Alesse and period

I started taking Alesse over a year ago. The first month I was extremely dizzy. I felt sick all the time, but I attributed that to my low tolerance for perscription meds anyway.

I thought everything was fine, until I joined a community on livejournal called "birthcontrol". After hearing stories from the other girls I decided to research my birth control on the web.

I always knew that after I had started taking Alesse that I seemed extremely irritable, depressed, bipolar, and my sex life was not fun at all.

My mom said it probably had to do with college, a boyfriend, and 2 jobs. But I knew deep down that the way I felt wasn't normal.

After a year of lack of wetness, lack of WANTING sex and difficulty achieving oragasm, depression, swinging at people when i was mad, crying all the time, TRYING to kill myself(something I had NEVER even thought about doing before) I decided to stop taking it.

I've been off it since september and I have been the happiest I have ever been! I want sex, I'm happy, I'm dont get violent when I'm mad. I'm great and I will probably not go back on this birth control.

Even with all the negatives there were some positives.

-Lighter periods that lasted shorter time.

-No cramps, and acne associated with PMS.

-My periods came on thursday and always on thursday.

-I didn't get pregnant.

I say give it a whirl. But if you find yourself depressed or sad or mad, get off it right away. It's really not worth the emotional pain I went through.

I took Alesse for 1.5 years and I liked it for the most part. It helped clear my skin and my periods were really light. I had no mood swings, irritability, or PMS symptoms. But I also had NO sex drive and my hair started thinning.

Does no one have a great number of side effects form Alesse? My doctor switched me to Yasmin (which I haven't yet started because I had a few packs of Alesse remaining) because I complained about moodiness/crankiness that is so sudden and abrupt that I just know it has to be hormonal).

After researching Yasmin, I see that many people have sooo many complaints about it, yet they are the same complaints that I have with Alesse (which I hadn't realized it was causing until I made the connection with the other BCP). i.e, leg/arm numbness, extremely dry flaky skin, severe mood swings, tiredness, gas, heartburn, sleeplessness, the list goes on and on and if you look under the Yasmin board it will list just about everything I have trouble with on Alesse.

Is everyone REALLY all that happy with Alesse?

I am going to try Yasmin. I am basically only on BCP to regulate my periods (which can be very heavy and very unpredictable) so I will go off of it if I continue to have such horrific symptoms.