Is My Birth Control Giving Me Anxiety?

I have been a faithful friend to hormonal birth control methods for over fourteen years now. Mostly oral contraceptives to start, and switching to hormonal IUD’s a little later on. This hadn’t been a significant fact until recently, when I started doing a little digging into my health, and some of the health hiccups I’d undergone throughout my teenage years and now into my twenties.

I was a fit kid, and am currently a fit adult. My job keeps me outdoors and incredibly active, I read over fifty books a year, and I eat well (ish). Apart from occasionally enjoying a glass of vino or being a little heavy handed with my ranch dressing—my life is remarkably uninteresting when it comes to health risks. Why then investigate further into my health, you ask? Well, my friends, because I have show stopping anxiety.

My anxiety first reared its ugly head when I was in my first years of high school. “Bullying, stress of the unknown, and not enough sleep,” were my doctor’s diagnoses. All fair assumptions. But all of those triggers eventually went away, and the anxiety stayed. In fact, there was a long period in my life where I thought anxiety was going to be my mate for life. Fortunately for me (and unfortunately for some—as my parents about my toddlerhood), I have this unshakeable need to ask “Why?” When it was explained to me that my anxiety wasn’t my fault and it was just a misfiring of neurons in my brain, I immediately asked why. Why were my neurons misfiring, why would I need to take medication to remedy this for the rest of my life? Why was my brain broken?

Not satisfied with the answers, or lack thereof, I was receiving from the traditional health model; I started to do my own research. The biggest beef I have the traditional medicine – and that will have to be a whole separate post – is the symptom treatment approach. Traditional MD’s are trained to put a Band-Aid over the sliver, when with just a little digging you could instead remove the sliver at the source. I turned to traditional medicine, healing through food, and good old Google.

As it turns out, I am not alone. Anxiety and depression developing in women of reproductive age is a staggering statistic. Here is a common theory, and one I have tested on myself and found to be true: my birth control is one of the root causes of my anxiety. Hormonal birth control comes with many risks, but have you ever really informed yourself on what those risks are?

Now fret not; I won’t continue on to list the countless reasons all women should consider alternative methods, but I will leave you with some things to think about. The hormones used in these birth control methods are synthetic. What does that mean? It means you are exposing your body, nerves, digestive system, and brain to something man-made every day. Does that fact alone not raise a few questions? And as I’m sure most females are aware—our hormones exist on a delicate seesaw. They ebb and flow for a reason, have you ever wondered what would happen if we suddenly flatted the playing field, for years on end?

After starting my birth control pills, I gradually noticed a feeling of un-well. My energy was low, my mood felt wrong and I couldn’t explain why. Something in my body wasn’t functioning like I knew it should be. This began a battle of self-respect, as I learned to be my own best advocate when it came to my health. Through countless waiting rooms, multiple misdiagnoses, a drawer of prescription medications, eight ultra sounds, more specialists than I have time to mention, and hours of my own research; I can confidently say I’ve figured out a few things.

My brain is in a state of neurotoxicity. Enough synthetic hormones and drugs have poisoned my brain and damaged my nerve pathways that my body has sounded the alarm. My ovarian cysts are another clue as to where exactly this state of emergency originates. The feelings of overwhelm and anxiety in an otherwise logical and completely healthy person is exactly that, my brain raising the white flag. It can’t cope with the overload of toxins any more.

So now what? Put on my tinfoil hat and go live in a cave? Not yet. If you, sweet reader, are to take anything away from this today I would like you to take away this: respect your body enough to get informed. Learn about the things you expose yourself to. Then at least you can choose. Because choice is a human right, isn’t it?

For further reading or resources on this topic please look up some of these links:

Kelly Brogan

Daysy

Science Direct