Replies

It prevents pregnancy by delivering the hormones progesterone and estrogen directly into the bloodstream through the skin.

These are not bioidentical hormones. One of the saddest bill of goods that women of my generation have be sold is that birth control is "good for you". I am now spending my 30's trying to undo all of the damage that was done to it from when I was on the pill, because it was "good for me".

Good luck in your recovery. You are young enough that perhaps it can be reversed. (Although I'm not a doctor so don't quote me on anything.)

I came of age in the 70s, an era of chemical experimentation gone wild. Nevertheless I resisted the whole drug scene and hormone experimentation because I had some visceral suspicion about hormone therapies. I don't doubt that they are lifesavers in the right circumstances, I have just avoided their use for anything so far. I'm healthy and lucky and would always advise younger women to stay away from such therapies that weren't absolutely necessary.

I am concerned that many athletes are going to have nasty surprises sometime in the future. I also suspect the same thing will happen to Botox users and others who play with chemicals in their bodies to stop or erase natural hormonal and aging cycles (as opposed to screwed up or missing ones). Messing with Mother Nature rarely works.

What sort of damage do you feel was done to your body?. I'm very curiouse

These are not bioidentical hormones. One of the saddest bill of goods that women of my generation have be sold is that birth control is "good for you". I am now spending my 30's trying to undo all of the damage that was done to it from when I was on the pill, because it was "good for me".

There is no medication that has no side effects. Anytime you take any medication a risk benefit ratio must be done, be it the patch, the pill, or other form of birth control. Ortho should have no liability unless they covered up data on the risks in the clinical trials as did Merck with Vioxx. Even with the best clinical trials not all the severe consequences of a medicine are uncovered, until the drug is released to the public. If the FDA insisted on absolute safety and all side effects be known, we would have no new drugs available.

Merck did uncover this in the clinical trials but hid the data. Merck was one of the leaders in pharmaceutical research. They deserve every thing that happened to them. They acted in an unethical manner. The hell of it is that Vioxx is a good drug but it should have been marketed with what we call a "Black Box" warning of certain dangerous or fatal side effects.