I'm asking this question with my wife's interests in mind.
At the end of 2012, about 18 months into us dating, she went on the pill. Within a few months she had developed a hard bloat in her lower abdomen, whereas prior to this she had always had a flat abdomen and small waist. The visual effect of the bloating was that it looked like she was 5 months pregnant. Her waist also thickened and she lost the hourglass figure, looking boxy instead. Along with this came digestive issues and discomfort. As I indicated a couple of sentences ago, I can only assume this was due to the birth control she started using because nothing else in her diet or lifestyle changed, and the onset of the physical changes was pretty rapid. A couple of years ago she switched to a copper device for birth control and since then the bloating/swelling has abated some, but it's still there. It tends to look better in the mornings and worse in the evenings. She did have some health issues at the time this started; fingernails would split completely open sometimes, weak/breaking hair, as well as difficulty digesting red meat/slow digestion.
She and I are curious to know if there are any Peaters on this forum who might have explanations for why this happened (explain the mechanism) and what can be done to reverse it. I've tried using the search function on the forum but haven't had much luck in finding any posts that zero in on this specific issue. Ditto for trying to research this on the Internet - all I find are generic claims that this can be cause by lack of fiber, birth control pills, stress, etc.
My 30,000-foot theory so far is that the pill she was using messed up her gut microbiome somehow and slowed down her thyroid (although her TSH, T3, and T4 always seem to come in at good Peaty levels.)
At the end of 2012, about 18 months into us dating, she went on the pill. Within a few months she had developed a hard bloat in her lower abdomen, whereas prior to this she had always had a flat abdomen and small waist. The visual effect of the bloating was that it looked like she was 5 months pregnant. Her waist also thickened and she lost the hourglass figure, looking boxy instead. Along with this came digestive issues and discomfort. As I indicated a couple of sentences ago, I can only assume this was due to the birth control she started using because nothing else in her diet or lifestyle changed, and the onset of the physical changes was pretty rapid. A couple of years ago she switched to a copper device for birth control and since then the bloating/swelling has abated some, but it's still there. It tends to look better in the mornings and worse in the evenings. She did have some health issues at the time this started; fingernails would split completely open sometimes, weak/breaking hair, as well as difficulty digesting red meat/slow digestion.
She and I are curious to know if there are any Peaters on this forum who might have explanations for why this happened (explain the mechanism) and what can be done to reverse it. I've tried using the search function on the forum but haven't had much luck in finding any posts that zero in on this specific issue. Ditto for trying to research this on the Internet - all I find are generic claims that this can be cause by lack of fiber, birth control pills, stress, etc.
My 30,000-foot theory so far is that the pill she was using messed up her gut microbiome somehow and slowed down her thyroid (although her TSH, T3, and T4 always seem to come in at good Peaty levels.)