How Long to Get Back to Normal After Stopping the Pill

Question

I was just wondering what are the normal processes after coming off the pill? I decided to come off the pill because I was getting major depression and anxiety as well as weight gain and bloating. I’ve found myself in depression cycles where I’ll be depressed for three days and then happy for the next two and then so on. I also get lots of headaches and just feel generally flat. Is this normal? How long does it take to get my body back to normal?
Nancy

Answer

Last Updated: May 8, 2022
Dear Nancy,

You made a wise decision in listening to what your body is telling you and going off the pill. Yes, migraines, depression, and feeling “generally flat”, as you put it, could definitely be associated with taking the pill, which is designed to act by suppressing your own hormones with its artificial ones. Then, too, not infrequently these artificial hormones fail to suppress ovulation, resulting in pregnancy (up to as often as 9.9% of the time, depending on the type of pill, your age, and other factors). If pregnancy does occur, the pill can cause the newly-conceived life to fail to implant in the uterus because the pill keeps the endometrium (the lining of the womb) too thin to sustain life, resulting in a very early abortion. So, what can you do instead?

You can learn the fascinating way your body responds to your own hormones when it is free of the pill. Natural Family Planning classes will teach you to ‘read’ your body and help you to answer the question, “What’s happening?” You can then use this knowledge to either avoid or seek a pregnancy.

Your body will recover from the artificial hormones of the pill in its own good time, but by charting your cycles you can observe more specifically how it is responding. God bless.

Carole Roadarmel

Answered By:

Carole Roadarmel
Carole Roadarmel, longtime Professional Member of CANFP, taught the Billings Method of NFP in the Los Angeles Region, where she lived with her husband Stan.

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