My Experience With Contraception | Girl Talk

**DISCLAIMER: I am NOT a doctor, nor have I studied anything medical - everything in this post is to do with my personal experience and I understand certain things react differently to certain people. If you are triggered by anything to do with weight gain/loss and anxiety,depression or self harm then please also don't read ahead. I wouldn't wish that upon anyone. If you are grossed out by periods then you probably won't want to read ahead either (I assume no guys will be reading this anyway but I wanna just cover my ass!) I'd also like to clarify that I am not posting this for any means of attention, I just want to share my experiences with you incase you are going through similar things, or not sure what choices to make regarding contraception. Obviously, I'm not saying anything is medically proven and I totally understand we are all different! All contraceptives I have mentioned are linked on the words themselves if you wanted to know specifically about them**


I've been debating this post for a while now. It may not be the nicest of subjects, but I figured I've had a lot of experience with different contraceptives since a very young age (10 years to be exact) Yes, I was 12 and no, I was not a rampant sex-fueled teen! Like I said in the disclaimer, I just want to put this out there to see if it could potentially help someone, maybe even to hear your experiences too!


Where it all started..

When I was 10 years old, I experienced the dreaded day that no girl wants to face - their period. Yes, I'm not kidding when I say I was 10. It happened when I was in Year 6 and I totally freaked out when I went to the toilet and had an unexpected surprise. Obviously my mum had a lot of chats with me prior to this as she was also an early starter, however I didn't think I would fall into the period category before I'd even started secondary school.

Since starting my period, it has never been an easy ride. I can remember the day it happened at school not knowing what to do and crying on the toilet because I didn't feel emotionally and physically prepared, let alone developed enough for this to be happening. The rest of that year was pretty much one big blur, but all I do know is that I've constantly struggled with heavy periods. Lucky me.

Trying to get things under control..

When I was 11, I was bleeding so heavily that I'd be leak almost every hour or so - whether that be during the day or in bed. I was actually getting scared to move or leave the house. It really was draining and so embarrassing, especially when all I was trying to do was lead a normal life going into secondary school.

Obviously I wasn't alone and I was fortunate enough to be able to tell my Mum everything that was happening, without feeling the slightest bit judged. When the bleeding got non-stop for too long, I ended up booking in to see my doctor. After a chat about what had been happening, they told me if was just my bodys way of 'adjusting'. So, as you can imagine - I went away trusting her opinion and leaving with exactly the same issues.

I went back a week or two later and this time, I was prescribed with some tablets (I have forgotten the name of) to try and help temporarily stop the bleeding.  After finishing the course and praying for some kind of a miracle, they did nothing. I was then prescribed with another course of tablets and yet again, they did zero.. nada. I was so frustrated and just begging for some kind of break. I kept thinking to myself, well if the doctor can't help me then WTF?!

More tablets and fainting.

Next, I was prescribed Tranexamic Acid. Again, this was only a temporary fix and as we were going away on holiday to Spain and all I really wanted to do was to be able to go swimming and just enjoy the time away without bleeding. (At this point, I was only about 12 years old and I was too scared to use tampons, so that wasn't an option) but you've probably already guessed it.. they didn't work. I think the last tablet calmed my body down for maybe a few hours and then all hell broke loose again.

When I was 13, I became so Anaemic from all of the blood loss that I went through a phase of fainting. Once was in the shower, another time I had just (luckily) got out of the bath. The worst time was in the middle of Sainsbury's when woke up under a till. True story. Smacking your head on a till whilst unconscious and then waking up on a freezing cold concrete floor surrounded by trolleys, let's just say it was mega awks.

Fun fact: When I went for an interview there a few years later someone asked me if I was 'that girl' LOL.

Doctors appointments and bombshells. 

I was getting fed up by this point and enough was enough, so when I went back to the doctors. I went through multiple checks to try and see if there was a deeper issue; however, besides the anaemia there was nothing wrong. I had all of the gross internal checks you can possibly imagine and then an option was thrown my way that I was not expecting - The Pill. I was really reluctant to this idea because although I didn't have to tell people I was on it - I still thought people would label me a slut or think I was on it for all the wrong reasons incase they found out. The doctor suggested this may help get my periods back into a regular routine so she prescribed me with 3 months of Microgynon as a trial.

Microgynon sent me to hell and back?

Now, the next part some of you may really sympathise with as this pill put me through utter hell; however, I do know people who are on this and love it.. Everyone is different! This is just my personal experience with it.

By this point, I was about 14 in Year 9, a fairly important year as I needed to choose my options for GCSE's. I was almost 2 months into Microgynon and I had started to notice I was gaining weight and eating so much food (to the point where I'd actually get bullied about it). Worst of all, I was sinking into the deepest depression and what I can only describe as feeling physically insane. I used to burst into tears randomly for no reason whatsoever all the time. I'd have some really bad thoughts and did some pretty terrible things to myself I am really not proud of. If that wasn't happening, I would just go totally crazy at someone if they asked me a simple question. This was NOT me at all. If you know me, you'll know it takes a lot for me to get angry or shout at anyone.

This carried on for what felt like forever until I hit a very dark time. I was extremely vulnerable, I let a lot of bad people into my life, started to turn my own parents against me and I was making so many bad decisions - if I'm completely honest and forgive me if this sounds incredibly far-fetched but some days I just felt like I wanted to die. A lot of bad things happened in that year which quite frankly, I wish I could erase from my memory - I'm just glad they are over now. Maybe the pill wasn't fully to blame for me going off the rails, however it certainly didn't help my mental state of mind. The only good thing to come out of that pill was that it was keeping the cycle under control.

More Trial & Error.

My mum came with me to the follow-up appointment after the 3 month trial and the doctor did confirm to me it was the pill causing me to feel that way. I'm was relieved because it confirmed to me I wasn't a crazy person, yet I was angry that the doctors could give out something that could react so terribly with certain people. I'm sure I'm not the only one?!

After much jargon I did not understand, I opted to try 3 months of Cilest. I don't really remember a lot about this pill apart from that I started to feel normal in myself again. However, I still had an increased appetite, if not worse than before and I was getting pretty painful breakouts.

Trying out Yasmin and stopping the pill. 

By this point, I must have been nearing 15. The doctor's next choice for me was Yasmin. I wasn't feeling too positive about this one, considering my experience with the last two weren't exactly the best. It just became the norm to experience faults with one pill and move onto the next. 

This time, I only got a month trial. A month went by and I was loving it! I don't think I had any side effects at all. I sailed through for a year and a half on Yasmin until one day, I decided I wanted to try and come off it to see if my periods had regulated. The first few days looked promising (normally when I was on my 'week break' from the pill before, I'd bleed less than 24 hours after stopping) so this was a bonus. After about a week I started again. It was worth a try I guess? I left it a few weeks to see if it was just my bodies way of settling down but after a month it was too annoying to persevere. 

Poorly or the pill?

Around the time I left school, I was starting to go to interviews for jobs and college. I started taking Yasmin again randomly to get back to normality (on the day of an interview funnily enough!) and the more the day went on, I felt more nauseous. The next few days after that I would be sick, each time would be in the morning but it just so happened to be around 30 minutes after taking the pill. This kept happening for about a week, I thought I just had a stomach bug or something and I was reluctant to blame it on the pill after I had got on well with it for so long. Again, I stopped taking Yasmin and sure enough, the sickness stopped! It's so strange how you can get on well with something for so long and then suddenly it can have the adverse effect.

Steering away from the pill. 

I went back to the doctors after what felt like the millionth time and by this point, she decided to give me some other contraceptive options to look at. As the pill was giving me a normal 1 week out of 4 period, I liked that. But after getting really sick from the previous pill and often forgetting to take it, I looked at trying something else.

I decided to go with The Implant. The whole procedure was actually fairly painless, the only part that hurt was the needle to numb your arm. I gave this a few weeks to settle down after the Docs instructions and guess what? It didn't work. If you're not aware, The Implant is a 3 year thing and you do have the option to get it taken out whenever you like, I'm just not sure it's advised. 

What next? 

My doctor decided to put me on the pill AND the implant. This time, I had a very long chat with a different doctor about all the previous side effects I'd had from different pills and she looked up the best one to meet my needs. Obviously, no-one could be certain I would get any problems on it but I just had to trust her and give it a go. 

This time, I was on Femodene. Now this was about to change everything. I thought taking that and being on the Implant would react horribly with my body because it's technically double the hormones, turns out it was absolutely fine. I don't recall any side effects besides the odd period pain or sweet craving. I didn't gain weight, if anything I lost a lot.

Getting the Implant removed and impulse choices. 

I waited the full 3 years to get my Implant taken out as it wasn't causing any issues, and I think getting it removed was much more unpleasant than it going in. I could have sworn I felt the whole thing?! I was told when it was taken out that it had actually moved quite significantly up my arm and that it was lucky I was on the pill too because it could potentially mean I wasn't protected! Eeeek.

I stupidly thought I'd try out The Patch because I'd heard some friends saying it was good! The Injection or Coil didn't appeal to me at all. There are certain parts of your body you are allowed to put the patch and you have to change it once a week. I personally hated it! It was SO sticky that it actually ripped off skin when you removed it, it got fluff from your clothes all around the edges and the ends felt like they were going to come unstuck. I didn't really trust it either - although it's supposed to be 99% effective, unless I'm physically swallowing a pill, I don't feel like it's working.

So, what now?

I am still currently on Femodene and have been since I was 18. I have no troubles with it whatsoever. Although it's a pain to try and remember a pill each day, you get used to it! My periods are the lightest they've ever been, it's not making me gain weight and I'm happy :) It took a lot of hassle to get to where I am today but I'm so glad things have finally gone right! I really recommend it.

 So there you go, that's my whirlwind of an experience! Have you been through anything similar? 

Please let me know in the comments!

Tania x