4. Touching on How Hormonal Birth Control Impacts Your Bod

Hi everyone! Thanks for joining me and listening to I’m Hormonal–a place where we talk about why being hormonal is a good and necessary part of our lives. I haven’t ranted on this much yet–don’t worry, I will–but I think that’s it’s some for real bologna that women and menstruators are called hormonal when they’re acting in a way that’s outside of societal or masculine norms. We love our hormones because they keep us alive! They help us wake up in the morning (look at you, cortisol)... they help our skin glow and give us increase cognitive function (estrogen), and even help mitigate the risk of cancer and support our bone health (thank you, progesterone). That’s just the tip of the iceberg too. 

Anyway, I hope that you are having an amazing week and a lovely day! I did some traveling last week but am home now with my cat, Betty, so my trip to see my family was great but it’s nice to be back in Encinitas and just relax. If this is your first time listening, I’m your host, Bridget Walton–I’m really excited for you to be joining us. If you’ve been here before, I appreciate you coming back again and hope you like what you’ve been hearing so far. 

Today we’re going to be talking about hormonal birth control and how it impacts your body, what to consider if you’re planning to come off of HBC soon, and some considerations regarding fertility testing while you are on HBC. We know that there are both hormonal and non-hormonal birth control options but from here on out, even if I just say “birth control” know that I’m talking about non-hormonal options. I’ve had a handful of questions about this topic already which is why I wanted to discuss it in more depth today. As always, if you have any questions about what I share with you today then please DM or comment on the IG post for this episode so I can help you out. 

Just a couple of quick housekeeping notes:

• Follow me on Instagram @bridgetwalton

• Please remember that the content I’m talking about is for informational purposes only, and it shouldn’t be a replacement for one on one support from a certified practitioner or your healthcare provider. Everyone has their unique body and unique hormone, micronutrient, and health situations so it’s worth having someone.

If you’re someone who’s currently taking birth control, who’s considering getting off of birth control, or… if you know someone taking it–by the end of this episode you’ll have a better understanding of how this medication is impacting your body along with information on a better way to transition off of it than just going cold turkey.

Let’s get into it–what is birth control, how does it work, and what other impacts does it have on your body?

Birth control (BC) can come in several different forms; you can take the pill, use an IUD or a vaginal ring, get a shot, or insert a device under your skin. Menstruators are taking BC in order to avoid pregnancy, no surprise there, but it’s also consumed often to avoid some of the negative symptoms associated with the menstrual cycle like acne, heavy bleeding, heavy cramping, and more. 

While the actual mechanism can differ depending on which type of BC you’re taking, BC generally is impacting some combination of three things: thin the womb lining in order to make your uterus a less habitable place for a fertilized egg; by thickening your cervical mucus which, around ovulation, is what helps to shuttle sperm to an egg in order to fertilize it. Last but not least, BC alters the way your brain sends hormonal signals to your ovaries and other endocrine glands, which prevents ovulation. 

Most BCs generally flatline your hormones. There’s a natural fluctuation in your hormone levels throughout the menstrual cycle which is what enables you to prepare an egg and follicle for ovulation.. And then a shift in hormones such that your body is making sure you’ve got a nice cozy womb for a potentially fertilized egg to start growing in. Because it is the shift of those hormones that supports ovulation, flatlining your estrogen prevents you from releasing an egg. And then without that egg having been released, your body is unable to make the hormone (progesterone) that’s normally dominant in the second half of your cycle. 

While on BC, when you have your bleed it is actually signaled to start flowing because you’re now consuming the placebo pill. It’s the drop in hormones that (HBC or not) start that flow. Unless you ovulated, this bleed is actually better references as a withdraw bleed. It’s not really necessary for your health actually, although won’t causes any problems of course. I learned recently that developers of the pill way back when–they started to include the placebo pills after women were really shocked and upset that suddenly they had no bleed even though they weren’t pregnant. Seems kind of silly now maybe, but at the start of BC use, the only reason you wouldn’t be bleeding was when you were pregnant or when you were post-menopausal. I thought that was kind of interesting. 

In addition to preventing natural fluctuation on your sex hormones (and the five main hormones that we’ll consider for today are estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, luteinizing hormone, and follicle stimulating hormone), BC can also impact your body by altering the state of your stomach/gut. 

Before we get to the digestive system, let me share with you a quick highlight reel on why those five hormones benefit your body:

• • Estrogen is not only essential for ovulation but it also is good for heart health, brain health, muscle mass and bone density, as well as supporting your mood. This hormone is dominant in the first half of your cycle.

  • Testosterone is all essential for your fertility, as all of these are, but will support skin and heart health, cognitive function, and it has a key role in your libido. Testosterone peaks around ovulation.

  • Progesterone is essential for the second half of the cycle (after ovulation), and not only helps with PMS symptoms, but also sleep, bone health, and it can lower your risk of cancer.

  • Both LH and FSH are essential for making sure that the follicle on your ovary actually gets the egg out, which means that you’ll produce progesterone adequately as well as (no surprise) ovulate.

Now this primarily applies to the pill, but gut health is important for all of us so it’s worth paying attention to regardless of contraceptive method. The pill can be really hard on our gut microbiome, which ultimately means that it’s going to kill off some of the good bacteria that we want in our digestive track, and that will leave room for some of that bad bacteria to flourish. Note that there of course are other ways that this can occur too, but our gut health is essential for our immune health, for our mood, and many other functions of the body so it’s critical to prioritize. I think it’s also worth noting that progestin, for example, can be found in other products too. I used to use Latisse and after a long time of slathing that on my eyeballs each night I finally read the teensy tiny bottle and saw that it has that synthetic hormone in there (which is how they get your lashes to grow long). Now I don’t suspect that it impacted my cycle at all but the point I’m trying to make is that it’s in places other than just the pill, IUD, shot, or insert.

BC can deplete certain vitamins and minerals from your body, including Vitamins E, C, B, magnesium, selenium, and zinc. These micronutrients are essential for reproductive-related processes to happen, but also for things like proper serotonin levels (which help out our mood) or ideal melatonin/cortisol levels (which help us to have energy at the appropriate time of day as well as snooze at the appropriate time of day). It’s worth investigating to see what your micronutrient levels look like so you can understand exactly if or which of these you might want to take. Honestly I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen at at-home micronutrient test that you can do at home, but you can always do it with a certified practitioner or your health care provider. 

If you’re preparing to come off of BC, you should know that it’s likely that any symptoms you had before you started the BC may come back, and they may even be worse for some period of time. This is because the BC method doesn’t actually fix any of the problems that you had before; it really just masks the problem. Don’t worry! You can still get things leveled out of course but expect that it could take some time to get your hormones on track again. 

This is also a good idea in case you’re ditching BC because you want to conceive, given that there’s a benefit to waiting several months after going cold turkey before trying to get pregnant. The delay will give your body more time to eliminate toxins and because giving the follicle that will ovulate your egg as much time as possible to take in nutrients. While we’re all born with our full set of eggs, the important part is making sure that the follicle is strong and healthy too because that will support progesterone levels which results in a serene, well-nourished womb for a fertilized egg. 

A second thing to consider before you get off of HBC is to start using castor oil packs. Castor oil helps with increasing blood flow and increased circulation which can also support the movement of lymphatic fluid. You can buy castor oil and a cloth, or reuse an old flannel shirt that you’re not into anymore, and apply the castor oil to your skin over your liver. The topical application of the oil helps to get things moving below and that enables your liver to kick it up a notch with regard to detoxing your bod. As a reminder, your liver clears out toxins from your blood and it also clears hormones from your body. For example, essentially once estrogen has been used and is no longer needed, it then is escorted to the liver where the estrogen metabolites are broken down further. From there, they’ll be excreted from either your kidneys in urine, or from your gut through a bowel movement. 

On a quick related note, since many hormone’s metabolite (including estrogen’s metabolites) are excreted this way through the urine, and that’s what makes tests like the DUTCH test–or dried urine test for comprehensive hormones–really great because not only can they tell you how much estrogen, progesterone, etc. hormone you have but it also tells you in which way they’re excreted from your body. That information can be really essential in getting to the root cause of the hormonal imbalance.

Back to the main topic now–you may want to consider how you can better support your gut health. This can look many ways: ensuring that you’re relaxed, not stressed, while you eat your food will help in ensuring you have adequate stomach acid. Avoiding foods that will inflame your stomach and gut lining will help to absorb more nutrients from you food, and prepare the stomach contents to move along through the pipe at the appropriate pH. Consistent blood sugar will help to avoid inflammation as well. I mentioned several of these things last week in Ep 3 so check that out if you want a bit more of an in-depth look at what to avoid. Quick honorable mentions though to: avoiding alcohol, wheat/gluten, and caffeine if that doesn’t work for you either.

The moral of the story here is supporting your body and helping it thrive for a bit which will prepare you to better handle the transition. They’re all pretty good principles that generally are supportive of good health so, get your family or partner or friends on board to join you and you can keep each other on track. 

Let’s do a quick recap: We’ve talked about what HBC is and how it impacts your body. We mentioned that the synthetic hormones work to disrupt what your brain is telling your ovaries and other glands to create. This inhibits ovulation, and had cascading effects on your other hormones. It can also harm gut health by killing off good bacteria which can make way for bad bacteria. There are many other impacts of BC on your body and for that I’d recommend Dr. Jolene Brighten’s book called “Beyond the Pill.” It’s a great resource and will give you a really deep dive.

With regards to preparing to come off of BC, we talked about vitamins and minerals to focus on because we know that BC can deplete them. We also talked a bit about gut health and liver support to get you set up as best you can before or during your transition to the cyclical life. Issues that you had prior to taking the pill may come back, and there may generally be a period of time where symptoms are worse for a bit as your system recalibrates. 

Last but not least, let’s talk about fertility testing to consider while you’re on BC. Because the BC is impacting hormones like estrogen, progesterone, LH, and FSH–it wouldn’t make sense to test those hormones. There are three hormones though that it’s worth focusing on at this point, and they’re Anti-Mullerian Hormone, Thyroid Stimulating Hormone, and Thyroid Hormone or T4. AMH can provide information on your ovarian reserve, meaning it’ll give you insight on how many much halloween candy is still in the bowl. Wow. Sorry that that was the worst example but it’s October now folks. Anyway you know what I mean–AMH will tell you, more or less, how many eggs you’ve got to work with. T4 and TSH are both thyroid hormones that will indicate your overall health; it’s important because these hormones are essential for many functions of the body but most certainly important for reproductive health as well. 

If you choose to get your other hormones tested it won’t show you a whole lot of helpful info since, again, BC artificially impacts the level of those hormones. It would be worth waiting 2-3 or more months after quitting HBC before you go in to get any lab work done. 

Everyone has their unique response to getting off BC and some gals conceive in their first cycle back, while other women out there will take longer. From a study that I found from 2018, 83.1% of the women assessed did become pregnant within the first year.

It’s totally possible that without doing any of the previous recs you can still have a smooth transition off, but hopefully you’ve found that some of these suggestions are ones that you can integrate into your life to overall increase your health, but especially because your health and habit will result in a healthy babe. 

For your practical weekly tip, I want you to try out a castor oil pack to support your liver’s function and ability to detox your blood. Or if that’s not your jam, pick up milk thistle tea… dandelion root tea… or incorporate more turmeric into your diet. These plants naturally support the liver.

Download my cycle syncing guide by going to the link in the show notes or by going to the linktree in my IG bio and you’ll see a link for it there. Listen to Ep 2 of this podcast for more cycle syncing info if you want a deeper dive, and all of this is the baseline/foundation to getting to understand your body once you’re off of your hormonal contraceptive. Next week we’ll be talking through some health and climate friendly alternatives that can support your natural hormone balance. If you made it this far, I am so grateful for you making it to the end. If you know someone who’s interested in this content, please share the pod. Thanks again everyone and I hope to see you here next week!