Desogen and food cravings

Reading through these postings, I am surprised that so many women out there have had negative experiences with Desogen. I have had an extremely positive experience with Solia (the generic). It got rid of my preexisting, extremely painful premenstrual cramps, lightened my flow, didn't cause weight gain or bloating, cleared up my skin tone, and the melasma that is known to occur with high dosage pills didn't even happen to me. Conversely, I tried Yasmin about a year ago for about 5 months and it drove me bloody mad - intense food cravings, cramps came back, increased irritability - you name it, I had it. My advice to all the women out there is you really just have to try various pills until you find one that works for you. It's unfortunate and inconvenient, but if the side effects are significant enough to motivate you to research them online, then you owe it to yourself to switch pills.

I started my daughter on Apri in May of 2004 to help extreme period cramps & cysts building up and causing pain. During that time she developed severe headaches, gained 20-25 lbs weight, awful mood swings, depression. Hair loss, not much help with acne and also discoloration of skin. It is now August 2006 and she has been off for appx. 1 mo and it is an amazing difference. She said terrible food cravings that she was having for sweets have gotten way better - please think twice b/4 putting your kids on this - I am now looking at other healthier alternatives...

I've never been on desogen but I was on several other birth control pills, Yasmin, Ortho Tri Cyclen, depo-provera and ortho Evra. All four created serious emotional and health problems ranging from pimples to severe nausea, to muscle aches and pain to EXTREME mood swings especially crying, anger and feelings of "neediness". Worst of all was the 20 lb weight gain and constant food cravings. In 1998 I got 2 shots of Depo Provera and immediately gained nearly 10 lbs per shot regardless of the fact that I was very active travelling all over at the time. After the second shot wore off and my body's metabolism returned to normal, the weight melted off just fine. I began taking ortho evra in 2001 because I established a monogamous relationship with a boyfriend. The effects were horrible, I began having terrible tantrums for no reason with him and that is NOT my style. I couldn't concentrate on anything without feeling emotional and irrational. Also within the next 3 months I gained 15 lbs and another 5 over the next month, and it would NOT come off no matter what kind of dieting or exercise I did. A year later, I quit the pill and suddenly my diet began to "work" and I lost 15 lbs immediately. I met my current boyfriend a few months later and decided that pregnancy was just not an option and tried ortho tri cyclen. Same results, horrible mood swings and creeping weight gain that happened WAY too quickly for the way I eat which is very sensible and low-calorie. I switched to Yasmin and immediately my sex drive was GONE. My boyfriend couldnt get ANYTHING to work down there, if you get my drift. In 2003, I finally made the decision to just give up on birth control and try pull-out, condoms, and ovulation monitoring methods. I lost 20 lbs within the first 4 months and another 5 later on and my emotions returned to normal.

I am just writing this to let you gals know that theres other methods besides stuffing synthetic hormones into our bodies that create BIG problems for our mental and physical health. Educate yourselves on other methods of birth control. Birth control pills aren't supposed to prevent pregnancy by making you a sexless, fat, emotionally labile and crazy woman that no man wants to have sex with much less spend time with. Hah.