The beginning of the end (how dramatic)

If you are reading this blog then you likely already know what Depo-Provera is and, like me, have stopped the depo and are looking for stories from other women to see if how you’re feeling is ‘normal’. Or maybe you’re thinking about starting it and are looking for some advice which hopefully this provides. Before I stopped the depo I scoured the internet in search of information and some reassurance of what to expect. After my last injection I continued to look for other women’s experiences and facts about what was happening to my body and when I would be back to ‘normal’. I couldn’t find anything that just gave me the facts and read many horror stories along the way from women sharing their post depo symptoms. I quickly realised that there are no hard truths as such and everyone’s experiences are different. So I decided to write this blog so other women can follow my experience, hopefully share their own stories too and selfishly for me to have an avenue to offload! I don’t want this blog to be all about the bad so hopefully some good will come of this and I’ll try to make it as light hearted as I can which usually comes naturally to me.

Thought I’d start with a little info about me here. I’m 29 and have been with my boyfriend for nearly 2 years, we live together and have a dog called Poppy (our baby). We are both very family orientated and both want children and have talked about this a lot (usually me saying baby names that he would hate just to wind him up). My boyfriend would describe me as very level headed, strong, never worried about anything and can make light of any situation no matter how awful it is. He is my complete opposite – a worrier! We complement each other pretty well I think and balance each other out. My best friends are great and we share absolutely everything  – we are all nurses so I think when you’ve seen/done things we’ve seen there’s no boundaries to what we talk about! Being a nurse probably also contributes to my darker sense of humour and ability to not overly worry!

Back to the subject in hand, I can’t even remember when I started the depo (great start) but it was probably around 7 to 8 years ago and previous to that I took the pill for maybe a couple of years or so. But before all that I had pretty normal periods, regular cycle, mild period pain, chocolate cravings, you know all the things I long for now but hated at the time. So I was ‘normal’ and nothing out the ordinary happened for me to start either contraception except for that – contraception. But back then, my younger self, in my  early 20s liked the idea of no periods at all so started on the depo. And I loved it!!

My periods stopped straight away and I had no side effects at all! I didn’t get fat, spotty or have continuous bleeding that some poor girls got with it. At that point of course I was not considering having babies any time soon and was not (or I can’t remember or didn’t listen or didn’t care) told about the effects of stopping it in the future. As if I was bothered about that… no periods – SOLD!