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February 02, 2008
Birth Control: Probably Still Okay
It gets tiring listening to news reports about the latest trial involving a widely used drug or drug family. Every epidemiological study seems to contradict the one before it. Which is why I was happy to read "The Pill, A Rock Opera" by Amanda Schaffer in Slate. Seems that there is definitive evidence that birth control decreases the risk of ovarian cancer. It probably doesn't increase the risk of anything else, though it might if you smoke.
For a long time I refused to consider birth control. My reasoning was simplistic - I felt it was unwise to mess with your hormone levels and that daily drug use was destined to cause problems. Nothing necessarily strange about that, except that while I was steadfastly refusing the gynecologist's offer of a script, I was also puffing away on cartons of cigarettes. Can't exactly be indignant about prescription drug effects when you're smoking cancer sticks.
In the end, I realized that freedom from condoms was a fair trade-off for possibly, probably not increasing my risk of disease. Strangely enough, the other hormone I take daily is more likely to cause long-term problems (early onset menopause, random cancers) than my lil white pill. Since I can't actually survive without my metabolism drug, I decided sometime last year to stop caring about future risk and focusing on today.
...this post is in honor of the 1-year anniversary of my thyroidectomy.
Posted by cj at February 2, 2008 03:21 PM