the male contraception options that are being tested that involve plugging up the vas deferens, but those are more of a rubber type of substance and not NICKEL wtf

Cybersex for the win I guess