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This might seem like 'Too Much Information' for many people, but I'm all about oversharing if it means helping to break taboos.
As you probably know, the contraceptive pill is made up of oestrogen and progesterone or just oestrogen. It tricks your body into thinking its pregnant so stops it releasing eggs once a month. Needless to say, this kind of hormone alteration leads to some unpleasant side effects. This is my experience of that.
Last year I went to my GP to inquire about going on the contraceptive pill in an attempt to be able to control my periods in the buildup to the 2019 world champs. I knew I didn't want to be on my period whilst competing, it's highly irritating. I had talked to the GB and EIS (English Institute of Sport) doctor beforehand and they both supported the idea and told me to try to get the lowest dose of oestrogen to try to lessen the side effects. My GP agreed with this plan and prescribed me Gederal. I was told that it would take about three months for any severe side effects to die down.
I'm going to talk you through how day one went...
I woke up in the morning and took the pill at around 9 am. About 30 minutes to an hour later my lower back was extremely painful. I occasionally experienced mild back pain during my period but this was far worse than that! I started regretting taking it, I already suffer from back pain from having spine deformities and being a wonky amputee sprinter.
At about 1 pm I went to get my hair cut (got a fringe!), by the time the hairdresser was done my back pain had actually improved.
I then drove to Bath University to do a bike session. It was a speed session and I have to say I absolutely smashed it, I managed to get to over 200rpm throughout the session and I started to think 'why do people go on about doping with Testosterone?! Oestrogen is clearly doing the job'... how wrong I was...
That night I started to feel a bit nauseated. Waves of nausea is something I sometimes experience on an actual period, but usually not for that long.
Then the diarrhoea commenced, also another symptom of periods, but this was unusually bad.
I continued to struggle to get to sleep, then at about 2 am the nausea intensified and I started vomiting! I am very rarely sick, the last time I'd properly thrown up before this was aged 12. After I'd emptied the contents of my stomach, I felt a little better, but still pretty ill, and I actually didn't manage to get to sleep that night AT ALL.
Suffice to say, I decided the pill wasn't for me and never took it again. I couldn't take another three months (at least) of back pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and lack of sleep - periods are less traumatic than that! Even though I only took the one it still made my next period much later than expected. Maybe a different brand wouldn't be so bad but I'm too scared to risk it. I'm not going to alter my hormones for the foreseeable future!