Concerning side effects

[AR1234]

My birth control, Gildess Fe 1/20 has been giving me some weird side effects lately. I have been on this pill for about 22 days now, and I already have experienced the normal side effects to it. I had spotting for 15 days, I've had headaches, I've had cramps, all the normal stuff. No big deal. But in the last two days I've noticed some ongoing and concerning side effects that have really set me to worry. I've started to get a rash on the inside of my arms, I've been getting dizzy and lightheaded to where I think I may pass out. I've also experienced emotional changes. I am known to be very happy and full of joy and laughter, but lately I haven't had that. I haven't felt a need to be happy. I am not experiencing any like suicidal thoughts or actions, but I have experienced being emotionless and almost like emotionally dull. The way I explain it is that the people I love most I know I love. I tell them every day and I mean it. But when I've been saying it like the last few days it's never fully clicked. Like I don't feel the love inside. I only know I'm saying the words. I started school yesterday and I have been on my period for about 2 days now. and I got really stressed out yesterday. I took ibuprofen nighttime for a massive headache I had yesterday and I felt faded, almost like I was just there. And that feeling still hasn't left. And I feel like I have to force a smile. I just not there emotionally recently and it's concerning to me. It's never happened to me before. And I called my gynecologist today and she told me to stop the pill and come in immediately. I just don't know if this feeling will fade or not and it worries me. I am not sexually active so stopping this pill isn't like the end of the world. I think it would be better for me but I just need to know if this feeling will go away. I miss being happy and I miss smiling and I hate the way that this is happening.
I just need some help and reassurance.
Thank you so much

[Heather]

I'm glad your doctor told you to stop right away, and that you called them. Some of these symptoms certainly sound troubling.

Whether or not the mood issues are stemming from your pill is something you'll just have to see when you've been off of it for a but a while, when you can know the pill is not having any more impact on your body. If you don't find this changes after you've been off the pill little while, What you'll want to do is ask this healthcare provider or any other that you see for referral to mental healthcare services.

You can even go ahead and ask for that referral in the meantime if you'd like to get some help coping with the way that you've been feeling without having to wait.

[AR1234]

Thank you so much for the quick reply. I can't begin to tell you how helpful this is. I found this once I started my sugar pills. It started to happen then. I haven't had any type of like side effect like this before and I've read that other people who have also taken the pill have experienced side effects like depression. But I honestly have zero connections to depression and there's nothing that I could think of that would make me act this way. I was very stressed out yesterday when I had school. Mainly because school for me is stressful and I just generally didn't want to go to school because people there aren't the nicest in the world. But this honestly only sparked yesterday and I'm concerned that it could like make my life awful. And I don't want that for myself. How long would it take for my body to get over the idea of being on this birth control do you think? I just want to feel better already. I talked with a few friends and even my boyfriend about it. They know what it's like to have depression and I told them about what I'm going through and they don't think I have depression because honestly this has only been like this for the last day or so. I don't think it can randomly spark like that. I talked with my boyfriend and he told me that he doesn't think it is because he knows how happy and how random I am and when I told him this, he almost didn't believe me. Ive been like this for only like a day, and I just want it to go away. How long do you think it will take to get back to normal if this is the case?

[Heather]

You're welcome.

By all means, the pill -- including during the placebo break -- can drum up depression for people, including people who haven't experienced it before. So, particularly given your experience of yourself and your moods before this, this being due to your pill is absolutely a possibility. If this is about the pill, I'd expect you to feel very different in a month or two. You can talk to your GYN about that when you go in, as well.

But it also sounds like starting back at school has been a pretty major stressor for you, and it could be this is the first time you're experiencing depression or other negative mod struggles. (Or it could be both the pill and school.) By all means, depression can start out of nowhere for people, it's not always something that develops very gradually over long periods of time. And when it's situational -- based on a thing, like feeling suddenly very stressed and scared about school -- it usually does just come up fast like that.

That said, feeling a dark mood for a day or so every now and then is also just totally normal and part of being human, even if this isn't at all your usual experience of yourself. We don't stay the same through all of life, nor do all the external parts of our lives, so it's safe to say pretty much no one is going to be all-happy-all-the-time for the whole of their lives. That's just not a realistic expectation of anyone human. Depression -- like anxiety or having high physical energy -- isn't always chronic or ongoing: it's often temporary, so someone can feel depressed for a day or two and then not for days, weeks or months, maybe even years.

It's also common to have some big mood shifts or new ways of feeling during puberty, which, given you're age, you're most likely right in the thick of.

Whatever the situation, I hear you saying this is the first time you've dealt with a mood like this, and that you're afraid it won't ever go away. That's highly unlikely, whatever the cause, but I totally get how it can feel that way when you're in it. The good news is, there are usually ways to turn that around, and that mostly has to do with just doing some extra self-care, letting yourself just have these feelings (rather than trying to push them away), and just going ahead and doing some things you know usually make you happy, even if to start them, you have to go through the motions a bit at first. talking to people about how you feel like you are is another important coping tool.

[AR1234]

So this won't be a forever thing? I really don't want it to be. I just want to be okay. And I'm so afraid that I'll never be okay again. And it's not like a dark place to be in, it's just weird that I don't have any emotions or anything. And it feels like Im almost in a fog or like Im just like emotionless. Which was definitely weird considering two days ago I was happy and full of joy and now this. And if this is because of the pill, that it will take a month or two to go away?

[AR1234]

Well I talked to my mom, and she told me that the nighttime medicine I took for my headache yesterday was most likely the cause of it. She said the next day after you feel weird and she said that's probably what it is.

[Sam W]

It won't be a forever thing, no (although it might feel like it when you're stuck in the midst of it). You might swing out of this soon, or find it lingers for awhile, but it's not forever. If it does start to linger, then I would think about seeing if you can find a counselor or someone to talk to (someone who is trained in spotting and battling the jerky parts of your brain).

In the meantime, some self-care might go a long way. You can check out the info we have on it on the main site, or we can brainstorm ideas here if you'd like

[AR1234]

Sorry I didnt finish lol. But I talked with my mom, although disappointed in me that I didn't come to her first. I just had no idea how she would react. I definitely think she cracked the code. I have been feeling almost lethargic and out of it today. And that only started right after I took my night time medicine for my headache. I dont normally take it either, and last night was the first night I did. I didn't get that much sleep last night and I woke up early today for the first time in a while. I guess I will sleep it off and see if this will go away. Hopefully though it will. Im finding myself smiling a bit more now, and I dont feel so empty on the inside anymore. I guess its just a lasting effect on me. I overthink and I have a tendency to believe the back labels of medicines, even when I have no sign of any major illness or anything. I kinda see myself as a hypochondriac because I worry myself to the brim. I think Im over stressed and Im overtired and I just need to chill out. I'm also adjusting to a new setting in school and I think that it is all apart of my effects. And I think its all just a mind game. I dont feel sad, if anything Im still a little zoned out of it though. Kinda like a haze but its only in my head now. I dont have any weird thoughts, and I dont have sadness anymore. It just kinda brushed away. Thank you so much for everything though. Ill let you know tomorrow if the effects are still there or not.

[AR1234]

I feel a lot better knowing that this medicine did this to me. I am only now realizing that I am just super lethargic and I have like this haze behind my eyes that make me feel weird and I just didnt care today. I thought I felt empty today, only to realize that I just feel dizzy and just generally out of it. I dont have any depression, I dont have any dark thoughts, I just took Tylenol PM for a girl who is 17 and 115 pounds and it took over my body completely. Ive been weepy mostlikely because of my period being here (its bad this month) and I just feel dizzy from the lasting effects from the 500 mg medicine I had. I havent had that medicine in a long time and when I did I usually got lots of sleep and rest. Where as today I didnt. So my mind was in a fog and I didnt understand how I felt today because I was just there and my emotions were all over the place and they were just BLEH. That's the most basic way I could describe it without any details. Even my dad was telling me that he gets this way too and it usually goes away right after you sleep. I just had no idea that this could do such a thing to me. I was unaware and uneducated and I definitely feel better. But that doesnt mean I still am not a bit dizzy and lethargic though Thank you for all of your help lol! I really appreciate it!

[Heather]

Just for future reference, it really helps if you can give us this kind of information from the front.

We might have been able to help you figure this out sooner, presuming this is/was about that medication, if we'd have known you took a medicine that contained sedatives (which depress the body and brain by design)!

Just as a general rule to help you when it comes to gathering information about your health, when you're asking anyone for health information -- be it a service like ours or a doctor -- you want to give as much information about your health and health history, including any current or recent medications, as you can. We, or a doctor, can always weed out what's irrelevant.

[AR1234]

Yeah, I didn't think about it possibly being that since I've read the side effects to my birth control and it said like depression, and like changes in mood and I got worried. Where I know that pain medicine usually only makes me sleepy (even just normal Ibuprofen) (Im weird I know). But I just didn't think that type of medicine would have caused that. And honestly, I knew before I took the medicine that Tylenol, even like the lowest dosage HITS me like a truck and runs me over about 10 times. This was about twice the normal 200 pill (or about 2.5 times I should technically say) and I usually cant handle normal Tylenol without getting knocked on my butt a few times by it. But I thought this was just like the normal Ibuprofen, and it said pain medicine on the top and how many milligrams each pill was, and I take about 2 normal Ibuprofen's when I need it so I thought "Oh 500 mg will be fine, Ill handle it!" And would you know I felt weirrrrd. I even get drowsy off of normal Ibuprofen too. So with thinking that this was just normal Ibuprofen, I took 1 capsule (500 mg) and I started to feel weird about 40 minutes after I took it. And ever since Ive felt out of it, groggy, lethargic, zoned out and such. I had NO idea it was night time Tylenol until my dad told me. And now that I know, it was kind of like WELL I just took about 2.5 times the amount of a pill I can barely handle at a normal 200 mg serving. GREAT. And I didnt get that much sleep with it over the two nights. So it's still lingering a bit. I still have like the zoned out feeling a bit, but I acted more like my self today than I did yesterday. Mainly because I was scared off my mind I like had this mental illness that would never go away and I was like going to die. But one question, Im 115 pounds, 5 feet tall and 17 years old and I still am feeling out of it but it's not as bad as what it was. I just feel like fuzzy in my mind. When should this feeling like go away just out of curiousity? Like its slowly subsiding but I just want to give myself a good idea as to when it will fully subside lol. And again this is most likely the cause since I have never had this happen before on my normal birth control pills and I haven't had this happen until after I took that Tylenol PM lol.
Thank you again for the reply, I should have known better to assume it was something with my birth control when in all honestly nothing has gone wrong on it yet until I took that medicine.