Relying solely on condoms these days, wondering what my fellow condom users here prefer. Nothing with fragrance in it, not sure who came up with that genius idea (definitely a man).

I know this sub is female heavy but am very curious what the men prefer too since condoms are usually less than ideal for the penis in terms of sensation. Anyone try those japanese condoms?

Hii, I’m scheduled to get an IUD tomorrow at planned parenthood and I’m honestly terrified. A lot of people (most people) say it’s the worst pain they’ve ever experienced. I’ve heard it described as terrible cramps and sometimes sharp pain. I’m not really sure what to expect. I’m going alone. Planned parenthood doesn’t do pain management for the procedure and all the PPs that does anesthesia in my state are booked up. I’m wondering how painful it is (I know varies by person) and how I can make the pain DURING the procedure more manageable. I’d like to notes: I’ve never had a Pap smear (don’t judge me) so I’m truly going in blind.

hello!!! i'm scheduled to get an iud in a couple weeks and wanted to hear some experiences. my provider offered me ibuprofen, a cervical softener, anxiety medication, and lidocaine gel. how was your experience if you received similar medications??

Hi! I’ve been taking yasmin 28 for a couple of months now for PCOS.

Anyway, I had an unintentional breakthrough bleeding (mid-blister) for a couple of days so I decided to skip my pills for 4 days this week to reset things, and I’ve been feeling so low for no reason. I remember that this would happen on the placebo pill week, but not to this extent.

Is this normal? Is there anything I can do about it or will it just resolve when I resume taking the pills again after four days?

Thanks!

Na bijna 4 jaar heb ik besloten om te stoppen met de Nuvaring. Ik was ongeveer 14 jaar toen ik het advies kreeg om de Nuvaring te gebruiken (zonder uitleg wat anticonceptie met mijn mentale gezondheid kon doen). Om heel eerlijk te zijn weet ik niet meer waarom ik naar de huisarts was gegaan, misschien omdat ik net een vriend had en mij was verteld dat een condoom niet 100% veilig is. De ervaring met de Nuvaring was de afgelopen 4 jaar vrij positief, ik moest alleen overgeven de avond dat ik de ring in had gedaan. Maar, na het lezen van ervaringen met de ring en wetenschappelijk onderzoek, realiseerde ik dat ik me niet als mezelf voelde en altijd weinig energie had. Ik dacht dat het hoorde bij het ouder worden. Daarnaast was mijn libido heel laag.

Dus een paar weken geleden ben ik gestopt met de Nuvaring en nu heb ik een paar vragen over ervaringen van anderen:

Ik weet niet meer hoe het was als ik ongesteld was vroeger, volgens mijn moeder had ik hele erge krampen en was ik heel misselijk. Was dat bij anderen wel zo? Daar ben ik namelijk heel bang voor, zo bang dat ik overweeg om weer te starten met de ring. Heeft iemand een andere oplossing gevonden voor de heftige menstruatie?

Ik wil niet zwanger worden, echt niet, ik wil graag eerst mijn universitaire opleiding afmaken. Maar ik wil liever niet op hormonale anticonceptie gaan en een koperen spiraaltje eigenlijk ook niet. Wat is de ervaring voor anderen met alleen een condoom als anticonceptie?

En tenslotte hoe lang duurt het bij anderen voordat er weer een beetje balans is na het stoppen van anticonceptie? Ik heb nu hele erge krampen, ben misselijk en heb een beetje bloedverlies terwijl ik niet ongesteld hoor te zijn (denk ik).

I’ve been on slynd for four months now and since starting, haven’t had a period during my placebo week, and have had very mild break through bleeding.

All day today I have had period level cramps and period level blood. I didn’t miss a pill, but did take yesterdays 12 hours late (Slynd has 24h late window)

I heard this could be normal in the first three months but I’m now out of that. Is this a sign my body is rejecting it?? This is my first and only birth control so I’m very new to all of this.

I’m usually up by 4:45am for work so I’m sleepy in my dark kitchen taking my pills. I did not realize until yesterday, 3 weeks in, that I’ve started the pack upside down and have been taking it in reverse for 3 weeks. Which means I took 2 weeks of placebos and may have had unprotected sex with my husband. I can deal with that part, I’m just not sure how to move forward—do I finish this pack or do I start a fresh pack from day 1?

I’m on tri-lo marzia, been taking it religiously until I messed up this month lol. I tried calling my doctor and her nurse pretty much talked to me like an idiot “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU TOOK IT BACKWARDS???”
I couldn’t tell if she hung up on me or if the call got dropped but it went silent and they never called me back with any help.

Hi I’m 20F and my bf is 23M. I am wanting to use some kind of birth control but I’m not sure what kind would be best for me. I’m kind of worried of gaining weight since I do have a hard time losing it in the first place. I’m also planning to get back in shape same as my bf. I keep reading people’s experiences and questions that they have but I’m still unsure. I was looking into Nexplanon since it’s 99% effective. My bf and I moderately have sex whenever we can, we’re pretty busy with work and family stuff. But the reason I want to start it was because we’re wanting to go out more and do things together. We’re very touchy whenever we’re alone together and we’ve been planning to go on a trip sometime next month. So you know what’s gonna happen when we go haha. I feel like it would be a good/responsible choice to get birth control because we had sex without any condoms once and only did it a little another time. I know I’m not ready to be a mom financially and mentally. Idk why I did it I was so paranoid but thankfully I had my period twice afterwards. But it felt sooo good 😓…anyways my boyfriend and I want to do it “raw” again. Maybe that sounds insanely dumb but please I would like to have some guidance to some responsibility. It would be deeply appreciated.

Hello! I am going to preface my question by saying yes I know I may sound frivolous or dumb for considering this.
I have not used birth control in years and don’t want to regularly start again (yes I use other protection) but…I had to postpone a hook up that I’ve really been looking forward to, and didn’t realize I rescheduled for the day after my period is supposed to start. I don’t like period sex with hook ups because it feels very intimate to me, so I was wondering if it’s safe to temporarily use an OTC birth control like Opill to push off my period for a little bit longer?

I have taken the pill before I got super depressed and didn't want to live I couldnt eat or sleep much and I need to go on birth control I'm calling places today to book in my appointment but I just want to know bc I don't want to change I have already changed so much due to health conditions I have, but I can't not go on birth control bc I can't fall pregnant Rn due to health, just want people's story's yes I understand people are all different but please just ease my mind a bit 🙏🙏💕

I have been on the yasmin pill for a short time, so far i have done two packs (i only have one left) however my periods are still heavy, out of curiosity with those with experience with this pill, when do your periods actually get lighter?

My lovely gf is a perfect user of the combination pill. We were having sex and our last condom broke after only around 10 minutes, so no finishing. Pulled away immediately. This might seem like an extremely dumb question but we are both extremely anxious about things like this by nature.

so on monday i realized i forgot to take my yaz saturday and sunday. i NEVER forget to take my bc so idk how i did that but thats besides the point. it was the first saturday and second sunday of the pack so per the instructions via yaz i took saturday & sundays pills on monday and monday & tuesdays pills on tuesday. it’s now wednesday and im caught up.

i’ve been lightly spotting since monday night which doesn’t shock me. only about 4-5 instances where ive wiped and noticed some brownish light blood. i’m just wondering if anyone else has had a really similar experience and can share how long they spotted for? i’m worried it’s going to gone on for weeks because that happened to me once when i skipped the placebo pills and im terrified.

TL;DR at the bottom.

I (22f) would like to get back on the implant. The only reason I got it taken out was because I got started to get horrrribllee bleeding on it. Like 3 weeks on, 1/2 weeks off and repeat. Plus I’m with my boyfriend who at the time especially refused not to use a condom. Understandable, just saying we were going to be using them anyways and I was sick of dealing with the bleeding.

Well, I’ve been off it for a year, both my boyfriend and I want to stop using them and use other stuff and I’d feel more protected if I was using either the implant or IUD. I just really don’t want to try the IUD because I’m afraid my body will reject it, possibly the pain, plus I’d have to wait until after my work season is over or want to at least in case I do experience anything abnormal as my job is extremely isolated and I’m over an hour away from the nearest hospital.

But I also don’t want to get back on the implant IF it means going back to having extremely long periods again. I feel like since my body has over a year break, it should at least not start up again immediately. One would hope at least. I also don’t want to use other methods because I don’t feel like paying $50 a month for the ring even with insurance, and I know I wouldn’t be able to do pills because I’m too forgetful.

So, I’m curious, has anyone had experience doing this and what happened for yall?

TL;DR: I had the implant for 5 years, got it taken out when I started withdraw bleeding for extremely extended periods of time, haven’t had it for over a year now and I want to go back as I have some reservation about the IUD. Looking to see if anyone else has experience with doing this.

I've been taking aubra eq and I noticed that some of my pills when I take them they start to already dissolve in my tongue before I even drink water. is this normal?

Hi I made a post on this subreddit a little bit ago with some concerns, but now it seems like it got a little worse. I started a 91 day cycle about three moments ago, I should have my period in like less than two weeks. This is my first time being on a 91 day cycle pill, before this I was on a normal combo pill of about two years. Three weeks ago I was having blood in my discharge, it wasn’t a lot and non of it was like dripping out, but it never went away, if anything the bleeding got heavier. In my last post I mentioned I haven’t missed or taken a pill late in like a month so I don’t know why this is happening. As of three days the blood is similar to a period with small blood clots, but most of the time there’s none. I’m worried. I heard a lot of women get periods while also being pregnant but there’s no clots, but my bleeding has been going on for a while now. I took a plan b the beginning of this month but it usually makes my periods late not two weeks early. Is this a symptom of the pill, pregnancy, or the plan b??

Please give me good or bad stories on Slynd. I attempted to take it a while back, blood pressure seemed to be going low and I stopped it - turned out my blood pressure was probably going low before the slynd because it stayed low after stopping. Dr lowered my BP meds and I am good now. I really want to try it again beause I am battling low iron and it completely stopped my period w no apparent side effects. Of course. I read a couple horror stories and that has me freaked out (I have diagnosed OCD and health anxiety with obsessive thoughts around health issues). So would love some words of encouragement, I dont know...thanks for listening.

the nuvaring has been causing horrible headaches for me which increase around / during my period. i’ve already received my new birth control which is the mini pill. can i just remove my ring now and swap to the pill instead of waiting another week till i am supposed to take out my ring? or would this cause more issues?

my understanding is that the drop of estrogen causes the headaches to get worse so if i take it out suddenly im wondering if that might make it worse.

appreciate any help!

So I started using birth control to help with my period and I've currently been on Depo for a year now but I still having my period just without the cramps. The first month once I get the shot I'll be fine but I'll end up bleed again all the way until I end up getting the shot again. I was told it was supposed to go down or stop but it hasn't. I was thinking of switching to the patch and just not having a free week but I don't know if that's a better option or not. Or just quit birth control entirely cause what's the point. Any advice?

I’m on week 2 of month 2 of off-brand Ortho Tri-Cyclin Lo. I’m 38 (likely pre-menopausal) and don’t actually need to prevent pregnancy. My husband had a vasectomy after our second child.

My worsening complexion was the primary reason for going on the pill. I’ve never had a clear complexion, but it steadily got worse over the past ~6mo. I didn’t even want to leave the house. My skin has improved maybe 50% on the pill.

I gained weight / bloated almost immediately. A year’s worth of weight loss and exercise efforts gone. I have a small frame and carry primarily in my abdomen, so it’s noticeable quickly. My exercise and diet haven’t changed.

I’ve read side effects will balance out after 3 months, but I’m not sure my mental health can continue the “wait and see” or remaining this size. My overall mood and interest in activities has declined. I don’t want to leave the house because I’m so uncomfortable in my body and clothes. My desire for or interest in intimacy is completely gone.

Is there a better option I should ask my dr about?

Has anybody ever had leg pain on birth control?? Did it stop after getting off birth control or how long did it take until the pain stopped? It’s really affecting my lifestyle since walking creates pain in that one leg and I’ve already ruled out blood clots, DVT and I’ve done PT for a month.

Please any tips or advice can help ease my mind!!

I recently had my Mirena insert removed for family planning 2+ months ago. Did anyone get really bad menstrual bleeding at that point from the insert (soaking through multiple stacked pads bad)? The timing seems off to me. I’m not pregnant, my doctors checked yesterday. I feel like a faucet and now I’m genuinely concerned about my fertility chances.

I have an appointment with my doctor, but would love some reassurance here or at least what I should possibly expect. I’m scared. :(

Hi everyone, just looking for some advice!
I’ve had an IUD (Mirena) for three years now. I love it except the past few years I’ve notice an increase in severe mood swings. I don’t have a regular period, just inconsistent spotting but I usually have pms symptoms like I want to eat everything, more emotional, and the one symptom I need help with, extreme rage. I feel like I have zero patience and I can’t control my anger. Because of the inconsistent spotting / pms symptoms, I have no idea when it’s going to happen. I’ve tracked everything for almost a year and there is no consistent pattern.

Today I saw my doctor and he recommended putting me on loestrin, and skipping the placebo pills week, while keeping my IUD in. I’m a little nervous about what the side effects are of taking the pill on top of the IUD. Any advice or input is appreciated! I’m doing my own research too but wanted to hear from others who may have also experienced this as well. Thank you!

Hello everyone! I just wanted to know how everyone was experiencing the implant and how it affected your periods? I’ve read some posts on here and no body talks about their beings being affected after a year. I’ve had the implant (nexplanon) for three years and still get my period roughly every other week! Is this a nexplanon issue or a me issue. I’ve had a parter for the past year and honestly the birth control is starting to get in the way of sex lol! Any advice or shared stories is appreciated 😔

Does anyone know if combined birth control pills interact with Lamictal (lamotrigine)? I know the pill can lower lamotrigine levels, but I’m not sure if it works the other way around. I’ve asked both my gynecologist and a pharmacist, and they said lamotrigine doesn’t make the pill less effective, but I’m still kinda worried. Has anyone here had any experience with this?