Birth Control Pill
In August 2021, Emilie Skoog lay on the couch in her parents’ living room, thinking that not a single thing in the world sparked joy. For weeks, the 25-year-old MIT graduate student had been unable to muster enough appetite to eat properly. Instead, she’d spend full days lying in bed,…
Jillian Amodio got her period at 14. When she told her pediatrician that she was experiencing pain so severe she could hardly walk and was frequently vomiting during menstruation, the doctor told her that it might take a few years for her body to “adjust” to having a period. Two…
Alice Queen used oral contraceptives for years, but they caused her “intense pain and swollen breasts all the time,” she says. Eventually, she switched to non-hormonal birth control options. Hormonal birth control like oral contraceptives, the NuvaRing (a vaginal ring) and hormonal intrauterine devices (IUD) work to avert pregnancy by…
Earlier this week, the United States paused the use of Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine to investigate six cases of blood clots, one fatal, that occurred in women within two weeks of receiving the shot. MedShadow reported this in our vaccine side effect tracker article. In a rush to…
Those who have experienced migraines know that they are very different from tension headaches. A migraine “affects not just the head, but so many other body systems,” says Jill Dehlin, an RN and patient advocate who works with migraine patients and struggles with migraines herself. “Somebody with a headache will…
I started taking the pill when I was in college, not as a method of birth control, but because it was the only thing that worked to quell the debilitating symptoms –- agonizing cramps, headaches, and severe nausea –- that accompanied my monthly period. About 10 years ago, I briefly…
Women using hormonal contraceptives –- such as the birth control pill, vaginal rings and hormonal IUDs –- have double the risk of attempting suicide compared to those who never took any type of hormonal birth control, according to a new study. But the risk is both small and short-term. Researchers…
Women who take hormonal oral contraceptive birth control pills are at an elevated risk of being diagnosed with depression and prescribed an antidepressant, according to one of the largest studies to date examining the link. The most popular birth control pills in the U.S. combine two hormones, usually estrogen and…
Using birth control may do more than just prevent pregnancies. New research indicates it may also help to stave off death from ovarian cancer. Researchers analyzed data from the World Health Organization on deaths from ovarian cancer between 1970 and 2012 in nearly 50 countries. Between 2002 and 2012, those…
A University of Nottingham study found that using newer contraceptives was linked to anywhere from a two- to more than four-fold increased risk of developing clots compared to women who didn’t take oral contraceptives. Via Time. Posted May 26, 2015.
Researchers from Harvard University compared 230,000 women who have used birth control pills for long periods of time with women who never used birth control pills. Results showed that if women took oral contraceptives for more than five years, they would have a three-fold increased risk of Crohn’s disease. Via…
The results of a study published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology found that women taking hormonal contraceptives — those containing estrogen, progestin or a combination of both — showed higher rates of a rare brain tumor known as glioma. Via Time. Posted January 22, 2015. –Alanna McCatty
The courts in Canada have certified a class-action suit against Bayer, maker of Yaz and Yasmin with 13 more pending. Class action lawsuits aggregate a number of individual cases into one representative lawsuit. Health Canada records indicate 23 deaths and 600 adverse reactions among women taking Yaz or Yasmin BCPs…
