Scary article from Women's Adventure Magazine

[maillotpois]

I almost died from pulmonary emboli caused by birth control. No hormones for me. And I don't have Factor V (thank God), but there are a lot of other slight genetic predispositions to clotting that aren't their own syndrome but come out with the use of hormones. That's why they put all that warning label stuff on the packets that you have to throw away.

(And I had been on and off BC in my 20's. It was the new "safe low dose" stuff that almost got me when I went back on in my late 30's.)

[maillotpois]

And now this whole blood clot thing is coming back to haunt me. I'm healthy as a horse and that was a complete anomaly in my health history; however, I'm in the process of updating my life and disability insurance and I just KNOW that's going to kill me on the premium.

[Melalvai]

My 16-yr-old daughter is feeling tempted by the promise of hormonal contraceptives to regulate her period, so she can time it around swim meets, summer camp, etc. I want her to make her own decisions but hormones scare me. It's not just "convenience" for her; she has these super heavy periods which mean a day out of school or sleeping in the nurse's office. Still to me it's not a good enough reason to risk blood clots and side effects.

[beccaB]

Maybe if she is carefully monitored by a doctor, and getting preliminary blood work done. I don't think blood work is done for a patient that doesn't fit a high risk profile, but maybe it should be. I hate to say this, but when a man needs to go on a certain medication he usually gets all the testing done that he wants. Women are not always treated equally. I take issue with that. for instance , there is a psa test for prostate cancer that is readily administered to men. There is and equal version of that for women to screen for ovarian cancer but insurance companies won't cover it.