Problem finding right birth control

[mspersia82]

Hi people,

I've tried several different birth control pills so far including Ortho-Cept, Ortho Tri Cyclen, and Ortho Tri Cyclen Lo and they all gave me bad side effects. The past few years I've been having a low sex drive but when I was on the pills it was even worse and I absolutely never wanted to have sex at all. Also, I was very emotional on them and would cry for the silliest little things. When I went off the pill, the mood swings went away so I'm quite sure they were from the pill. The first two pills I mentioned gave me terrible yeast infections every month and when I got medicine for the yeast infections and the yeast infections cleared up I would get BV and then yeast infections again and the cycle would continue. It was terrible.

I really need to find a reliable birth control that does not have all of these side effects. I am too scared to have sex w/o using two forms of BC. Condoms work fine but I need a second method because I can't take any chances of a pregnancy happening. I know that there are many pills out there but I'm just wondering if some are better than others at not giving the symptoms that I mentioned above. I can't take one with lots of androgens because it will give me terrible acne which really affects my self esteem. Does anyone know a lot about specific birth control pills? Is the monthly shot lunelle just as bad as the daily BC pills when it comes to symptoms? How about the Nuva Ring or the patch? I know that they are all hormonal methods so I'm thinking they all may give similar symptoms like those that I got from the pills but I'm not sure exactly.

[LittleFury]

You really gotta talk about this with a doctor, the doc would be the best person who could help you with this. If for some reason he or she refuses and doesn't seem to be trying to help, get another doc.

[lixme]

Hormonal birth controls usually have side effects.
Lunelle, the Patch, and the Ring have no long-term studies out yet but researchers assume similar side-effects as those associated with the pill.

[Brandye]

Your problem is far from rare. Some women find the side effects of all hormonal systems to be not worth it. You say you want to use two forms of birth control. The condom plus a spermicide (jelly, foam, film, suppository) yields about the same effectiveness as the hormonal systems. That is, if 100 sexually active women use both every time for a year, three will become pregnant.

You are probably getting friendly with your gyn at this point and able to talk about most anything. The IUD is underused and quite effective. That approach got a bad rap with the Dalkon Shield in the US. In Europe, that device was never distributed. There are a few variants available most anywhere. No hormones involved; even easier than remembering a pill and no effect on the endocrine system. There are drawbacks but you should dicuss this with your physician.

[mspersia82]

Thank you everyone for replying. I've been to the doc many times now and we've gone over many pills and looked at the levels of hormones in each to try to figure out what would work for me. Finally I was put on Ortho Tricyclen Lo because it is a very low dose pill but even that was too much. The solution the doctors have seems to be to try putting me on different pills and trying to find one that works but I can't keep just trying pills AT RANDOM and having the same result. It's making me miserable.

Brandye, see I do already use condoms with my bf but it's not enough. In the past, an ex bf gave me chlamydia even though we used condoms every time and only had sex a few times. The condoms never broke when we used them but I still got the disease so I don't trust condoms entirely. I can't take that 3% risk of getting pregnant. I know that pills are supposed to have less than 1% of failure if you use them the right way so I'm looking for something comparable to that failure rate that I can use with the condoms. I will look into the IUD and ask about it when I go to my doctor this week but I heard that it can cause lots of infections and UTI's which I am already susceptible to getting so I'm worried about that.