antiqua
Member
Hi everyone. I’m a 22 year old woman who was put on the pill at 14 for acne. My doctor and parents told me it was normal and I was eager to clear my skin as any 14 year old would be. Well, I stayed on it all throughout my teens thinking nothing of it. With my liberal upbringing, and my mom even being a nurse, I thought it was totally side effect free.
When I was 18 I decided to switch to the hormonal IUD because I didn’t want to take pills every day. Actually I wanted the copper IUD but the doctors pushed the Mirena on me. Imagine my shock (sarcasm) when I developed THE WORST ACNE EVER a month or so after the insertion. Whereas my 14 year old acne was regular teen acne mostly on the forehead, this was full blown hormonal cystic acne covering my whole face.
I immediately asked them to take the IUD out but the doctors refused, and instead put me back on the pill as well as spironolactone, without removing the IUD. So basically at this time I was on 2.5 birth controls at the same time. A year later I finally got the IUD removed and stopped the pill but stayed on Spiro because it gave me amazing skin. Well, last year I stopped the spiro (which was effectively acting as birth control, suppressing all ovarian activity) and all hell finally broke loose. All the damage done to me by years of fake hormones has come to the surface. Extreme acne again, loss of half my hair (my natural golden blonde has even turned brown), hirsutism, puffiness and weight gain, extreme depression, mood swings, suicidality and a relapse in self harm that I’ve struggled with intermittently since I was 12.
To make matters worse, at the time I stopped spiro I had been convinced that the way to prevent my acne from coming back was going Keto. So I did that for 3 months last spring and without exaggeration I almost died from it. It completely drained my body and mind, and I’m surprised I didn’t end up in the hospital. Also this was a very traumatic time in my life emotionally as I was recovering from a sexual assault in December 2021.
So yeah, I am in a pit of despair and I feel like my body is permanently broken because of what doctors did to me when I was only a child. Is there hope? Any advice? Honestly I feel like everything has been taken from me that I once loved about life. I was once a beautiful, happy girl and now I’m a monster in my eyes. If it weren’t for my faith I would definitely be dead by now.
When I was 18 I decided to switch to the hormonal IUD because I didn’t want to take pills every day. Actually I wanted the copper IUD but the doctors pushed the Mirena on me. Imagine my shock (sarcasm) when I developed THE WORST ACNE EVER a month or so after the insertion. Whereas my 14 year old acne was regular teen acne mostly on the forehead, this was full blown hormonal cystic acne covering my whole face.
I immediately asked them to take the IUD out but the doctors refused, and instead put me back on the pill as well as spironolactone, without removing the IUD. So basically at this time I was on 2.5 birth controls at the same time. A year later I finally got the IUD removed and stopped the pill but stayed on Spiro because it gave me amazing skin. Well, last year I stopped the spiro (which was effectively acting as birth control, suppressing all ovarian activity) and all hell finally broke loose. All the damage done to me by years of fake hormones has come to the surface. Extreme acne again, loss of half my hair (my natural golden blonde has even turned brown), hirsutism, puffiness and weight gain, extreme depression, mood swings, suicidality and a relapse in self harm that I’ve struggled with intermittently since I was 12.
To make matters worse, at the time I stopped spiro I had been convinced that the way to prevent my acne from coming back was going Keto. So I did that for 3 months last spring and without exaggeration I almost died from it. It completely drained my body and mind, and I’m surprised I didn’t end up in the hospital. Also this was a very traumatic time in my life emotionally as I was recovering from a sexual assault in December 2021.
So yeah, I am in a pit of despair and I feel like my body is permanently broken because of what doctors did to me when I was only a child. Is there hope? Any advice? Honestly I feel like everything has been taken from me that I once loved about life. I was once a beautiful, happy girl and now I’m a monster in my eyes. If it weren’t for my faith I would definitely be dead by now.