I briefly took BCP when I was young (Suavuret). Only took them for six months, since I gained a lot of weight, lost a lot of hair and felt very depressed.
Now I got prescribed Qlaira for heavy bleedings and just started the second week. Not feeling any better yet, since I'm spotting all the time and had two episodes of heavy bleedings. Don't feel any side effects yet, nothing. I guess it's still too soon and it has to settle. Hope it will not be as awful as Suavuret was when I was young.
For me HRT isn't an option, since I have just started peri, my hormones are fluctuating a lot and I still need contraception. But I intend to transition into HRT after meno.
I know it would not be easy, because here in Spain doctors are very adverse to it since the scare of WHI 2002, and very, very few women are on it. But I intend to tell my GP that if she doesn't prescribe it, I'll self-medicate anyway, so she'd rather prescribe it and have me under control.
I really don't understand why doctors here are so adverse to HRT but don't think twice about prescribing BCP even to women over 40 like me. My mother, who stopped menstruating at 57 got prescribed Boltin but after a year they told her to stop it because of the risk. Even when my mother has never smoked, never had clots and no history of cancer. Well, she tends to have sugar a little high and spikes in blood pressure so I guess that's why they put her off HRT so soon.
