INVITATIONS:

→ check out The Fertility Files [secret podcast] (including my cervical mucus episode): https://www.karindawholistix.com.au/secret-podcast-fertility-files

In this episode of Oh My Menses, I share what I want every woman to know about coming off hormonal contraception (the pill, Mirena/Kyleena, Implanon, injections, and more), because it’s rarely as simple as “stop taking it/get it out of you, and fertility returns immediately.” I break down how these options work (ovulation suppression, thicker cervical mucus, thinner uterine lining), explain why the first bleed can be a withdrawal bleed rather than a true period, and why cycles can take months (or longer) to regulate —especially if you originally went on contraception for symptoms like acne, heavy bleeding, painful periods, PCOS, endo, migraines, or mood issues.

I also talk about common post-contraception experiences (irregular cycles, acne changes, weight changes, libido, and mental health effects), plus the deeper boundary & identity changes some women notice.

TIMESTAMPS:

01:39 Red Blazer Energy

02:31 Free Cycle Tracking Guide

04:34 Why This Matters Now

06:29 How Hormonal Contraception Works

09:00 Cervical Mucus and Fertility

14:12 Withdrawal Bleeds and Return Cycles

17:41 Myth of Cycle Regulation

23:03 What to Expect After Stopping

25:05 Root Causes and Period Pain Map

35:45 Common Symptoms After Coming Off

39:25 Mental Health and Identity Shifts

49:35 Support and Next Steps

52:05 Wrap Up and Goodbye

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hey there. Welcome back to another episode of Oh My Menses. I'm your host, Karinda, women's health naturopath and menstrual cycle and fertility educator. Thank you for clicking or tapping on me today. Today I got some things to say about the journey that entails when we're coming off hormonal contraception.

The pill, Mirena, Implanon, injections, the rod, whatever you wanna call it. Some things happen when we take these things out of our body or when we stop taking these things regularly. And, it's kind of portrayed as just this, uh, this thing like, [00:01:00] "Yeah, just stay on it until you're ready to come off it." And, uh, well, I feel like that's the best-case scenario.

Sometimes you're pressured to stay on it, even if you feel like you don't wanna be on it. Um, but it's usually like, "Yep, stay on it until you're ready to have a family, and then, yeah, you come off it, and you'll be good to go." And that's is rarely the actual story that I have heard occurring in the women that I work with, and even in myself.

So I've got some things to say about what to expect when you're stopping hormonal contraception. Now, you might be wondering, "Karinda, you seem overdressed. Why are you wearing a red blazer?" And my question to you would be, why aren't you wearing a red blazer?

I do feel grossly overdressed, um, for a podcast recording. But you know what? All I can [00:02:00] say is that, my astrology chart includes a Libra sun, a Libra moon, and a Libra Mercury, and a Libra north node, and a Libra Chiron. And I don't choose the clothes, the clothes choose me. And this is what was chosen today.

So it's giving a little bit of boss babe. It's giving a little bit of like polarity, in charge, authority, who is she kind of energy. And you know what? We're here for it. Before we get stuck into it, I would like to invite you to download my free cycle tracking guide because if you are planning to come off hormonal contraception or if you already have, and say you were taking that hormonal contraception for a long time, chances are you probably haven't had a regular menstrual cycle in quite some time.

And when that cycle starts to come back online, it can be a bit of a rollercoaster [00:03:00] ride. That rollercoaster ride is in part due to the fact that we were not, in, in terms of standard ed- education, we were not really taught about menstrual cycles well. You're told that you get a period, and that's it. You can use pads or tampons, and you get a period.

Do, do, do, do, do, do, mm. And somehow the period is what enables you to be fertile, you know. They connect that line, but it's all pretty loosey-goosey. So I made the cycle tracking guide to give you a really thorough understanding of exactly what a menstrual cycle is made up of, what is happening in your body through each phase of the menstrual cycle, because there is not just the period.

There are three key distinct phases that are happening between each period, believe it or not, including the main event of our cycle, ovulation, that tends to get overlooked or just brushed off or totally neglected. And ovulation [00:04:00] is the target of a lot of these forms of hormonal contraception. So that's a really handy-dandy tool that I made for women like you in mind to really get to know what's happening in your body, what a period is, why it happens, and how to support yourself throughout the whole menstrual cycle journey.

So wherever you're watching or listening to this, You can find the link for that in the description below or around, depending on where you. are. That'll be a great foundation for a part of the journey that this episode is gonna cover. So what to expect when coming off the pill or taking out the Mirena. I really felt called to talk about this 'cause I had a bit of an influx of clients who were wanting to come off the pill or had just come off the pill.

And there were also some conversations happening with people in my inner circle, um, about having the Mirena or Kyleena IUD in, [00:05:00] and they've sort of got it on their radar to start families, like not right now, but maybe in the next couple of years. And the IUDs are, um, the, the hormonal IUDs, I should specify, not a copper IUD.

But the hormonal I- IUDs are effective for, you know, around five-ish years. And you go in for a replacement, and generally they will ask you, you know, if you're planning to conceive, if you're planning to start a family, and if so, when that is. And, uh, someone that I knew said, "Oh, yeah, like I'm due to get another Mirena inserted, but, I do wanna start trying for kids in the next couple of years."

And they spoke to the doctor about it, and the doctor was like, "Yeah, yeah, no, that's fine. You just take it out. Just take it out when you're ready to have kids." And I'm now actually just thinking of another person who had that journey recently and, had a little bit of trouble after having the IUD [00:06:00] removed when they were ready to start a family.

And I wanna come in here and clarify some things and give you a more realistic but still hopeful idea of what to ex- expect when you're stopping these things because unfortunately, it is not as simple as, "stop taking the thing when you want to stop taking it, and your fertility will be reinstated immediately."

It is just not how it works. So let's understand a bit about how these contraceptive options work in the body. If we're looking at the pill, and I am generalizing the pill, you know, there's lots of, especially these days, there's lots of different kinds of pill. There's the combined oral contraceptive pill.

There's the mini pill. There's different formulations. Some include, different forms of the hormones, and if you're not watching the video, I'm saying that with [00:07:00] quote unquote because they're not really hormones. So what's in these pills, on a foundational and general level, is what we call an analog to your natural hormones.

It's not a form of your natural hormones. It's not identical to what your body, your own ovaries produce. It's a synthetic form. And it provides a level of this hormone lookalike in your body to such an extent that the menstrual cycle that generally occurs on a regular rhythm gets shut down by suppressing ovulation.

So ovulation, the main event of your cycle, it's when a r- uh, an egg is released from one of the follicles in one of your ovaries Ovulation is the reason we have periods. You know, sometimes we ask, "Is it the chicken or the egg?" In this case, [00:08:00] it's the egg. The, the egg gets released, and then approximately two weeks later, you will experience your period if fertilization hasn't occurred.

These drugs work by making sure that ovulation gets inhibited.

So how it works as a contraceptive is that if there's no ovulation, there's no opportunity for a sperm cell, should a sperm cell find itself inside your reproductive tract, there's no opportunity for that sperm cell to fertilize an egg because no egg was released. In terms of the IUD, it works in a similar way, although it doesn't suppress ovulation in everyone.

In some cases, it will, the, the, the amount of hormone that's released can suppress ovulation, But the mechanism of action that they are more so known for is that it prevents sperm cells from fertilizing eggs because it changes cer- the cervical mucus. It makes cervical mucus thicker so that sperm actually can't penetrate.[00:09:00]

Now, what I find... Side note, what I find so interesting about that is that this is, like, a well-known way that this very common form of contraception works, right? This is for the Mirena, also the Kyleena, so you know, IUDs. So cervical mucus is acknowledged in this context as being able to prevent pregnancy, but I don't see it being spoken about in different contexts in terms of its role in promoting pregnancy and how important that is for people who are struggling with fertility.

So side note, on my fertility arc, I am creating a secret podcast called The Fertility Files. One episode in particular that is about to be released is, or depending on when you're watching this, has been released, is all about cervical mucus. This is like a gold mine of beautiful tidbits in regards to cervical mucus.

And I just find it, I just find it [00:10:00] a little bit ironic that- A mainstream conventional medicine contraceptive device works by thickening the cervical mucus to prevent sperm from getting in. But in doctor's offices, in the same offices where these IUDs are being prescribed, the conversation, the, the flip side of that conversation is not happening.

The importance of cervical mucus tracking in terms of achieving pregnancy is not being discussed. So I'm trying to correct that over on The Fertility Files. So if you're interested, if you're trying to conceive, if you've got babies on the brain, if fertility is one of your goals, highly recommend you check that out.

The link for that will be below. So yeah, that's how the IUD works, um, primarily compared to the pill. The IUD also prevents from the synthetic hormone that it releases, um, limits how much your uterine lining can thicken each cycle [00:11:00] so that it's actually not thick enough. There isn't enough blood supply there.

It's not getting thick enough. So say an egg cell was to be fertilized, if the first barrier didn't work of, like, the thicker cervical mucus, if a sperm cell did get through your cervix to your uterus and fertilized an egg cell, that embryo wouldn't be able to implant itself into your uterine lining, which is where an embryo grows into a fetus, into a fully formed baby.

So we've got thicker cervical mucus with the IUD. We've got a thinner uterine lining, so implantation isn't possible. And then in some cases, we have the, the prevention of ovulation. . And I'm actually just reading now that a major decision has changed so that for the Mirena, the duration of use for contraception has been extended from five to eight years.

That happened in 2024. Interesting. I'm skeptical [00:12:00] about that, but I'm not gonna go too much into that here. So that's how those main forms of contraception work. They inhibit ovulation generally, they block your menstrual cycle, or they change the quality of your cervical fluid, change the local tissue in your uterus to not be suitable for pregnancy.

Now, there's kind of two cases that I see in my work. There are cases where people go on these hormonal forms of contraception purely for contraception. They are in sexual relationships. They do not intend to fall pregnant. They want to avoid pregnancy, and so they're using that because they, they, they've decided it's the most convenient contraceptive for their situation.

In other cases, I-- and in fact, I would say in more cases than not, I work with women who have ended up on some form of the pill or an IUD [00:13:00] in for, let's say, two to 12 years because of a symptom that triggered an investigation, that led to a diagnosis or didn't lead to a diagnosis, but ended at the recommendation to go on the pill or to insert the IUD. Now, in either case, whether it was purely for contraception or whether it was for the management of a health condition or symptom, and usually it's irregular cycles, heavy bleeding, painful periods, acne, it's PCOS, it's endometriosis, it's uterine fibroids, it's ovarian cysts, I mean, I- I've, I've

It, it's m- menstrual migraines. There are so many reasons. It's depression. There are so many reasons why you may be prescribed a contraceptive pill or an IUD. If there's any degree of hormonal [00:14:00] interplay in the symptom that you're experiencing or the condition that you have, that's pretty much the frontline treatment in terms of a, in terms of how a conventional, mainstream medical, healthcare approach

So in either of these cases, it's possible that you stop taking the pill or you take the IUD out, and within the next month you get a period. You might get an initial period, um, as soon as you stop the pill or as soon as you get the IUD taken out. That is not, uh, a tr- what we would call a true menstrual bleed.

That is what we would call a withdrawal bleed. You've had this degree of hormone in, present in your system that has been keeping your uterine lining intact. That threshold is no longer there, and so the uterine lining cannot hold itself, and so it sheds and you get bleeding. It's not a true period because [00:15:00] ovulation didn't happen two weeks earlier.

So that's what happens in some women. They get the first withdrawal bleed, and then they get their period, you know, about a month or so later, and it's like, "Oh, that's my period back." Also, in both cases, there may be instances of women getting that initial withdrawal bleed and then no other bleeding for a long time, whether it's a couple months, half a year, a whole year, more than a year.

It's possible for both cases. The thing I probably see more clinically, and dare I say this would be reflected in the statistics, I'm not quoting any statistics, but this is just my guess, is that the women who went on it for purely contraception, if they had regular cycles and healthy periods to [00:16:00] begin with, and they just went on it for contraception, it's more likely that their regular cycle will be reinstated normally within one to two months after stopping the pill, removing the IUD.

In those other cases where they were prescribed the thing to control a medical condition or manage a symptom, especially if that symptom pertained to their hormones, to their fertility, to their periods, That's where I more so see that kind of delayed return of the natural cycle. Because in those cases, the pill or the IUD being presented as the treatment option for whatever the symptoms were, again, period pain, heavy bleeding, PMS, PCOS, acne, that treatment was not addressing the [00:17:00] root of what was going on.

That treatment was merely a form of symptom suppression. By turning off the menstrual cycle, by suppressing ovulation, you do not get the same peaks and troughs of hormones that you would get in a natural menstrual cycle. If those peaks and troughs of hormones are a part of the reason that symptoms are getting intensified, that symptoms are presenting themselves in the first place,

the logical thing in a m- mainstream medical mindset is to, well, turn off those peaks and troughs of hormones with a pill that kind of suppresses it. I am so sorry if you were told that the pill or the IUD regulates your cycle. I was told that when I went on the pill when I was 14 years old. 90% of the women [00:18:00] that I work with, including 90% of the women that I know in my own life who went on the pill, went on the pill with the belief, with the understanding, that it was regulating their cycles.

It was regulating their periods. This is not what's happening, and I cannot make this more clear. This is where I get fired up and amped up because I find this to be a really opportune area, a really opportune circumstance, where prescribing doctors can get lazy with their explanations to patients. "Okay, so what does this pill actually do?"

"Uh, it, it'll regulate your cycle and lighten your periods." "Oh, okay." Well, it's not regulating your cycle. It's turning off your cycle. It is suppressing your cycle. So you won't be releasing eggs, and the bleeding that you [00:19:00] do experience, if any, if you take breaks, if you take the sugar pills, or you don't just continue on to the next active pill packet, and you get bleeding, that's not a true period.

That's a withdrawal bleed. This is the stuff that I wish I knew when I was put on it at 14. This is all, this is the stuff I wish all of my patients knew before coming to see me. And by golly, I'm so happy to have the conversation with them, and I'm so happy to bust this m- these myths, but it is heartbreaking at how little we understand about this so commonly prescribed medication.

And I'm actually just gonna look up some statistics now.

Okay, so a trend between 2011 and 2020, there was a decreasing trend in condom and oral contraception use. So condoms were 63%, oral contraception was 27%. Whilst there was an increasing trend in the use of long-acting reversible contraceptives [00:20:00] such as the IUD, and the implant like Implanon. So the implants went up to s- about 6%, and the intrauterine devices, IUDs, went up to 11.8%.

Interesting. So that, that, okay, that's just one subset of women. And then the only other, like, official government data I can find is one from Family Planning Australia, well, New South Wales, and where they just looked at data from 2005 to 2018. And at that point, of the data they had, oral contraception was at 28%, condoms were at 24%, um, as the most frequently used methods of contraception.

And implants were at 5% and intrauterine devices were at 4.5%. So okay. Anyway, my point is this is a thing that so many women are using. It's, you know, it, like, it's becoming ... The pill certainly is more used than [00:21:00]condoms. And, you know, no one's talking about the, you know, the fact that condoms prevent STIs as well, and the pill does not.

But the, the, the mechanism by which this, th- these devices and these drugs even work is not being properly explained. And on the flip side of that, the importance of the natural menstrual cycle is not being explained. Women are not being told what they are losing out on if they choose to shut down their cycle.

For some women, I, I believe in autonomy, at- autonomy above all else. In some women, the choice to go to, to use a contraceptive that turns off their cycle may still be their best option, even if they understand the benefits of the menstrual cycle and the risks of hormonal contraception. It may still be the best option for them.

But I just wish more people were told about the benefits of the menstrual cycle. Those hormone peaks and troughs that can be [00:22:00] blamed for a lot of symptoms are also really important for protecting your brain tissue, really important for managing heart health, really important for bone health and prevention of osteoporosis in later years. These hormones function at just about every level of the body.

So we think about, like, estrogen and progesterone, and I've spoken this a lot before in, in previous podcasts. Estrogen and progesterone being the two kind of hero hormones of the menstrual cycle. Yes, they're associated with fertility. Yes, they're associated with our ovaries. Yes, they're associated with our periods, right?

And that part of our body. But they interact with pretty much every other tissue in your body. They serve some kind of function. 'Cause your body isn't just, like, isolated parts, right? You are a whole functioning unit. So if you turn one part off, likely that's gonna have an [00:23:00] impact on other parts. I digress.

What can you expect when you come off these things? Because I've just heard too many people having conversations where th- they are being explicitly told by their prescribing doctors, "Yeah, you will have no trouble getting pregnant when you come off

this." And so they come off it, and they're like, "Okay, let me use a ovulation test strips from the chemist. Oh, okay, yeah, I got a positive result. Okay, let's try." And they do that month after month, month after month, and then two months becomes five months, becomes seven months, becomes a year of trying.

They can't track their periods properly because they're v- they're irregular. Maybe the periods are uncomfortable as well. So there's just this, this idea of fertility returning immediately. We can't be expecting that, and maybe when you understand how these things work, it's easier to understand, like, oh, okay, so we've been turning the menstrual cycle off.

Okay, it's not just [00:24:00] gonna come back online straight away. At least not in everyone.

And a menstrual cycle coming back online with some degree of regularity also doesn't perfectly translate into optimal fertility. So you could have the return of a regular menstrual cycle, but that doesn't necessarily mean that your body is in a state to initiate and sustain a healthy pregnancy. Now, with that group of women who were prescribed something to, for the management of hormonal symptoms and that's the whole tangent I was going on.

So these sym- these treatments are suppressive. They are not getting to the root of what was causing their problematic symptoms in the first place. The pill is not getting to the root of period pain. The pill is not getting to the root of polycystic ovarian syndrome. The pill is not getting to the root of your acne.

The pill is not getting to the root of your PMS. Neither is the IUD, neither is Mirena, neither is Kyleena. You know? Neither is the [00:25:00] Implanon, for that matter.

The root, I mean, and there are so many roots. In fact, I'm gonna bring up a mind map that I made for a client the other day, which just pertains to all the possible things that could contribute to period pain. So we're just honing in on period pain for a second. Bear with me

So I made a period pain mind map just to understand, excluding diagnoses because these factors can also... Like, say, endometriosis, for example, can cause period pain, but all of these factors that I'm gonna list can also cause endometriosis. So all, you know, aggravate, amplify it, be a part of the, some of the root factors for the development of endo.

So what can cause period pain? I mean, actually, straight off the bat, it's not even on the mind map. Nutrient deficiencies, which can be exacerbated by the pill and any medication used for that matter because medications often rely on enzymes, and those enzymes usually rely on certain nutrients to function properly.

That's just how things work. We take things. They need to be[00:26:00]

metabolized. Enzymes are a part of that. Nutrients are a part of that. Let's look at diet. Cow's dairy, specifically the protein in cow's dairy, is associated with an increased, uh, experience of period pain and inflammation that contributes to period pain. Wheat and gluten, if you've listened to the previous episode, I've had a bit of a rant about wheat.

Wheat is a really common, mm, not necessarily allergen, but a really common, um, source of inflammation that can start in the gut but then can become more widespread. Just because it's going through the gut, it doesn't mean it's only affecting the gut. The seat of our health, a lot of it lives in the gut, and so if the gut's affected, it's likely that m- other parts of our body can be affected.[00:27:00]

Other common allergens in the diet, um, soy, egg, peanuts, um, pest- pesticides, because pesticides on non-organic food can affect our microbiome, and our microbiome regulates our immune system, and our immune system regulates inflammation. And if inflammation is uncontrolled, we're gonna be more likely to have, uh, period pain and heavier bleeding, actually.

Yeah. History of antibiotic use, that disturbs the gut microbiome. Uh, intake of alcohol, again, by disturbing the gut microbiome. Past infections. Viral infections can kind of keep the immune system in this, like, they can li- viruses can live, uh, latent in the body but can be reactivated with stress and can sort of be putting, like, a constant strain on the immune system, so to speak.

That can contribute to endometriosis, um, even PCOS, actually, and period pain as a symptom in general. [00:28:00] We've also got the uterine microbiome. So yeah, you've got a gut microbiome. You've also got a ecosystem of bacteria and fungi and all sorts of things in your uterus that is also gonna impact, uh, your experience of period pain.

So have you had any local infections there? Even at the level of the vulva, bacterial disruptions there can actually be linked to your menstrual experience. Thrush, UTIs, it's all connected. Any STIs that you've had, it's all connected. Procedures that you've had, um, on your cervix or in your uterus.

There's the topic of circadian rhythm. How's your sleep? Are you getting enough sunlight? Are you getting enough darkness at night? How much artificial light or blue light exposure are you getting after sunset? All of these things are gonna have an influence on your experience of period pain. [00:29:00] Nervous system dysregulation is a big one.

What's your resilience to stress like? What's your reaction and response to stress? How long does it take for you to return, return to a calm baseline after experiencing a stressful event? And what is the quality of your calm baseline? Not everyone's gonna have the same baseline.

How long are you spending in active states of stress, fight or flight, or freeze? That's gonna have an impact on your experience of period pain Inflammation and immune dysregulation, as I've already touched on. If you've got any issues with allergies, high levels of hist- histamine, if you rely on antihistamines to control other symptoms, that's likely gonna be a part of your period pain picture.

And then, I don't wanna understate this at all, the emotional and energetic factors behind period pain. Are you holding a taboo about your own blood, about your own period? [00:30:00] Were you shamed for having your period earlier on in your life? Do you have any trauma that is specific to your vulva, your uterus, anything in the pelvic area?

I talk about the throat and pelvis connection a lot.

Sometimes when we're holding tension up here in our throat, in our jaw, it can translate and be connected to tension that we're holding lower down around our wombs. More tension, more pain I also find that general fear or anxieties can be associated with more intense period pain. And maybe the biggest one I find that can, that can literally change cycle to cycle and that you can see the results and the connection with like so, so clearly is not upholding your own boundaries. In every case of painful periods that I have worked with, there has been some degree of the woman not knowing her own [00:31:00] boundaries or knowing her boundaries but not being able to uphold them for herself.

And that I, I fully believe that crossing of boundaries, whether it's self-abandonment or whether it's other people pushing our lines, absolutely has an effect on our menstrual experience. Our bodies talk to us in that way. So that's just one, that's just one rabbit hole example of period pain. If we were to zoom in on period pain, they are all the possible contributing factors to period pain. None of those are being addressed by taking the pill or by having the IUD inserted.

I would say all of those factors, maybe 75% of them at least, but probably all of them actually, are also implicated in cases of having irregular cycles, missing periods, PCOS, PMOS, subfertility. [00:32:00] It's all connected. So if you are not addressing one or a dozen or any or all of these factors at the time that you were experiencing the symptom and your cycle was just shut off, it's likely that when you take that Band-Aid away, the Band-Aid being the pill or the IUD, you take that Band-Aid off, and if these factors are still relevant to you, they're still there.

And so it's likely that the symptom will just return, and especially if your symptom was cycle dysregulation, it makes sense that you will not have regular cycles back straight away. It's not like, and I, I have heard doctors tell patients this, that taking the pill is kind of getting your body used to being in a regular cycle.[00:33:00]

I shit you not. People have been told that. Doctors, professional doctors, are telling patients that, and it is unscientific, it is untrue, and it is, it is an abysmal job of explaining how these things actually work in our body. Having, uh, what appears to look like a regular cycle while taking the pill is not giving your body practice of being in a regular cycle so that when you come off of it, it's like, "Oh, I've been practiced being regular, so now it's easy for me to get regular periods back."

That is not how it works. Instead, your cycles, your regular menstrual rhythm was being turned off during that whole time that you were taking it.

So we're not gonna just expect our bodies to get back into that rhythm straight away when that whole process, which involves a lot of communication from your brain and your [00:34:00] ovaries going in both directions, ovaries talking to your brain, brain talking to your ovaries, that feedback loop, that communication pathway, has not been used, has not been primed or activated in all the time that you were using a hormonal contraceptive.

So it can take some time to get back into that rhythm. If you're not making any active efforts with your health, it can take some time, and it may not get there. Some of those factors that I listed may need to be addressed to get that system to come back online. So if you have irregular cycles and you are thinking about fertility, and it is suggested, "Okay, well, why don't we regulate those cycles to start with on the pill, and then just come off the pill when you're ready to have a baby?"

Again, that is exactly what a patient of mine has been told.

That is illogical, [00:35:00] and that is not how it works. And if I'm, if you have been told anything similar to that, and I'm the one that is telling you for the first time that that's not how it works, I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I'm, I'm genuinely sorry. So, you know, it's all well and good to be prescribing this thing that seems really convenient and can treat a whole range of issues, but we have to ask what, what, is it really treating it?

We have to ask what it's actually doing to our bodies and what the detriment is. And then we have to ask, "Okay, what happens when I decide to stop taking this?" And most women aren't taught or told about what can really happen. So some of the most common things I find is, you know, cycles not coming back straight away, and that, that worries women.

And again, I really hope that by explaining how it actually works, that helps add a layer of understanding to why your period may not come back straight [00:36:00] away when, when stopping hormonal contraception. If you had any acne before going on the pill or having the IUD inserted, and then being on the pill resolved the acne a bit, it is absolutely possible that you can get a little bit of a resurgence afterwards.

That-- and that was the case for me. and then what you have to do is get to the bottom of why you were having acne in the first place. Was it something happening at the level of your liver? Was there a hormone imbalance that existed before you went on the contraception? Was there a chronic digestive issue that was coming out through your skin?

'Cause that is very, very common. Was there a fungal overload? Was there a unresolved process of inflammation constantly happening? So symptoms, in a way, if I may be so bold as to suggest that symptoms are a gift because [00:37:00] they give you something to investigate, and they give you a clue about getting to the bottom of it.

It's when we turn off and suppress symptoms that we can get into a bit more trouble, especially long-term, especially chronically. If we're chronically turning off symptoms that our body's trying to express, we're missing out on these really vital signals that inform how we should be treating or what we should be investigating or changes we could be making in our lives to help clear out the symptom rather than just block it.

So acne's a good example there. This wasn't necessarily my experience, but something that I can speak to in terms of what I've seen clinically is just, you know, drastic weight changes, whether that's weight loss on the pill or weight gain on the pill, and then coming off the pill s- you know, really rapid weight loss or weight gain.

Like, I, [00:38:00] I've seen it. It can go in either direction. 'Cause again, if we're doing anything with hormones, anything that impacts our liver, anything that impacts our microbiome, and the pill is doing all of that, we can get changes in our weight. It's, it's, it's just a thing. It's just a thing that can happen.

Libido would probably be another big area. Be really... You know, I think more often I've heard the story of women coming off the pill and then their libido, like, coming back to life. They're like, "Oh, yeah, like I, I forgot about libido on the pill. I just... I, I don't know how me and my partner did it, but, like, yeah, I don't think I had a libido."

And then it was coming off the pill and maybe experiencing the wave of ovulation for the first time in a long time that people seem to notice their libido get reinstated, which can be really exciting. It can also be really overwhelming. If you have not had that strong signal for a long time, it can be really overwhelming.

And, like, I just wanna compassionately put that out there to be easy on [00:39:00] yourself no matter how you're experiencing your libido, after stopping hormonal contraception And similarly, there are things we can do to support that naturally. There are things we can do to support that at a root cause level.

off the top of my head, I think of five beautiful herbs that could be used to help restore and normalize libido. You know? we've got some beautiful tools for that.

Okay, let's get a bit more energetic here in terms of what to expect when you're coming off the pill or the Mirena.

It's a hard conversation to broach, so bear with me, and maybe I can channel some of this red blazer energy into being really direct and authoritative. Okay. So you know how before I was crapping on about how hormones impact, like, all parts of our body, not just our reproductive organs? You know, they impact our brain, our heart, our muscle.

Whoa, there goes the pen

Our lungs, our guts, our [00:40:00] kidneys, our bones, they impact everything

They also impact our psychology. And so if we're doing anything to hormones, whether we are increasing our natural hormones, whether we are totally suppressing our natural hormones, whether we are putting something into our bodies that is a hormone lookalike and, uh, can interact with the same receptors that our natural hormones do

there is likely to be some psychological changes. So mental health, actually mental health, before I get into the energetics, I just wanna flag that, you know, mental health is a big thing. And the thing that gets reported the most to me is that women feel like themselves again when they stop the pill or take the Mirena out.

Uh, Implanon more so. I, I have probably heard the most amount of cases of women who try the Implanon and within a couple of months they are getting it removed [00:41:00] because suddenly they're eligible for being, uh, diagnosed with OCD or schizophrenia or bipolar or borderline personality disorder when that wasn't present before having the Implanon inserted.

This is anecdotal, but, you know, it is a factor. And then when they have it removed, it's like a fog lifts or, like, they just come back to themselves and they're like, "Oh, holy shit For me personally, oh, I mean, I've had some breakdowns. I have had some breakdowns. I am a very psychological, introspective person, but

A time when I was a teenager that I explicitly felt like I was going insane to the point of hearing things, seeing things, not being, not being able to withstand normal sensations, not being able to communicate [00:42:00] properly, um, absolute panic, absolute anxiety were times when I was on the pill.

Anyway, so that's the mental health note. Where I wanted to be a bit more woo-woo with it is in regards to boundaries, people-pleasing, who we find ourselves attracted to. You may... I, I did a bit of a deep dive, uh, on a blog, which I'll link below, if you want access to that, I'll, I'll put it in the description, uh, where I did a little bit of a deep dive into how, um, how contraception can change, how being on contra- uh, hormonal contraception can alter our attractiveness to certain partners.

The consensus that is still, we still go back and forth in terms of the research that's available. [00:43:00] It's, I wouldn't say it's a sweeping consensus. Some people still like debate it. But the findings of research that, that experiments with a woman's attractedness to a male partner while she's taking the pill, for example, shows that you may be more attracted to more feminized men while taking the pill.

And now I'll let myself get woo-woo with it. We may fi- find ourselves attracted to people who are not actually ideal or genuinely compatible partners for us on a emotional level, intellectual level, spiritual level, however woo-woo you wanna get with it, soul level. We may even find when we come off the pill, we have a totally different baseline of, like, physical attraction to others.

We may find we're attracted to one kind of guy on the pill, and then attracted to a [00:44:00] totally different kind of guy off the pill. We may be sensitive to certain natural aromas on the pill, and then totally into those same aromas once we're off the pill

Kind of in the same breath, because I feel like with our natural menstrual cycle, we have access to a certain power. It's a rhythm, so it changes throughout a cycle. But I feel like we have access to a certain depth of ourselves, a certain depth of our intuition that if we tune in, if we tune into it, and if we really listen to our cycles, let our cycles be teachers and listen to our bodies, we can access a kind of wisdom and insight that supports us to uphold our boundaries, that helps us stay true to who we are, that helps us introspect and be self-reflective and understand ourselves at a level where we can navigate life from a place of feeling solid in who we are.

[00:45:00] Anecdotally, I have experienced and observed in others that when they're on the pill, this can be altered. There is a kind of disconnection to their truest sense of self. There is a disconnection to who they are at the core of themselves. And it's re- and it's, and it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking.

Like, I'm not saying any of this trivi- trivially. It's just something that I've noticed, and it's heartbreaking. And, you know, on the relationship front, you know, and please, if you have stories, please feel free to share them with me if you, if you feel comfortable. Email me or message me on Instagram. You know, I would be curious to know if more breakups happen at around the transition time of starting hormonal contraception or stopping hormonal contraception.

Just like I would be curious about, you know, the divorce rates when a woman gets closer to perimenopause and closer to her, her [00:46:00] menopausal mark, 'cause that's a thing that happens . That is a thing that happens. So You may find that you were on the pill and you kinda lost a part of your sense of self. You may find that you were more, kind of at the whim of others.

You may find that you were more prone to manipulation by others. You may find that you had a harder time upholding your boundaries or even knowing what your boundaries were. And I just want-- I, and you know what? If for no other reason, I think I'm saying this because, like, if this has been your experience, I wanna validate your experience.

Like, the pill and hormonal contraception isn't just this innocuous thing that only achieves contraception. If it's doing something at one level of the body, chances are it's gonna be doing something at many, many other levels of the body. And [00:47:00] going beyond our body as well, going, going into our psychological and our energetic and our spiritual experience as well

So you may find, or people may reflect to you that, uh, "Hey, since coming off the pill," or, "Since changing the pill," or, "Since getting the IUD removed, you're a bit of a bitch." And it might be because, I mean, one, your, your mood, your baseline mood and nervous system regulation may just be rebalancing itself and recalibrating as it's responding to all these new hormonal messages that are being sent out.

But it may also be because for the first time in a long time, you are more connected to your boundaries and what you want for yourself, and a sense of what's okay and what's not okay. And a sense of any people-pleaser tendencies you had fading away. Whether that's, you know, it could be really dramatic for some people, it could be a s- more slower process for others.[00:48:00]

But maybe you're just standing up for yourself. Maybe you just have a clearer sense of what you want for yourself and your life, and what your needs are, and what your wants are, and you're finding you're able to communicate those, clearer and more assertively than you have been, you know, uh, compared to when you were on the pill That's just a possibility.

That's, that, yes, I acknowledge it's woo woo. I don't have scientific papers to back it up, and guess what? I don't care. This is real life. Doesn't all come down to scientific papers. We can't study and measure every single phenomenon that happens.

So that is a little bit of my insight into what can happen when you're coming off the pill for the first time, or when you're coming off the pill in general after being on it for a short amount of time or a long period of time, or when you're getting something like the IUD or the Implanon removed. And I just really wanna normalize this [00:49:00] experience and normalize the journey.

And I don't want you to feel scared of stopping these things for fear of, like, what could happen in your body and symptoms that you could get. Remember that anything that your body does when you come off any medication, actually, is a signal. It's something that we can work with. It's a clue. It's a hint.

We can... It's a, it's a tip of a thread that we can follow

It's a really wise message from your body, and I don't want you to be scared of it. And I understand that it might feel new or scary or uncomfortable, but it's a really wise message. And if we listen and investigate holistically and thoroughly, we can get to the bottom of what that message is asking for, what the antidote is So, if you're coming off the pill or the IUD, and your time so far has been a bit of a rollercoaster, or if you're currently on the pill or have [00:50:00] an IUD in, and you know that it's not your forever plan, and it's starting to feel incongruent and misaligned with your health goals, whether it's fer- for fertility or otherwise, I don't want you to have to go the journey alone.

I want you to know that I am here for you. This is something that I do. This is something that is my bread and butter. This is something that I have specifically helped guide so many women through. Restoring healthy, strong menstrual cycles after months or years of suppressing them. Helping to manage symptoms at a root cause level, sh- should any symptoms reappear after stopping the hormonal contraception.

And helping you understand and achieve the foundations of health that keep your hormones happy and balanced and regulated in the long run No matter what your [00:51:00] goals are, whether it's fertility at this point in life or not. Because even if you had really complex issues that got you on the pill or with the Mirena in the first place, I promise you that there are probably some stones that we can unturn to address the root of what was actually causing those symptoms in the first place.

If you're interested in my direct tailored support for your case, working one-on-one together, you can book a free body story call.

I'll have the link for that in the description below. That's all you need to start. Just a free call, free chat between us. I want to know what's going on for you, what your goals are, what you're currently experiencing, what you've experienced in the past, and I want to help paint a path forward for you and show you what a healing journey with natural medicine could look like for your hormones, for your fertility goals, for healthier pain-free periods.[00:52:00]

So let's chat. Reach out. I would love, love, love to support you in this.

We'll leave it there for now. All information or anything that I've referenced will be in the links below. Uh, thank you for watching the video. Thank you for putting up with my pen waving around. Uh, kinda help, helps get the words out. You know, I, I'm Italian, I have to talk with my hands. Anyway, if you have any episode requests also, let me know.

I would love to know what you would like me to ramble into a microphone about. Take care, and I'll catch you in the next one [00:53:00]