Serious Saturday: Skipping Periods, Follow up

Hi guys! I hope you have had a lovely day. Mine was spent enjoying the first part of my weekend: sleeping in a bit, going grocery shopping for our weekend dinners and doing some complementary canoodling. 

Blog time. Remember my post on skipping periods and taking birth control? If you haven't or if you need a reminder, you can read it here. In short: it's about me finding out that it's completely safe to keep taking your birth control pill without respecting the recommended the stop week (and the artifical period it induces). I repeat: PERFECTLY safe. Of course, every body is different, so the way yours react might vary. I've since taken my own advice and tested how skipping my period would work for me personally by taking three pill strips in a row without breaks. Here's my experience.

I've been on the pill since I was 16 or 17, so I am pretty used to it now. I take mine every day before going to bed, sometime between about 10 and 1pm. I've never noticed any negative side effects so I wasn't really nervous about taking it to the next level. I decided to take three strips in a row before trying longer stretches of time because I was curious to see if my period would be heavier after skipping two of them. Some women told me they experienced more pain and a longer period when they didn't respect the stop week.

I noticed a few things during my extended pill taking: first of all, I don't know if it has anything to do with this but I gained about 1kg of weight over the last months. I'm not even sure if that started before this little experiment or not, but I thought I'd let you know. Second: I started experiencing light spotting towards the end of my third pill strip. Nothing that would, like, make you embarrassed for having put on white pants in the morning, but there was some darker tinged discharge. 

Finally, my period: it started right when I expected (three days after taking my last pill) and I can't say it was a lot heavier, longer or more intense than normal, but it was different in some ways. Usually my second day is the most painful, cramp-wise, and I have headaches every day during the evenings right until I start taking my pills again. This time, I had one extra painful day that was slightly tougher than usual, but only during peaks of cramping that lasted no more than a few minutes. On the subject of headaches, I also noticed a slight increase of intensity. Where I usually start getting pangs of pain around 6-7pm, my headaches started around 12-1pm on the worst days now.

Conclusion: if I'm free of the hassle, discomfort and pain that returns every one out of four weeks, I have no issue whatsoever powering through the slightly more painful periods that come with extended times of pill taking. I'm skipping my period again for the next few months, maybe 4 strips instead of 3 this time, depending on when I notice spotting since that seems to be a bit of an indication that my body is ready to take a break. The one kg weight gain doesn't bother me as it hasn't changed the way my clothes fit, but I might reconsider my opinion if I notice that I can't fit into my favourite pieces anymore. I don't want to have to spend muchos money on a new wardrobe.

End verdict: three thumbs up! 

Two from me and one from Paulien, photographed by a pushy dude who wasn't even wearing any shoes. He spotted us taking pictures from his window and he insisted on taking one of the two of us. THANKS SOCKLESS DUDE.

If you have any questions or if you've tried this yourself and want to share your thoughts: spill the beans!