Expert: Diane Cheryl - 12/27/2006

Question
I started taking Yasmin only 9 days ago (on the 17th), and almost immediately started having problems. Afer about 3-4 days, I had horrible mood swings and back pains, and I found myself crying in public on several occasions (over nothing at all). But we were kind of confused as to why the effects kicked in so quickly. It didn't seem long enough for the problems to be caused by the pill, but we decided to discontinue it anyway. My doctor said "any side effects should only last for about three months", but I couldn't go three months like that. So 6 days after starting the pill, I stopped taking it... and I just found out that I started an irregularly heavy period (my periods are always normal, and have a 28-30 day cycle. I'm assuming I started because I stopped the pill, but is this a problem? I'm having severe back pain.. but I'm not sure what it's being caused by. Thank you very much.

Answer
Hi Jessica,
I'm sorry you are experiencing these problems. I think you meant that your doctor advised you to quit taking it or was he telling you in advance about the side effects? I'm not sure if your period started because of discontinuing the pill but it's a possibility. You might want to see your doctor or at least call to see about the back pain, etc. Are you thinking about some other method of birth control? Please email me at DCHERYL51@yahoo.com and we can talk more.
Thanks.
Diane Cheryl