I used the Nuvaring for over two years. I absolutely loved the c...

I used the Nuvaring for over two years. I absolutely loved the convenience of it, and for a while, everything else. I had always had a little PMDD/PMS on hormonal BC, but over for the last 8 months or so I was on the NR it had gone from one or two days a month feeling a little wacky, to a week, to two weeks, then to feeling like that ALL the time. My self esteem was shot, I could rarely feel really happy or excited about anything, my sex drive had finally started to go, and it go so bad that one day I couldn't even get out of bed. I am pretty in-tune with my body and I knew this wasn't normal at all. It had started to affect my relationships with friends, and most importantly my wonderful boyfriend. I wasn't the confident, fun girl he fell in love with...I was a crybaby with self esteem issues and severe mood swings. So, I decided to stop using the Nuvaring for good about a month and a half ago. I have PCOS so it was "regulating" my cycles as well as preventing pregnancy, but I did a lot of research and decided to try and treat my PCOS with diet, exercise and supplements. I have already had one whole cycle off the ring, and I feel amazing. My body is doing what it is supposed to do, naturally, without synthetic hormones dictating what my female parts do. I am not depressed, my self esteem and motivation have returned and I feel HAPPY again. It's like a cloud was lifted from me or something. I can hardly describe the difference. I know to some women, this may sound a little exaggerated, but the ring really was making me severely depressed. So, if you're one of the women who are affected this way, stopping it may help. I had my doc fit me for a diaphragm, and though it's a little weird at first, I love it and so far it works great for us. Hormonal BC only masks the symptoms of my PCOS, so I believe treating it the natural way will be a lot better for me. This list of side effects helped me tremendously when I was researching my depression and going off the ring. Good luck to any of you other ladies who are going through that! It will get better :)