Back in May, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new form of birth control called Lybrel, which eradicates a woman's period! Yes ladies, you heard me correctly. If you're game, you would never experience those dreadful symptoms of PMS ever again (or at least until you stopped taking the medication) -- which researchers are saying could be a huge positive in all aspects of women's lives. According to new research cited by Lybrel’s maker, "menstruating women feel less effective at work and take more sick days". But then there is the topic of money spent on birth control in America, a whopping $1.7 billion annually to be exact. Some are asking if it's even worth it.
So ladies, what's your take on this subject? Do you have a period that effects you so strongly that you would want to banish it from your life all together or is there something almost comforting about getting your period that makes you want to keep it around every month?
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Miriam Ocariz
I don't like getting my period, but it makes me feel like everything is all right with myself, and I'm not guessing if I got pregnant. I've been taking the pill for almost 8 years, and it has helped me to diminish the symptoms we do get with PMS or even when I'm getting my period. Lot less fluid and very comfortable. Sometimes it reminds me the privilege we as women have to give birth...
1Make it stop! I feel absolutely terrible the week before I get mine and the week of. That's 2 weeks out of my month! When I was little I used to think that I should grow up to be a doctor to figure out a way to make it stop.
2i have been on the pill for 11 years because of my period (i would get it like 2 X a month for 10-11 days, really!). a side effect of being on the pill, makes me VERY sensitive to the sun. if it doesn't have the sun sensitivity side effects, sign me up now.
3I had horrible periods for 12 years (until I got pregnant with my daughter) and have been having periods every three weeks since she was six weeks old, despite breastfeeding her exclusively, but I'm against stopping them entirely. I guess you could argue that my body's chemistry is already f***** to hell, but the idea of messing with it artificially still makes me very nervous. How can we possibly predict what the long term effects of something like that would be? We've already discovered that HRT for menopausal women, which was believed to be entirely beneficial, increases their risk of developing certain cancers.
4As much as i can sometimes be uncomfortable when I'm having my period, it makes me feel like everything is working properly. I've been on the pill for 3 years and it has made it so I can easily predict when my periods will be, for exactly how long, and with hardly any PMS symptoms. I'm all for keeping it!
5i'm with you Dayln! The pill makes me feel in control and it's a nice reminder that if i'm worried i'm pregnant, i won't have to wait more than 3 weeks to find out. but that's just me.
i can see that for other women with more extreme cases of horrid periods, that it would be a relief. I think each woman has to make an informed decision about what's best for her body. if not having periods again will help her, then who am i to say that it's wrong?
6Oh, gosh, for it. Get rid of that.
7I am all for stopping it. I admit I only really have a hard time on the first day of my period but I would rather not have one at all. I need to get on the pill.
8When birth control pills were first formulated, doctors realized right away that we had the power to stop the monthly period. However, they figured that would freak women out so they developed the 21 day on, 7 off cycle so that women would still have their periods.
So this isn't a new form of birth control really, it's just taking the same stuff you've been taking without a seven day break. And for those people worried about "artifically" stopping your period- if you're on BCPs you're already stopping ovulation. There's no medical function to having a period if you're on BCPs.
Our great-grandmothers had 150 periods in their lifetimes (because they were pregnant a lot more often and started menstruating later). In contrast, we'll have almost 450 periods. I'm all for having way less than 450 periods over my lifetime.
9im for getting rid of it.
10i'm fortunate in that i haven't had to deal with painful or irregular periods, but i think there's something physiologically wrong with getting rid of our periods all together. it's the time of the month where our bodies clean itself out and to do away with it, i think, could harm women in the long run.
11there's still that 1% chance of being pregnant even on oral contraceptives. so yeah, periods are like a confirmation that, no, you are not pregnant. and even though periods are such a pain for me, it's just a relief to know that everything's working fine. but yeah, like facin8me said, because older generations spent more time being pregnant, they did have less periods. but still. i'd rather let the stuff come out instead of staying trapped in.
12I have a question for facin8me. what exactly are BCPs?
and also, i am against it. It just seems like too much changing nature, braces and plastic surgery are one thing, but this just gives me a feeling like it's a dangerous experiment with mother nature.
besides, MY PERSONAL period problems aren't that bad, no cramps, no huge mood swings.
13idk bout the drug it just seams like it would mess someone up to change something like pms
14as much of a pain getting my period is, it makes me felell like i'm healthy and everythings working.i would be hesitent to stop it..isn't it something that has to happen.
15I really don't like it but I also like knowing that it's there and I'm not pregnant, ya know? I'm on the pill and at least it comes when it is supposed to. That's all I can ask for.
16i dont like getting my period, i hate it but the fact is we're girls and we're made this way and surposed to have them its us and its natural. taking these kind of things have been proved to mess up ur system and can prevent u from getting pregnant ever again. i just think that things that start messing up ur cycle is bad news and unnatural. much as i h8 it i dont think we should b doing this stuff that could in future affect us from having kids and things .
17as much as I'd like to stop the monthly hell, I feel that tampering with a natural process is too delicate of a subject to be taken lightly (especially in my body). We might not yet know all the benefits of menstruating and all the potential negative side effects that could come with stopping it artifically...
18I personally prefer going thru it every month over becoming a guinea pig for these gigantic pharmaceutical companies...
You have to be careful when stopping your period. I Have endometriosis so my doctor had me take birth control non stop. instead of taking the sugar pills i would just start a new pack. Well this of course stopped my period. But i also gained 25 pounds in a year and then one day just got my period and it didn't stop for two months. I had to stop taking my pill wait a week and then start again and it finally stopped. So from then on i had to take them non stop for three months and then take the sugar pills for a week and then start again. Just be careful it can mess up your system and can ruin a whole summer
the two months i had my period non stop was
July and August.
19"taking these kind of things have been proved to mess up ur system and can prevent u from getting pregnant ever again"
Hills: this isn't true. Women have been doing this since the 1960s without any effect on their fertility. This is just normal birth control, you're just taking it without a break from hormonal pills.
flickster: BCPs = birth control pills
20i didnt mean it can happen for everyone, i have herd and read stuff where taking and preventing u from getting ur period can affect ur systum and somtimes prevent some people from having kids. thanx for the info tho. im weary of this kind of thing just in case it does happen.
21i dont love my period at alL!! but i went a year or so without it.. and i just like having it to know that everything is "good" that im not pregnant... and that its all going well.. and besides my period only last about 3 days anyways.. soo its really not that bad at all... i can defiantly deal with 3 days... and when i get it its like ahhhhhh ok safe for another montH!
22The main positive about getting my period is not that I'm not pregnant!! I just think I would be paranoid all the time if I didn't have a period on a regular basis.
23I agree with MANY of you. Periods are annoying, but no matter how much we hate it, they clean out bodies out and are beneficial.
24Periods are only beneficial to your body if you're actually ovulating. If you haven't ovulated, there's nothing to "clean out." If you're already taking birth control pills (or patch, or ring, or depo), then you actually don't have a period anyways- you're just bleeding.
Some initial research shows that you are actually less likely to get pregnant if you are taking birth control full time compared to the stop start method.
25Having a period does not "clean out your body." Your uterus doesn't completely empty out. And, when you are on birth control, the "period" you have each month is not the same as the period you'd have if you were ovulating. When you don't ovulate, the uterine wall does not build up in the same way. You bleed each month but the composition is different. While I understand that many women prefer to have a monthly period as a check for pregnancy, there is no medical purpose to menstruating. None.
26Get rid of it! Period be gone!
27I want to get rid of it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't even have a hard time at all, usually no cramps or anything like that. It is just so much trouble though, I have much better things to do with my life than to have to waste time taking care of THAT. As to being natural, there are very few things people actually still do naturally these days, why is one more such a big deal? I do have a question though, Ive never been on birth control and so I don't know how it works. So if this "new" kind is really the same pill as people have always been taking, except before, people just took it on and off, then is it possible to take it on and off just not as much as with the "old" pill? So you could still have your period if you were worried but you would get to decide how often you have it, as in, much less often then the on/off way people take it usually? Also, doesn't the pill keep your body from going through the process of getting ready for a baby? So if your on the pill you don't need to clean your body out because there should be nothing to clean out? Is that right? Sorry I don't know much about this and I was just wondering. :-/
28Muirnea- this pill is the same low dose estrogen birth control that people have been taking for years.
And you are correct in saying that the pills keeps your body from getting ready for a baby so you don't need to "clean out" your body because there is nothing to clean out.
29As much as my period is uncomfortable, I feel reassured that my plumbing is functioning correctly when I get it. So I'll pass on this pill!
30Thank you facin8me!
31thought i hate getting my period, but i also like the reminder that everything is going ok down there and i'm not preggos.
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