non hormonal suggestions

[Sophiealice_]

hi!

I was diagnosed with endo in 2019, avoided any hormonal treatment until last year due to past experiences of the pill.

March last yr I went for a private fertility check and they said my endo looked worse and was now also adenomyosis. Suggestion was a mirena coil to stop periods.

I went for it and hoped for the best, but I hated it. 11 months of hating how I looked, putting weight on, feeling incredibly low in my moods, libido was completely nonexistent and fatigue that was hard to deal with.

At the 11 month mark I’d had enough and said take it out (took 3 different doctors before finding one that agreed to take it out) and 3 weeks on I’m feeling back to myself.

I don’t know if I’m hypersensitive to hormonal contraception or this is just how everyone feels on it and we’re meant to just get on with it??

I was just hoping someone had some advice on what to do now, I don’t want to take any hormonal pills but if anyone had any experiences similar to mine but managed to find a pill that worked & didn’t make them utterly miserable I’d be really grateful to know what it was.

Thanks ♥️♥️♥️

[BusyLizzieP]

I’ve avoided going taking hormonal ‘treatments’ for same reason, my experiences of them haven’t been great. There’s a great book called something like your brain on birth control, which talks about how birth control affects different parts of the body (all the stuff doctors never tell you when proscribing pills!)

Also Heal Endo has some really practical suggestions for how to manage endo without hormones. I’ve been trying to follow her advice on nutrition plus having acupuncture since my surgery in the autumn and I do feel it’s helping, externally at least!

[AdenoMiss]

I've got adeno and endo and my body rejected the coil. I also had to come off hormonal contraceptives due to a lovely combination of mental health issues (it made me suicidal) and migraines. I am super sensitive to synthetic hormones so just can't do anything!

That's not much help to you, I'm sorry, but wanted to let you know I'm in the same boat. I wfh during my period, which helps me cope with the pain and the bleeding during that time, as well as taking mefanamic acid and paracetamol, TENS machine, heat pad etc. The rest of the month I eat as healthily as I can, avoid alcohol/caffeine and do quite a bit of exercise.

It all helps, but I realise that without wanting or being able to use the (frankly not great, as they only mask symptoms and don't actually solve the problem) very few contraceptive methods that are available to 'treat' what we have I'm in a bind so just do as much as I can naturally. We need more research!

[Rashid-89]

oh gosh sounds awful, i aslo said no the coil, but they kept on insisting i have it done and how wonderful it is and i will feel better but i said no after all the horror stories I heard. I was put on a pill rigevidon pill back to back to stop my periods and it worked wonders. Ive now had to come off it as they started me on a treatment of injections prostap so they can start surgery later in the year but this has made my pain100000000x worse, im on hrt tablets as well. Beint diabetic also doesn’t help as the injections rises my blood sugar so i am struggling a lot!

[EmB18]

I didn't get on with hormone treatment either so that made me start looking at other options. I found making changes to my diet made a big difference to my symptoms, so I follow an anti-inflammatory diet, with plenty of fruits and veg. We all react differently, but taking out wheat and sugar really helped me along with working on managing stress better. Hope you find something that helps.