Coming off birth control- Protocol
I get this question a lot so thought I’d cover it in depth here. There are some common side effects when coming off oral birth control, the most common include: Acne / Irregular periods / PCOS symptoms Heavy or painful periods and Hair Loss Before you come off the pill, assess whether you’ve experienced any of the above prior to going on the pill. If so, this will help guide the approach. Acne / PCOS Symptoms Acne is very common post pill as the pill suppresses sebum, by stopping the pill, sebum levels reactively increase and lead to post pill acne. This persists for several months. People prone to acne or PCOS symptoms should begin support prior to coming off the pill, you could use: NAC (2,000mg daily) Methylated B complex (one serving daily) Berberine (500mg with each main meal - if blood sugar issues are suspected) Zinc L-carnosine OR Zinc Glycinate (30mg daily) Magnesium (around 400mg per day of an absorbable form) Diet: Lower carbohydrate / low sugar / whole foods based diet DIM may be used post pill to help with excess androgens (100mg daily) Heavy or painful periods If the pill was used to help control extremely painful periods, then endometriosis may be a possibility. Unfortunately this is hard to test for, but we should expect that the pain will return post pill. Below are the interventions I would begin with in this case: NAC (2,000mg daily) Methylated B complex (one serving daily) Zinc L-carnosine (30mg daily) Magnesium (400-800mg daily, based on bowel tolerance) Meriva Curcumin (1,000mg twice daily) Cod liver oil (1 tablespoon daily) Diet: Gluten free, dairy free diet Hair loss This is unfortunately a response to large fluctuations in hormones. It should be expected there will be some hair shedding in the months after coming off the birth control pill, but some effective things that can support this are: NAC (2,000mg daily) Methylated B complex (one serving daily) Zinc L-Carnosine OR Zinc Glycinate (30mg daily) Magnesium (around 400mg per day of an absorbable form)