How I ditched hormonal birth control:
Although oral contraceptives and intrauterine devices are pushed at virtually every conventional doctors appointment I go to and touted as a benign way to improve health issues and prevent pregnancy, there are long lists of potential side effects and negative impacts related to their use. Autoimmune issues and mental health imbalances including depression and an increased rate of suicide among hormonal birth control users in controlled trials stood out to me on those lists with a strong family background for both. Of course, the people suggesting I take such measures didn’t spend any time discussing any of that with me. I had to learn that on my own.
I took hormonal birth control for about a decade to “help” with a variety of imbalances in my health and then to prevent pregnancy before learning any of this information. Meanwhile I wasn’t actually addressing the cause of those imbalances or doing anything to help correct them. That’s another topic for another day.
I learned about other ways to effectively track fertile days to plan or prevent pregnancy. I learned about this device, the Lady-Comp, with over 35 years of research on over 5 million female cycles backing it up. Its self-learning algorithm is more than 99% accurate in determining infertile days. That’s as or more effective than any other type of birth control besides abstinence. I take my temp within a 3-4 wake time window every morning as soon as I wake. And that’s it. I can also log information like my cycle days to help me know what’s going on with my body for best planning purposes.
There are free ways and super low cost ways to do this too with a regular ol’ thermometer and a journal or app. I wanted/needed something that was going to be no extra work for me and something I could rely on. This has been a great tool for us and I wish I knew about it sooner, so I share about it here. I have a 5% discount all year but I make sure and tell you when there are big sales. That’s when we bought ours. There’s currently 20% off with my link until 12/15/21.
It’s linked in the “Sex Chats” and “Discounts” highlight bubbles and also on my website under Bath & Body.