It has been six months since I said good bye to my NuvaRing and hormonal contraception in general. I actually can’t believe it’s only been six months, it feels like it’s been forever and I find it hard to remember why I was even using the thing in the first place. I know it was an added safety net against pregnancy for me as a young adult and I don’t necessarily regret using it (who knows what might have happened if I hadn’t), but I can say I have no regrets about giving it up whatsoever. Get ready for a good dose of TMI! :)
Building upon what I said in my last update after one month off hormones: barely anything has actually changed. I look the same as far as I can tell, and generally feel the same as well. My PMS is still as horrible as always, so unfortunately going off hormones wasn’t my magical fix for that. I’m going to have to try and find different solutions to deal with PMS, although I do feel like the round of therapy I went through over the past months has helped a lot with making “the week before” less mentally devastating.
The actual week of, however, still hasn’t gone back to the way it was before I started using the NuvaRing. My period is now fairly regular with an approximately 5 week cycle, after being all over the place for a few months. Before going on hormones I had a five week cycle as well, but the manner of bleeding hasn’t gone back to normal yet. I now have a good few days of super light bleeding before my period starts properly, which I never used to have. The heavier bleeding lasts for about four days, after which the light bleeding drags out for what feels like forever again. As a result, some months I’m losing blood for over two weeks total. Most of that is just super light bleeding, a few drops per day, but it’s still bleeding. Before I went on hormones, my heavy days would kick in straight away and the whole thing only lasted for seven days. All I can do now is laugh at having thought that was a long time, and am hoping this whole run-up and fading out thing will go down. At this point I’d be very happy to have my seven days of bleeding back, haha!
In my last update, I had the intention to start tracking my cycle soon. Admittedly, I completely forgot about that and am only reminded of it now that I’m writing this update. I still think it would be good for me to start using the Fertility Awareness Method and get a better grip on what’s going on down there. I’m currently using a tracking app, but it’s not working perfectly as I haven’t been consistent in the way I track the light bleeding in the run-up to my period. Finishing “Taking Charge of Your Fertility” and implementing the methods it teaches is going on my to do list as we speak. Using it as a method of contraception still isn’t my goal though, I see it as a way of staying on top of my reproductive health. Speaking of contraceptives though, I’m happy to report using physical barrier contraceptives hasn’t been as much of a hassle as I feared it would be. It’s actually no bother at all, and I plan on sticking to this method for a while.
If my bleeding doesn’t shorten in the next couple of months, I think I’ll schedule a visit with my doctor to discuss it. So far, as it’s pretty regular and I’m not experiencing other issues such as pain or random bleeding throughout my cycle, I assume it’s still my reproductive system getting used to regulating itself again. I’ve heard a year is a pretty normal period of time for everything to get back to normal, so I’m not worried as of yet, but I do want to keep an eye on it just in case.
That’s about all I can say on this topic for now! I’ll come back to you in another six months, when it’s been a year since going off hormones. Or if anything major happens in the meantime, of course.
May I ask what do you use now for birth control? Do you mean condoms under “physical barrier contraceptives”?
Feel free to ignore or even delete my comment if it is too private.
Condoms at the moment, yes :)
Perhaps you could look into seed cycling. I am using that method to balance my hormones since quitting the pill.