Coming off birth control- Protocol

Jul 25 in Q & A

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)

*Ensure adequate iron levels (e.g. through an iron panel blood test)

*Ensure adequate dietary protein

*Assess for blood sugar disregulation, PCOS symptoms, or hypothyroidism

It is normal for hormones to take several months to regulate, as such I recommend taking care to provide support in the above ways, but not freaking out if periods don't resume normally right away. After 3 months hormones can be tested if necessary to gain more clarity.

If not concerned about any of the above symptoms, then you can take a more generalised approachuse some nutritional support for some basic nutrients which are depleted by oral birth control, the basics would be:

Methylated B complex (one serving daily)

Zinc (15-30mg daily)

Magnesium (~400mg daily)

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