How to Come Off Hormonal Birth Control

by Lara Briden
April 22, 2015

“You’re ready. You suspect hormonal birth control is no longer right for your body, and you have a sinking feeling it never was.

Of course, you have questions about the process of coming off birth control. What will happen to your skin? Will you get your period? Which natural treatments can you use to make it all go as smoothly as possible?

I can’t offer you a one-size-fits-all list of recommendations for “coming off the pill”. But I can tell you what I would do if you were my patient.

I would first ask what your periods were like before you took birth control. I’m not talking about your pill bleeds—because they’re not periods.  I’m talking about your real periods—the ones you had ten years ago before you started the pill. For example, were your real periods regular? Were they heavy or painful? Did your skin break out? Because those problems have not gone away. They have merely been masked by the pill, and they are about to re-emerge.

Your plan is to address those pre-pill problems. Let’s look at four scenarios.

Plan A. You had normal periods before

…read the article for details

Plan B. You had irregular periods before

…read the article for details

Plan C. You had acne before

…read the article for details

Plan D. You had heavy bleeding and/or period pain

…read the article for details

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