Dr. Tina Marcantel is a naturopathic doctor practicing in Gilbert, Arizona. She also serves the East Valley communities of Mesa, Chandler, Tempe, Queen Creek, Apache Junction, Scottsdale, and the greater Phoenix area.
Many women turn to the birth control pill to help regulate their monthly cycles and for help with symptoms of PMS. The problem with this method is that the large doses of estrogen contained in birth control pills can cause hormonal imbalances with their own sets of side effects.
An alternative method for helping to regulate periods is the use of bioidentical hormones. PLEASE NOTE: Bioidentical hormones are NOT a form of birth control; they are not designed to suppress the natural function of the ovaries.
In this video, Brianna shares her story of why she decided to switch from birth control pills to bioidentical hormones for help with her monthly cycles.
Transcript:
Hi, everybody, I’m Brianna. I work for Dr. Marcantel as her receptionist and today I’m talking about my experience of being on the birth control pill.
When I was 16 years old I was having some menstrual issues like cramping and irregularity and PMS symptoms like moodiness–things that I’m sure a lot of women can relate to. So I talked with my GYN and she put me on the birth control pill. At the time, I don’t recall having a discussion with her about what the side effects were or anything like that; it just seemed like it was this “magic pill” that was going to fix my problems. I got on it mainly to regulate my cycles and to decrease cramping because those were my two main problems.
I was on the pill for two years and those two things were better, or so I thought, but I didn’t realize I was actually having a whole bunch of other symptoms during the time I was on the pill.
I started working for Dr. Marcantel when I was 18 and I started discussing some of the symptoms I was having with her. She had me do testing and I spoke with her after to go over the results and it showed that I had some pretty severe hormone imbalances.
When I talked to Dr. Marcantel about it, she not only explained the results to me but she actually took the time to explain what the correlation was specifically for being on the pill. I talked to Dr. Marcantel and I decided that what was best for me was to get off of the pill.
I’m regulated, so that’s great, and menstrual cramping is pretty much nonexistent, so those are the two main reasons I got on the pill. But also, being on bioidentical hormones and not on the pill has totally fixed my moods; my moods are much better, and a lot of other symptoms that I had have just improved greatly.
Hopefully this helps some girls who are my age to prevent some side effects or anything they may have later on or maybe to just give a different perspective to some women who are already on birth control.
