As we’ve discussed in previous blogs, the loss of spirituality in America has permeated virtually all aspects of our society. But education and health care stand out as particularly affected. Here we focus on an aspect of health care that imposes a potentially agonizing burden on women of child-bearing age. It was prompted in part by the personal experience, recounted below, of Marisa, who plays an essential role in the blogs you read on our sites and who hopes to start a family soon with her significant other. It provides one more example of the corrosive impact the country’s increasingly materialistic and short-term-oriented mindset is having on American well-being. -SL
Migraines, nausea, total loss of appetite, weight gain, hair loss, mood swings, pain. These
symptoms might sound like the warning signs of a serious illness that would prompt immediate medical attention.
Instead, they describe just some of what women typically experience at various stages of their lives because of the complex and shifting nature of female hormones. Hormones play a critical role in regulation and balance. When disrupted and mishandled, they can wreak havoc with a woman’s body and health.
Given that these hormonal shifts are a universal and unavoidable part of female life, you might think that in the U.S., medical research would have developed safe, effective ways to deal with them and to ease women’s discomfort in ways that don’t end up creating new health risks. But that isn’t the case.
Busting the Myth of the “Harmless” Birth Control Pill
Oral contraceptives, which contain estrogen and progesterone, are serious interventions that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Beyond maintaining levels of estrogen and progesterone, they have other more concerning physiological and physical consequences that are rarely discussed with young patients (or their parents). Yet, shockingly, in recent decades in the U.S., girls are being encouraged to “get on the pill” at ever younger ages. Today these hormonal contraceptives increasingly are given to many girls as young as thirteen, as a shortcut to “regulating hormones quickly”.
The pill literally tricks a woman’s body into thinking she’s pregnant all month long as it releases hormones that mimic pregnancy hormones, preventing ovulation. This hormone tampering results in years of altering the body’s natural chemicals—and it can bring on a kind of hell when a woman decides to get off the pill. It’s something that women aren’t informed about in advance—but that I recently experienced first-hand.
“As the number of women using oral contraceptives constantly increases, the age of first contraceptive use has constantly decreased.” (The National Library of Medicine)
Some might try to rationalize the growing use, at ever younger ages, of oral contraceptives
as simply reflecting growing social acceptance of contraceptive use overall. But that theory doesn’t hold up when you look at other countries. Birth control also has been normalized,
for instance, in Asian countries, where the most popular form of birth control by far is male
condoms—75% for Hong Kong and Japan and 74% for South Korea. The next most popular form of birth control in those places is natural planning.
The preference in Asian countries for condoms, followed by natural planning, as their birth control methods of choice reflects these cultures’ long appreciation of the importance of protecting against harmful chemicals and excess medicines. The positive impact of this
outlook can be seen in the longer life expectancies in these countries compared to the U.S.
In previous blogs, we’ve discussed how Asian countries’ health care systems prioritize the
individual, focusing on the needs of each patient. One aspect of that is appreciating the
differing health concerns of men and women. Doctors in these countries are unlikely to tell
young girls to unnaturally balance their hormones with the quickest fix possible, or to write
prescriptions at the drop of a hat. This mentality helps explain why their health care
systems and life expectancies continue to trump ours.
In the U.S., teenage and pre-teen girls aren’t given sufficient information about the processes that hormonal pills might be disrupting. They aren’t told that it involves more than just innocuous “regulating”. Above all, they are not warned about Post Birth Control Syndrome (PBCS), the painful condition they may experience upon getting off the pill—and which I recently experienced first-hand. More on this below.
If girls aren’t given enough information by their doctors, can they learn about any of this online via AI? To find out, we turned to ChatGPT. We asked it for an answer to the question:
“Why are young girls using birth control at such high rates today?” We suspected the answer would shine a light on what young girls are being told.
ChatGPT’s answer: “Since the pill became widely available, more younger women began using it earlier (often in their teens) not just for pregnancy prevention but also for menstrual regulation or acne treatment in subsequent decades.”
The answer reveals a lot about how young girls are being dangerously misled. What shocked us most was the tone, with the cavalier suggestion that hormone regulation and clear skin are major functions of this powerful pill. It’s disturbing to think of how many young girls likely take such advice at face value, without realizing the potential ills they could be setting themselves up for once they start altering natural hormone cycles.
The Complexity of Female Physiological Processes
Women’s bodies are more physiologically complex than those of men, who have a relatively
more stable physiological makeup. Women’s bodies are highly sensitive to changes and alterations, so that even minor changes in hormone production can bring on complications.
The National Library of Medicine provides additional details:
“The unique reproductive demands placed on females result in dynamic hormonal
fluctuations marked by significant and cyclical changes in multiple hormonal systems. …These changes are regulated by the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis and are evident across the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and the menopausal transition.”
Estrogen and progesterone are the two primary hormones governing female reproductive
health and hormonal regulation across a woman’s lifespan. They act as chemical messengers within complex endocrine systems, influencing not only reproduction but also brain function, metabolism, immune response, and cardiovascular health. Because these hormones are designed to fluctuate in coordinated cycles rather than remain constant, disruptions in their balance, timing, or signaling can have widespread effects throughout the body.
As a result, hormonal alterations can have a major impact on women. Estrogen and progesterone shape daily mood, mental clarity, energy levels, sleep quality, stress tolerance, and pain perception. This means that hormonal disruption can simultaneously affect multiple aspects of a woman’s everyday functioning. Getting off the pill similarly can affect a woman’s body and well-being in multiple ways. The drug companies that produce these pills and the doctors that push them don’t mention the symptoms that happen after you get off the pill.
My Own Experience With PBCS
Estrogen and progesterone act directly on the brain and nervous system, influencing neurotransmitters and regulating immune and inflammatory responses. When these hormones fall out of balance, the inflammatory response alone can be agonizing. Discontinuing oral contraceptives puts a woman at risk for severe withdrawal symptoms—the condition we referred to above known as Post Birth Control Syndrome (PBCS). My own experience sheds light on what can happen.
When I was 15, and experiencing normal hormonal changes, it was recommended to me that I get on the pill. With my mother’s influence, I held off until at 17, I was experiencing an extremely heavy and painful periods. At that point, when I was told, “Get on the pill to regulate your hormones!” I believed it, and the painful cycle of hormone imbalance claimed another naive victim.
Until a bit more than a month ago, I was taking the pill daily. When I decided to stop, I got my period for three weeks. I had expected something of the sort and assumed it was a normal withdrawal effect. A few weeks later, though, I was doubled over in agony. For 10 days, I could hardly breathe because my inflammatory stomach pains were so severe. I ended up in the hospital for three days where the blood vessels in my eyes burst from screaming.
The important takeaway is that this pain is avoidable! After 15 rounds of tests, from X-rays to MRIs to CAT scans, nothing explained my pain or inflammation, until I learned about PBCS.
Can You Prevent Agonizing PCBS?
PBCS symptoms are not always as debilitating as in my case. But anyone who takes the pill should be made aware of the possibility of having them. And when they plan to stop taking them, they should be given information about ways to counteract the withdrawal pains caused by PBCS, including ways to support critical gut bacteria that may be underproducing, resulting in damage to the microbiome.
When a woman stops taking hormonal birth control, the sudden decline in estrogen and
progesterone can significantly disrupt populations of lactobacilli, beneficial bacteria that are essential to both gut and vaginal health. Estrogen supports the survival of key Lactobacillus species, and when hormone levels fall, these protective bacteria can rapidly decline. This imbalance, known as dysbiosis, allows opportunistic bacteria to expand, increasing inflammation, intestinal sensitivity, and abnormal gut motility. The result of this decline can be severe abdominal cramping, bloating, nausea, and heightened pain perception during hormonal withdrawal.
A simple solution can be supplementing with targeted Lactobacillus probiotics, which may help ease the pain by restoring microbial balance, strengthening the intestinal barrier, and reducing inflammatory signaling — a mechanism increasingly supported by clinical research in gastrointestinal and hormone-related conditions.
A Cultural Shift Is Overdue In American Healthcare
While this is my own story, based on my own experience, the discussion of probiotics and the microbiome is relevant to everyone, men and women alike. In my case, adding probiotics was a critical step in getting rid of pain from a specific cause. But our research indicates they have important benefits more broadly.
As we’ve discussed in our earlier health-related blogs, there are choices you can make when it comes to having a diet that promotes health, energy, and well-being. For example, even seemingly commonplace foods like dairy products aren’t all created equal… There’s a little-known distinction between dairy products with A1 protein and A2 protein. The former, which is what you’ll see in grocery stores and supermarkets, contains gut irritants. A2 proteins, in contrast, are beneficial to the gut.
But it raises the question: If we had to rely on our own research, in this case to find ways to cope with PBCS amid the alarming over-prescription of birth control pills, why aren’t all
patients in the U.S. getting better information about this and other health issues?
We could learn a lot from South Korea, where doctors are known for spending ample time
their patients. The doctors ask detailed questions and seek to educate their patients about
whatever medical issue they’re experiencing. In the U.S., you’re lucky if you get to speak
with your doctor for a few minutes at the end of an appointment.
It’s time for a culture shift in America, in which we abandon the one-size-fits-all medical
system and emulate the health care practices of the longest-lived countries. Meanwhile, we
encourage men and women alike to take greater responsibility for their own health by
filling in knowledge gaps with their own research. The horrors of Covid in 2020 helped
distinguish the quality of treatment for patients in the U.S between the rich and poor,
educated and uneducated. It’s increasingly evident that if you’re not in the top 1% income
bracket, the quality of health care you receive will be inferior. Men and women alike
deserve medical care that addresses the root causes of problems, with doctors less quick to
prescribe medicines with potentially life-altering effects.
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