Signs of blood clots symptoms and conditions

I have been on NuvaRing for a little less than a year. My OBGYN prescribed it. It was my first time using birth control. I noticed 2 things right away - I was a lot more calm/non-chalant and I had lessened sex drive. I thought the latter was due to my nervousness about my boyfriend pushing it up too far for me to fish it out again and maybe at first that was part of it. But it's gone from overactive to almost non-existent (little physical desire, mostly emotional & love desire). I think normally there such be a balance. Also it is difficult to have an orgasm now - I have to really concentrate. My calmness was great in that it balanced out my highs and lows, but now it's to the point that I mostly don't really care about anything one way or the other. Too non-chalant. I also am experiencing depression for no or irrelevant reasons - so bad that it's kept me out of work and even - yes - even the shopping mall! I have no desire to go outside and do anything - grocery shopping, shopping, shopping, walking around or anything - which I thought at first was a good thing for the shopping, shopping. Like most of the posters I could just lay around and sleep and eat all day. With the sleep - I can sleep, but I am NEVER tired. I can stay up until the wee hours of the morning without a yawn like it's the afternoon and I still wake up very early. With the food - I can eat multiple times in a row - full meals. I'm always hungry and never full/satisfied. I am constipated with hard stools. This was an issue until I got off of partially hydrogenated oils (about 2-3 years ago), however even with my altered diet I've still been having issues. My thighs have been falling asleep - weird. Also I can't remember anything from one moment to the next - which I blamed on stress and age. I discontinued NuvaRing as of today (the day I found these posts). Thank you for being so honest & for sharing your experiences. Hopefully these posts will help others in search of answers.

I started the NuvaRing in October of 2007 and I have had some very interesting side effects. While I can't say for sure that all of my side effects are directly related to the NuvaRing after reading all the comments on this website I took it out last night. In November I started having trouble breathing and it felt like I couldn't get enough air into my lungs. I called my doctor and although I have never had a history of Asthma he felt I was having an acute Asthma attack. He gave me an inhaler to use three times a day until I felt better. But I never got better. I went back to the doctor and he started me on Spiriva and sent me for a chest x-ray. My chest x-ray showed walking pneumonia so antibiotics were the course of action now. I felt better for a bit but about three weeks later I was right back where I started. I was very weak and tired all the time. I would become winded just by walking up the stairs. Nothing I did seemed to work. A few weeks later I went back to the doctor for the forth time with a cough I could not control. It was hard to breath but I didn't feel sick. No cold or flu symptoms just a nonproductive cough. So now this is late January and I finally get a diagnosis from my doctor - full blown pneumonia but he did not do a second chest x-ray. So I take the antibiotics and for a few weeks I'm feeling pretty good. But last week I started up again with the shortness of breath and coughing but this time it's accompanied with headaches and a fever of at least 102.5. I went to the emergency room and found out that my heart is working harder than it should and I may have been throwing blood clots from my legs. The ER doctor did a chest x-ray which was normal although all my symptoms were exactly the same as a few weeks before when I was diagnosed with pneumonia. My lab work showed that my white blood cell count was normal so I don't think I had pneumonia at all. Signs of blood clots can present themselves like signs of pneumonia. I was told to look for pain or swelling in my legs and so far so good. I have a follow-up appointment in two weeks so it will be interesting to see if my heart is back to normal. I'll post back to let you all know but please ladies think twice before taking this BC. For me it was not worth the risk.