Blog of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research

Yaz and Yasmin Back in the Spotlight

May 9th, 2013 by Elizabeth Kissling

Guest Post by Holly Grigg-Spall, Sweetening the Pill

Last year the FDA made the decision to keep the birth control pills Yaz, Yasmin, and Beyaz on the market despite controversy over corporate corruption of the review process.These drugs are back in the spotlight.

The French health minister has called for doctors to stop writing prescriptions, 2,000 lawsuits against Bayer launched in Canada last month, and Marie Claire Australia dedicated five pages to an in-depth feature about the side effects, instigating an investigation by the country’s top current affairs show Today Tonight.

Bayer has gone about settling the 13,000 lawsuits in the US out of court, likely with the hope of keeping the details of confidential files regarding marketing techniques and research out of the public eye. Unperturbed by mounting reports from women of the myriad health issues caused by their products, the company launched Yaz Flex in Australia at the end of 2012. The first oral contraceptive on the Australian market presented as being for the purpose of preventing periods, Yaz Flex comes in a digital dispenser that records how many pills have been taken and alerts the user when she’s missed a dose. There are enough tablets to allow for just three breaks a year. In the US in April the FDA, equally unperturbed, ruled that pharmaceutical company Activis can start selling generic versions of Yaz, providing a low-cost version of what has been the most expensive oral contraceptive of recent years.

The feature in Marie Claire Australia generated 300+ comments on the magazine and television show’s Facebook pages. Many of the commenters were women who had developed blood clots when taking these brands. Some had made the connection at the time and others made the link only as a result of the coverage after months or years of not knowing why they had endured the injuries. Some of the women were presently experiencing the symptoms of a blood clot mentioned in the show and made the decision to stop taking the pill as they typed.

The piece was written by a long-time member of the Yaz and Yasmin Survivors forum and balances interviews with women who suffered the serious physical side effects with those who have been victim to the serious psychological side effects. I’m among those who experienced a long list of negative physical and psychological effects when taking Yasmin for more than two years and it was this forum that prompted me to stop taking it.

Monash University in Australia is one of the few facilities to have undertaken research into the correlation between birth control pills and depression. Professor Jayashri Kulkarni found that women on the pill were twice as likely to experience depression, anxiety, and mental numbness (known as anhedonia). The Yale Daily News reports that in the wake of her research receiving a little media attention Dr Kulkarni received more than 300 emails from women “clearly describing when they went off the pill that they felt subjectively more happy. The anhedonia, for example, disappeared, the irritability disappeared, the sense of poor self esteem disappeared”.

She is now focusing her attention on researching what she believes to be the particular psychological impact of the Yaz brands, those pills containing the synthetic progesterone drospirenone and low-dose synthetic estrogen.  Continue reading...

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Posted in Birth Control, coming off the pill, Pharmaceutical | 1 Comment »

Little Girls! Just Say Yes to Your Dreams!

March 18th, 2013 by Chris Bobel

Seen this one yet? (or the (eerily) related “Birth Control on the Bottom“?)

We posted “Sassy Girlz Candy Birth Control Pills” (written by Carissa Leone in 2011) in our regular installment Weekend Links on Feb 2. I had a mixed reaction. And when a couple re:Cycling readers described the video as “nasty,” I knew we needed to dig in a bit.

Let’s discuss.

There’s something very absurdly funny about eating birth control, even if the women are still tweens and the birth control is merely mulit- colored jelly beans intended to get young girls in the pill-popping groove before they are saddled with a baby and an half-finished high school education.

First of all, women CAN eat their birth control, donchaknow… Warner Chilcott brought to market their chewable, spearmint flavor oral contraceptive, Femcon Fe, for women who have difficulty swallowing pills and apparently, find stopping for 30 seconds to swallow water.

But I digress (I guess I just want to be clear that we are ALREADY munching our pills).

It is hard not to love how this sketch takes down the pandering to the girl tween market. Oh lordy. There’s so much potential there! (one estimate figures that kids aged 8-12 years are spending $30 billion OF THEIR OWN MONEY and nagging their parents to spend another $150 billion annually!) Little girls quickly move from Disney to diets, from fingerpaint to fake eyelashes, from tutus to belly shirts…..I have seen it with my own girls and it feels, frankly, like an inexorable force.

Viral sketch writer Carissa Leone graciously replied to my questions regarding the piece. When I asked her what inspired her, she channeled her Women’s Studies training (go team!) and supplied her two main reasons:

(1) “I saw a little girl on the subway,holding a baby doll in one of those pretend baby slings…and I thought, “If only she really knew what motherhood was like. I wonder if anyone has explained the authentic experience. I wish she were carrying a briefcase and reading a teeny issue of Ms. magazine instead… “

AND

(2) “The idea that women can/should have it all, in terms of relationships and families and career still seems to be put forth as a tangible (and”correct”) goal in Western culture. It’s a pressure I and many other peers feel, and one that I don’t think is truly possible, or necessarily awesome.”

And Big Pharma takes a hit, too, per the spot’s director, Brian Goetz, who offered this when I asked him about what led to the sketch:

“I wanted to do the video because the script spoke so well to the branding of pharmaceutical commercials, where no matter what the product, as long as you say there’s a problem and that you have the solution, throw some happy people and fun b-roll in it, you’ve got a successful campaign. On top of that, it’s always fun to legitimize terrible ideas in sketch comedy. And if that means having multi-colored jelly bean birth control pills, all the better.”

But I think there’s more to it that that.

Why do I find myself laughing and crying at the same time? Well, I just finished my advance copy of Holly Grigg-Spall’s forthcoming Sweetening the Pill  or How We Became Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control (out this Spring with Zero Books). In it (and here as well, on this blog), Grigg-Spall makes the case the hormonal contraceptives have become so normative that we, as consumers, permit an imperfect (at best) product to flourish even while other options may be more appropriate. The one-pill-fits-all mindset is so pervasive and bores in so deep, so young, Grigg-Spall argues, that when someone says, ‘hey! I don’t want to be on the pill,’ these—what she calls “pill refugees” — are hastily branded as irresponsible, antifeminist, or just plain dumb. That is, the pill gets constructed as our savior, our liberator, our saving grace, even when its not.

And that’s where this spoof enters….since the pill IS all these things, let’s get those girlies on board NOW! Why wait? Good habits start young, after all. And product loyalty is not just for toothpaste and laundry detergent….

And so, “Sassy Girlz Candy Birth Control Pills” is super smart feminist critique. It calls out the enduring wrongheadnessness of romanticizing motherhood and co-opting what I would call a tragically hollowed-out pseudo feminism harnessed to push product:

  • Little girls playing Mommy is cute, and kinda bullshit!
  • Its never too early to teach little girls about options!
  • She’ll know that birth control means winning a college scholarship

Yup. There’s lots of problems with that. Thanks to the feminist satirists to help us see.

But I have to say one more thing.

Leone and I discussed (what I consider) the unfortunate below-the-belt invocation of gender dysphoria to as she put it, “most absurd, heightening beat” in the sketch (here’s another, more recent example of same, on SNL). I don’t think trans or gender queer or otherwise gender variant people should ever serve as punchlines, as I told Leone so in our email exchange. When I inquired about this moment in an otherwise spot-on sketch, she said that is was never intended it as a negative perception of transgendered kids. But still  it is, and I think it points with a big fat finger at how much work we still need to do to move trans issues from margin to center.

Let’s push forward without leaving anyone behind. Let’s laugh at feminist satire that avoids (even unintended) transphobia. Let’s keep our targets clear and our allies clearer. Let’s say YES to that dream, for real.

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Posted in Advertising, Birth Control, Communication, Film, Girls, Health Care, Humor, Independent Film, Internet, Language, Media, Pharmaceutical, Pregnancy, Reproduction | 4 Comments »

I am a pro-choice menstrual cycle advocate

January 9th, 2013 by Laura Wershler

As 2013 begins, I give thanks to each and every one of my colleagues at the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research and all my blogging buddies at re:Cycling. Without them I’d feel left out in the cold.  

Are menstrual cycle advocates left out in the cold? Photo by Laura Wershler

I’ve been a menstrual cycle advocate since 1979 when, during a year of post-pill amenorrhea that totally freaked me out, I began to research the ill effects of hormonal contraception. It is not an understatement to say that reading  Barbara Seaman’s national bestseller Women and The Crisis in Sex Hormones changed my life. It started me on a path of self-discovery, and commitment to the idea that healthy, ovulatory menstruation is integral to women’s health and well-being. If you don’t know about Barbara Seaman and her work in women’s health activism, please read about her.

My menstrual cycle advocacy took what could be considered a counter-intuitive path. I aligned myself with the pro-choice sexual health community, committed to comprehensive access to sexual and reproductive health information, education and services. I’ve been as much a contraception and abortion rights advocate over the last three decades as I’ve been a menstrual cycle advocate. But I was a successful user and ardent advocate of the fertility awareness method long before I became a board director at the pro-choice Calgary Birth Control Association in 1986. I went on to serve 10 years on the board of Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada and worked for six years as executive director of Planned Parenthood Alberta, which became Sexual Health Access Alberta in 2006. I’m currently on the board of Canadian Federation for Sexual Health, the former PPFC.

I stress my pro-choice credentials because I think I’m often suspected of being anti-choice. Surely any woman who advocates for healthy, ovulatory menstruation and speaks out against the health concerns inherent in hormonal birth control methods must be anti-contraception and anti-choice. I am neither. More broadly, I’ve written and talked a lot about the value of body literacy for women’s health and well-being.

I wonder sometimes why I’ve stuck it out with the pro-choice sexual health community. While many have been open to my ideas, I have seen little effort to learn about the health benefits of ovulatory menstruation or acknowledge the need – let alone act – to better serve women who want to use non-hormonal contraception. It’s frustrating to be a lone voice, but I keep talking.

It took me over 20 years to find the community that serves and appreciates my menstrual cycle advocacy. I attended my first Society for Menstrual Cycle Research conference in 2005, and that’s how I came to belong to this diverse group of academics, medical professionals, researchers, activists and artists committed to advancing knowledge and awareness of the menstrual cycle. We come from different perspectives, we ask different questions and we focus on different aspects of women’s menstrual lives. But we all hold true to the same idea: #menstruationmatters.

Menstrual cycle advocacy can be lonely and oh so frustrating. Chris Bobel’s recent post about how difficult it can be to help others make the menstrual connection included this quote from me:

Caring about menstruation and the menstrual cycle makes me almost a freak in the pro-choice world. I get ignored or criticized a lot because people don’t want to ask or answer some of the questions I keep trying to pose about choice around non-hormonal contraceptive methods. 

Thanks to SMCR and re:Cycling, I’m not going to stop asking hard questions, or challenging the ignorance and avoidance that many in the mainstream sexual health-care community demonstrate when it comes to ovulation, the menstrual cycle and fertility awareness. I’ll keep chirping and chipping away.  Continue reading...

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Posted in Activism, Amenorrhea, Birth Control, Communication, Health Care, Menstruation, Ovulation | 15 Comments »

I’m fed up with birth control propaganda

October 17th, 2012 by Laura Wershler

Birth control in the U.S. has become synonymous with drugs and devices. The pill, patch, or ring; Depo-Provera or hormonal implant; copper IUD or Mirena IUD; traditional hormonal birth control or long-acting reversible contraceptives. All impact the function of the menstrual cycle; some suppress it completely. As a pro-choice menstrual cycle advocate I take issue with the fact that keeping your cycle and contracepting effectively are now considered mutually exclusive.

A widely published Associated Press story tells us that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists now recommends hormonal implants and IUDs as the best birth control methods for teenagers. The research this recommendation is based on did not even study pregnancy outcomes for women using condoms, barriers, or fertility awareness methods. These methods were not among the free contraceptives offered to study participants. Another story reported that ”the new guidelines say that physicians should talk about (implants and IUDs) with sexually active teens at every doctor visit.” This sounds like a hardcore sales pitch to me. I expressed my concerns about pushing LARCs on teenagers in a previous re:Cycling post.

Drugs and devices also figure prominently in Switching Contraceptives Effectively. New York Times health writer Jane E. Brody writes about the mistakes women make when switching between birth control methods that can result in unintended pregnancies. The reasons women switch are explored and a link to a resource on how to switch methods successfully is provided.

The Reproductive Health Access Project developed the pamphlet to help women prevent gaps in contraception when they change methods. The premise is a good one:

What’s the best way to switch from one birth control method to another? To lower the chance of getting pregnant, avoid a gap between methods. Go straight from one method to the next, with no gaps between methods.

But the pamphlet developers made the huge false assumption that all women just need or want to try another drug or devise. It focuses ONLY on these method — how to switch from the pill to Depe-Provera or the copper IUD, or how to switch from the Mirena IUD to the progestin implant. Condoms and barrier methods are considered useful ONLY for the transition period between drugs and devices. Fertility Awareness Methods are ignored completely. The resource comes across as propaganda for drug- and device-based birth control methods.

Neither Brody nor those behind the Reproductive Health Access Project seem to understand that this approach contributes to the unplanned pregnancy rate by failing to acknowledge that many women are fed up with contraceptive drugs and devices. These women want support and information to switch away from these methods. They are falling though the contraceptive gap created by this failure.

Is it any wonder that some women stop using their contraceptives without talking to their physicians? Maybe they are fed up with doctors like Ruth Lesnewski, education director of the Reproductive Health Access Project, who offers trite admonishment that side effects ”will go away with time” and insists that caution about using long-acting methods like the IUD or hormonal implant is “outdated.” Real health issues are associated with all these methods. I guess Dr. Lesnewski doesn’t read health blogs where women document their frustration about side effects and dismissive health-care providers.

This article places blame for contraceptive failure on women not knowing how birth control works, instead of where the blame really belongs — on the blind spot that keeps sexual and reproductive health-care providers from seeing, and serving, women who are sick and tired of drugs and devices.

As for the ACOG recommendation on the best birth control methods for teens? It’s just a step away from coercive, patriarchal decision-making by doctors for teenage girls, and a threat to the sexual agency of many young women.

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Posted in Activism, Birth Control, coming off the pill, Health Care, Menstruation, Pharmaceutical | 25 Comments »

Could use of the pill be linked to insulin resistance?

October 3rd, 2012 by Elizabeth Kissling

Adapted from a photo by anna marie-grace // CC 2.0

The pill is one of the most intensely studied drugs in history, and believed to be among the safest – safer than aspirin, as an editorial in the American Journal of Public Health noted twenty years ago. Yet young women seem to be quitting in droves, for a variety of reasons: to restore feelings of psychological and emotional health, regain lost libido, relieve cardiovascular symptoms and disorders, or ease anxiety about these or other health issues.

When women report these side effects of birth control pills, physicians often recommend they try another brand, but many of these side effects are common to hormonal birth control, especially oral contraceptives. A new study published this month in Human Reproduction suggests there may be yet another common side effect: Researchers in Finland found that oral contraceptives may worsen insulin sensitivity and are associated with increased levels of circulating inflammatory markers.

The study was very small and ran only for a short time, so drawing conclusions is premature, but since the beginning of the year, I’ve been following several online discussions of young women quitting the pill. Although I have yet to see development of Type 2 diabetes or insulin resistance cited as a reason to quit the pill, I have seen such a variety of health issues and medical problems described that this study caught my eye immediately. Current estimates indicate that 12.6 million, or 10.8 percent, of all U.S. women ages 20 years or older have diabetes (diagnosed and undiagnosed). Could it be related to their birth control? Perhaps in those already genetically predisposed.

Research from the Guttmacher Institute indicates nearly 60% of pill users take it for non-contraceptive reasons, such as for cramps or other menstrual pain, menstrual regulation, acne, endometriosis, as well as for prevention of unintended pregnancy. Fourteen per cent of US pill users (more than 1.5 million women) take birth control pills solely for non-contraceptive reasons. If the Finland study proves to hold true for larger groups over extended periods, there’s another reason to be more cautious prescribing the pill.

 

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Posted in Birth Control, coming off the pill, Health Care, New Research | 10 Comments »

Hormone Imbalance: Breaking the Silence

September 5th, 2012 by Elizabeth Kissling

Guest Post by Leslie Carol Botha Women’s Health Freedom Coalition Coordinator, Natural Solutions Foundation

I still remember the first Society for Menstrual Cycle Research Conference I attended in Tucson, AZ in June, 1999. The statement that made the most impact was the collective concern that in ten years there might no longer be a menstrual cycle. It turns out the truer words were never spoken.

In the past 40 years, the pharmaceutical industry has spewed out and packaged and repackaged so many synthetic hormone contraceptives – pills, injections, and implants that virtually eliminate the menstrual cycle.  It also amazes me that in the 30 years I have been involved with the women’s health movement condoms and spermicide are still the safest and most effective contraceptive on the market.

However, a new trend is emerging as condoms and birth control pills are being pushed on the back burner because of ‘human error’. Women and men are not always diligent or careful about condom use, and many girls and women forget to take their pills.  What is now being prescribed to adolescent girls – whether or not they are sexually active — are implants and injections. Health considerations are not taken into consideration, nor are hormone levels. Somehow the pharmaceutical industry still views this as a one-size-fits-all prescription for all women, no matter their age of their state of health.

Menstrual cycle advocates are most aware that birth ‘control’ is about control…controlling the woman’s body with potentially harmful synthetic hormones. What has been overlooked are education and natural methods of fertility awareness.

While our focus recently has been on the politics of birth control, another ugly monster has reared its head and that is the silent epidemic of hormone imbalance. Not only is this the result of taking synthetic hormones for birth control but our environment, our foods, and water supplies are filled with estrogen mimickers upsetting the delicate orchestration of hormones in our bodies.

Another concern is the excess estrogen stored in women’s bodies and passed on genetically to their offspring.  It is possible that their children are hormonally imbalanced at birth.

Either way, the damage has been done. I believe we are at the tip of the iceberg in this silent epidemic and that hundreds of thousands of women are being misdiagnosed and over-prescribed. In most cases, thyroid imbalance is not considered as a cause of depression, and the prescribed fix is generally Prozac or a higher dose of synthetic hormones.

In 2009, I posted an article to my blog, from eHow editor, Shelly Macrea titled: What is Hormone Imbalance?, a very informative article and probably one of the first pieces for a general audience on the myriad of conditions that hormone imbalance can cause.

At the time I had three responses (with an average of 30,000 unique visitors a month.) In June of this year, another post on the article (which by this time was buried in my archives) appeared from a woman suffering anxiety due to hormone imbalance. And then another post appeared and I decided to bring the article out of the archives and re-post it. What ensued was a steady stream of women commenting on almost a daily basis on their extreme anxiety and depression and the myriad of misdiagnosis and drugs they were prescribed. I am posting the link here so that others can read what I believe should be of concern to all of us: Hormone Imbalance Anxiety, A Precursor to Other Health Issues.  Continue reading...

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Posted in Birth Control, coming off the pill, Hormones, Pharmaceutical | 1 Comment »

Coming Off The Pill: A Mind Map Guide

March 7th, 2012 by Laura Wershler

Everybody can use a good map to help them get to where they’re going. Why not women heading to the land of non-hormonal contraception?

In my post on January 11, 2012 I asked if coming off the pill was a growing trend. I proposed to write a series of posts about the issues associated with the decision to stop using hormonal birth control.  For the purposes of this discussion assume that “coming off the pill” refers to quitting any method of hormonal contraception including the pill, patch, ring, shot, implant or Mirena intrauterine system.

As I was preparing a list of possible topics, I realized that one way to represent the complexity of issues involved in this decision is with a mind map: “a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea.” It also occurred to me that readers could then add to this schematic, filling in important points based on personal or professional experience. So I got out my colored markers, did a little brainstorming and came up with Coming Off the Pill: Mind Map 1.0. I invite readers to comment, offering additions under the key headings I’ve noted and suggesting other categories that should be included.  Could this become a talking, planning or process guide for women considering the transition to non-hormonal birth control methods?

If you’ve thought about or been through the experience of quitting hormonal contraception, or if you’ve helped others through the experience, please contribute to the development of Coming Off The Pill: Mind Map 2.0 by posting your comments and suggestions. (I’ve already thought about other headings I could have included.) Besides providing me with a guide for writing future posts, what other ways can you imagine this mind map might be used?

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Posted in Activism, Amenorrhea, Birth Control, coming off the pill, Communication, Dysmenorrhea, Health Care, Hormones, Menorrhagia, Menstruation, Ovulation, Pharmaceutical, PMS, Reproduction | 10 Comments »

What’s missing from Mother Jones’ birth control calculator?

February 22nd, 2012 by Elizabeth Kissling

Source: Public Domain

In response to Rick Santorum’s recent assertion that birth control only costs “a few dollars” and therefore there shouldn’t be such a big fuss about denying insurance coverage, Mother Jones published a birth control calculator this week that estimates your lifetime costs for birth control, based on your current age. The calculator asks you to enter your age and then select your preferred method. Options include the pill, IUDs, Implanon, injections, the patch, the vaginal ring, and surgical sterilization. (It doesn’t specify sterilization for women or for men, but given the context of the current debates, I’m assuming the calculator estimates only the cost of female sterilization.) It also fails to take into account that, in reality, most women use more than one method throughout their reproductive years.

Now, I know that aside from the cost of reference books, charting supplies, and perhaps a course or two to get started, using Fertility Awareness Methods is free, but condoms and spermicide aren’t. And as NPR reported on Tuesday, it can be difficult or inconvenient to get those methods covered by health insurance. Diaphragms and cervical caps aren’t cheap either, and they both require physician visits to be properly fitted. Diaphragms last a long time, but they do need to be replaced every few years. It’s been a while since I needed one, but I’m pretty sure that my health insurance covered the cost of my diaphragm, although I had to pay out-of-pocket for the accompanying spermicide gel. In my student days, I got both at my school’s Student Health Center, covered by the student health insurance fees that we were required to pay whether we used the student health center or remained on parental insurance.

I’ve written before about my bewilderment at the diaphragm’s disappearance, but I’m increasingly frustrated that the current political debates about the pill are contributing to the apparent erasure of all non-hormonal methods of birth control. The pill has become synonymous with birth control in some quarters, without consideration of the profound implications of that swap for women’s health.

I am not opposed to the pill, by the way. I want it to be available, I think it should be covered by health insurance, and I want it to be safe. But I also want women to have complete, accurate, accessible information about all of their birth control options. And let’s get all of them covered by health insurance.

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Posted in Birth Control, magazines, politics | 1 Comment »

The pill, reduced period pain and the ongoing delusion

January 20th, 2012 by Laura Wershler

Is there a woman over the age of 18 anywhere who doesn’t know that taking the birth control pill can make her periods lighter and less painful? Most women know this, but not many know why. The news stories swirling around a new study about the pill and period pain will not enlighten them.

Photo credit: Ceridwen, Creative Commons 2.0

A 30-year longitudinal Swedish study has finally proved the worth of what is accepted practice in North America and Europe: the prescribing of combined oral contraceptives (COCs), or birth control pills with synthetic estrogen and progestin, to treat painful periods known clinically as dysmenorrhea.

Of course, pharmaceutical companies that manufacture COCs are probably eager for this research, as prescribing the pill for dysmenorrhea is still an off-label use in the U.S. (unlicensed use in the U.K.). Pill manufacturers may be able to use this finding to lobby the FDA (or equivalent agencies in other nations) to approve the pill as treatment for menstrual pain, leading to increased sales and insurance coverage. Perhaps that’s why news media have been treating this discovery as breaking news.

Take this headline: Yes, the Pill CAN ease the agony of period pain: Scientists confirm what millions of women already know, or this one: The pill ‘does ease period pain’, or this one: Combination oral contraception pills cut menstruation pain, or, really, any of these.

You can read the abstract of the study by Swedish researchers Ingela Lindh, Agneta Andersson Ellström and Ian Milsom, published this week in the journal Human Reproduction, here: The effect of combined oral contraceptives and age on dysmenorrhoea: an epidemiological study. The conclusions are simple: “COC use and increasing age, independent of each other, reduced the severity of dysmenorrhoea. COC use reduced the severity of dysmenorrhea more than increasing age and childbirth.”

Forget the age factor for the purposes of this discussion. The fact that COC use reduces the severity of dysmenorrhea is not astounding. This is old news. So says Dr. Steven Goldstein, an obstetrician/gynecologist at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, quoted in a USA Today story:

“The study results are not surprising. It’s gratifying to see researchers documenting scientifically what practitioners have been seeing for a very long time. The amount of discomfort from a woman’s period with a combination birth control pill is a fraction of what it is without the Pill. There is a diminution of pain from the Pill.”

What is astounding is what Dr. Goldstein, and other OBGYNs, didn’t say in responding to the study. That the reason the pill reduces menstrual pain is because the synthetic hormones in the pill shut down a woman’s own menstrual cycle. The “period” women experience when on the pill is technically known as a “withdrawal bleed,” brought on by seven days of placebo pills. While it feels like a period to menstruators, it is not the same physiologically as the period they experience when NOT on the pill. That’s why it doesn’t hurt as much.

The point is, the pill is too often credited with regulating the menstrual cycle. It does no such thing. The pill does not regulate any woman’s menstrual cycle; it supercedes it. This research, and the many news stories that reported it, once again ascribe power to the pill – this time the power to cut menstrual pain. This is an incomplete truth.

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Posted in Birth Control, Communication, Dysmenorrhea, Health Care, Menstruation, New Research, Pharmaceutical | 6 Comments »

Is Coming Off the Pill a Growing Trend?

January 11th, 2012 by Laura Wershler

The Internet abounds with articles, posts and forum discussions about coming off the birth control pill. Women are looking for information and advice. Many are trying to get pregnant, others are just done with hormonal contraception.

It’s a topic that interests many of us connected to the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research (SMCR) because of

Created at an a menstrual arts and crafts event, Andrea, 25, said this piece depicts the multiple emotions she feels around menstruation. Photo by Laura Wershler

how the pill and other forms of hormonal contraception impact the menstrual cycles of the women who take these medications. Some of us are experts in menstrual cycle function and dysfunction, most are advocates for healthy, positive menstrual cycle experiences from menarche to menopause.

A recent blog post at nomoredirtylooks.com on the topic of quitting the pill caught our members’ attention.  Re: Cycling blogger Elizabeth Kissling included the post in Weekend Links on November 19.

A young woman in Paris was looking for advice and comments from other blog readers about how to manage the effects of coming off the pill. Siobhan O’Connor, the blog co-editor, shared Paris girl’s story with a graceful, inclusive invitation to readers:

There’s no judgment—implicit or explicit—on anyone who is on or has been on birth control pills. Some people love them, some people have to take them for medical reasons, some people abhor them. Here, we want to talk candidly about what happens when you go off them. Because, whoa. That can be hectic.

The post drew over 80 comments, with a few coming from SMCR members. What struck me was how many women:

1)  had already ditched the pill or were planning to
2) expressed a desire for the return of regular, normal menstrual cycles
3)  were concerned about their skin (it often breaks out after quitting the pill).

SMCR member, endocrinologist and guest blogger Dr. Jerilynn Prior answered the concerns about acne and bad cramps in a comment posted on November 22, and included a link to Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research website where readers can find information about all things related to menstrual cycle health.

Holistic Reproductive Health Practitioner Geraldine Matus, another member, commented on November 26 that it was concerns and experiences like those expressed by posters that prompted her and colleague Megan Lalonde to write the guide: Coming Off the Pill, the Patch, the Shot and Other Hormonal Contraception.

I invited No More Dirty Looks readers to visit this blog to learn more about the menstrual cycle and the issues raised by their online discussion.

Regular visitors to re: Cycling know that we cover a broad range of topics, but bloggers frequently address hormonal contraception as it relates to women’s health issues.

Check out this sampling from the re: cycling archive:

Several of the women who responded to the Paris girl post at nomoredirtylooks.com expressed eagerness to reclaim healthy, ovulatory menstruation and a willingness to learn how to  manage their fertility without the aid of hormonal contraception.  Continue reading...

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Posted in Birth Control, Health Care, Menarche, Menopause, Menstruation, Ovulation | 6 Comments »

Yaz, Yasmin and Ortho Evra patch increase risk of blood clots

December 14th, 2011 by Laura Wershler

Blood clots are a serious, if rare, side-effect of hormonal contraceptives. If left untreated, clots can lead to debilitating, or fatal, strokes. The increased risk of blood clots in users of some hormonal birth control brands has been the subject of several recent news stories.

In early December, Health Canada asked Bayer Inc. to change the labels on Yaz and Yasmin, two of the most popular birth control pills, because use of the drugs is linked to higher rates of blood clots.

According to a November 2011 story at cbc.ca/news, health problems associated with these two drugs include stroke, deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism and heart attack.

The concern surrounds the progestin – drospirenone –  used in Yaz and Yasmin. Although promoted as being associated with less bloating and clearer skin than other progestins, drospirenone is also associated with a “1.5-to-three fold increased risk of experiencing a clot compared to women using other birth control drugs.”

What this means in real terms varies from study to study, but one study led by Susan Jick of Boston University found the rate of non-fatal blood clots to be 30.8 per 100,000 among women taking Yaz or Yasmin (the only drugs containing drospirenone) compared to 12.5 per 100,00 among those taking pills containing the older, more common progestin levonorgestrel.

In related news this past week, advisers to the FDA recommended that Johnson and Johnson revise the label on its Ortho Evra birth control patch to better explain the risk of blood clots. Use of the patch has been associated with a higher rate of blood clots for several years. Publicity about the clot risk has no doubt contributed to a 50% decline in sales in the last five years. The formulary problem with the patch is its higher dose of estrogen compared to other pills.

The FDA advisers also recommended more detailed description of blood clot risks for Yaz and Yasmin.

What caught my eye in both stories were the take home messages from those requiring these label changes to women using these drugs.

Health Canada said women should talk with their doctors about the risks and benefits of taking drospirenone-containing oral contraceptives but did not urge women to stop using Yaz and Yasmin.

The FDA’s reproductive health advisers “voted 19-5 that the benefits of the weekly Ortho Evra patch outweigh its risks, including a potentially higher risk of dangerous blood clots that can cause heart attack, stroke and other life-threatening problems.”

I want to know why the five FDA panelists opposed to this decision think the benefits of the patch DO NOT outweigh the risks.

These news stories beg the question:  Should women be concerned enough about the increased blood clot risk associated with Yaz, Yasmin and the Ortho Evra patch to stop using these brands?  If you take these drugs, are you concerned?

If adverse publicity about blood clots resulted in a sharp decline in sales of the Ortho Evra patch, we should expect to see a similar decline in sales of Yaz and Yasmin.

The cbc.ca article reports that the family of a Toronto woman, who died of a large pulmonary embolism after taking Yasmin, has filed the first individual civil suit against Bayer Inc. in Canada. It also states that “more than 10,400 individual lawsuits related to the two pills have been filed in the U.S.”  Not to mention the class action suits related to these drugs currently in progress in both countries.

One thing is certain, the litany of stories about the adverse effects of hormonal contraceptives is not about to end anytime soon. Stay tuned.

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Posted in Birth Control, Law/Legal, Menstruation, Pharmaceutical | 3 Comments »

Does the Pill cause prostate cancer?

November 16th, 2011 by Laura Wershler

Of the growing list of reasons why women might want to reconsider using birth control pills, this could well be the strangest.

Researchers at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto published a study on Nov. 15  in the BMJ Open Journal in which they found a “strong correlation” between the use of birth control pills and the incidence of prostate cancer worldwide.

One of the possible explanations of how the two are related is the potential impact of the estrogen compound – ethinyloestradiol – that women using the pill secrete in their urine. It has been speculated elsewhere that these endocrine-disrupting substances could end up in our drinking water or get into the food chain.

The Pill, introduced in the 60’s, has been widely used for decades. The study suggests that exposure to these substances over 20 to 30 years could have a clinically significant effect. Researchers said further study of this link is needed.

In 2010 the media was full of stories marking the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill. The Pill at 50: Sex, Freedom and Paradox, rang the headline of a Time Magazine article by Nancy Gibbs. Could rising rates of prostate cancer be part of this paradox?

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Posted in Birth Control, Health Care, Men, New Research | 3 Comments »

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