For many years, I thought the only way to balance my cycles was through hormonal birth control. I struggled for many years with sporadic periods, some lasting a month then I would not have them for a couple of months. This wasn’t abnormal as many of my friends did not have the regular cycle and at the time I thought it was just part of life. I went on hormonal birth control and it caused havoc on my mood and behaviors, I switched to an IUD and I then did not have a cycle anymore. Later in life when I had my cyst I was told the only way to manage cysts was through birth control pills, which I knew I did not want to go on. Looking back I wish I had the knowledge I do now. There is a reason why our cycles are not regular and you need to look at the reason behind it. For some people it’s nutrition, for others it’s lifestyle changes, nerve interference, or something is stressing the endocrine system out and it needs support.
So what does a healthy menstrual cycle mean? It is the creation and maturing of follicles, eggs, and cervical fluid, including production of sex hormones. Oral contraceptives, or birth control pills, stops many of these functions and does not allow for a natural menstruation but rather a “withdrawal bleed” because it does not follow ovulation.
What are the true risks?
I could not write this article any better than Katie Singer so I will let her explain our true risks:
“In The Breast Cancer Prevention Program, Sam Epstein, MD, writes, “more than 20 well-controlled studies have demonstrated the clear risk of premenopausal breast cancer with the use of oral contraceptives. These estimates indicate that a young woman who uses oral contraceptives has up to ten times the risk for developing breast cancer as does a non-user, particularly if she uses the Pill during her teens or early twenties; if she uses the Pill for two years or more; if she uses the Pill before her first full-term pregnancy; if she has a family history of breast cancer.” Thus, a woman who takes the Pill for two years before she’s 25 and before she’s had a pregnancy to term increases her risk of breast cancer tenfold.
A study conducted by the World Health Organization found that women who carry the human papilloma virus (HPV) and who have taken the Pill for five to nine years are nearly three times more likely than non-Pill users to develop cervical cancer.7 (HPV affects a third of all women in their twenties.) Women with HPV who’ve taken the Pill for more than ten years are four times more likely than non-users to develop the disease.
Women who have a history of migraine headaches and who take combined oral contraceptives are two to four times more likely to have a stroke than women who have migraines and don’t take the Pill.
Women who use low-dose oral contraceptive pills have a two-fold increased risk of a fatal heart attack compared to non-users. Women who take oral contraceptives and smoke have a 12-fold increase in fatal heart attacks and a 3.1-fold increase in fatal brain hemorrhage. Women who use the Pill after the age of 45 have a 144 percent greater risk of developing breast cancer than women who have never used it.11
Because of blocked hormone production, women who take the Pill have decreased sensitivity to smell. Because sexual interest is communicated through smell, the Pill may decrease women’s sex drives.”
If you have been impacted or feel like your body is out of tune with you then we need to work on focusing on your diet and alleviating any stress going on with your organs. I’ve worked with many women who have been suffering from PCOS for years and have since been able to get off hormonal birth control and have diminishing effects of PCOS. If you’ve tried everything that you know of to help balance your hormones, yet something still doesn’t feel right or is still off, there is a good chance that you have an underlying cause.