Many of my friends already know that I avoid visiting our campus health center like the plague. It’s not that the people there aren’t generally friendly, the service meets my needs most of the time, and it’s really close to home. All of those things are very true. However, some days I get that nurse practitioner who clearly wants to get home early, or I get told (after being sick for 3 weeks straight) that I just need bedrest.
Last week though, I finally had another appointment to swap out by birth control pill. I didn’t like the last one (a monophasic pill) because even though it did everything I wanted; reduced my mood swings, controlled my acne, and kept me from having monthly cramps that restricted me to bed; I had also completely lost my already-not-so-high sex drive. After two months of being off my last pill, at last I went in to get on something else. Just in time, too, because I had the most debilitating cramps ever this month.
I’m already thrilled that my RN put me on a triphasic pill; it was my guess at what I wanted to try next, anyway. She asked me to try it out for three months and come back in if I was experiencing any more negative side effects. For those of you who don’t know much about birth control, a triphasic pill is different from a monophasic pill in that it mimics the natural hormonal cycle a little more closely. Each week is a different colour pill with a different amount of hormones in it, finally rounding off with a white pill placebo week, during which you get your period. Monophasic pills all contain the same amount of hormones, so there’s one colour for three weeks and then the placebo week.
I’m hoping that this will be the pill I need to try for a while; I suppose we’ll see in three months. I also had some really great conversations with my RN during my appointment about my upcoming pap smear (next year sometime!) and how that was all going to go. Last but not least, I finally asked for a basic STI screening, something I should have done years ago. Seriously, as soon as you become sexually active, go and do that. I was not being responsible about that, for sure. She said she’d call if anything came up on the results, so hopefully I don’t hear from her until I need to make another appointment!
