NuvaRing and relationships

Wow! I cant believe other women have had these same symptoms, I started the NuvaRing about three months ago after I lost a baby very early in gestation, I swore I would never have to go through that again, so my doctor put me on the NR and I couldn't tell If I was still hormonal from the pregnancy or if it was the ring, But Im a wreck! Im so mean and hateful to my husband pretty much mean to everyone, I feel like this big mean lady walking around, and thats not me not at all I have crazy dreams, horrible anxiety, panic attacks and PMS from HELL. I have never been on birth control before so I have nothing to compare it to. But after reading this.Im really considering taking it out so I can be myself again.

This is so interesting. I have been taking NuvaRing for over a year now, and for about a year I absolutely loved it. Recently, however, things have changed. In Feb. I accidentally left the ring in for one week too long and then put it in one day late... I didn't think much of it, but then in March my period was really light. In April, my breast began to swell and got very tender and I started having headaches and a lot of nausea and I started gaining weight. At the end of the month, my period was just spotting. I, of course, took a pregnancy test, which came out negative. In May and June things have continued to be bad...spotting periods, extreme fatigue, a lot of weight gain, constipation, bloating and pain in my abdomen during sex. I took two more home pregnancy tests and even went to my doctor for a blood test...all negative. Today, my family doctor suggested that it could be my nuvaring. I had no idea! That's why I googled NuvaRing side effects today and found this sight. I've scheduled an appointment with my OBGYN so I can change my BC method. Looking back, I have noticed that I am much more aggressive than I was 1.5 years ago. I used to have great relationships with my students and used to be such a patient person, but over last 1.5 years I have started to get aggravated really easily...I even honk my horn at people. That is really not who I am! So hopefully after I take the NuvaRing out, I'll go back to being myself and feeling healthy.

I was using the NuvaRing for about 6-7 months. I started feeling quite a bit out of my head. I figured being a college student and nearing my graduation; that I was just a little stressed out and nervous about the future.
School long gone now, and still feeling weird, I decided to take a look into the side effects of the NuvaRing, since I had noticed the slight changes in my mood sometime after I began taking it.
I started out with a severely decreased sex drive. I joked how "wow this birth control works by making you not want anything to do with sex!" After a while, it wasn't funny anymore. I became uninterested in doing anything. I didn't want to be around friends anymore. I started getting snappy and easily aggravated at people, mostly my boyfriend and the people I work with. I started getting headaches a lot, which didn't help my mood, and I started getting really bad eye sensitivity to lights, which didn't help the headaches at all...
I started feeling horrible. Nothing was worth looking forward to. I was always anxious or nervous. I felt useless. The relationship with my boyfriend of two years was hanging by a thin thread.

I came across all of your comments about your experiences with the NuvaRing and I'm so glad I'm not the only one; I thought I was going crazy.

I love how nice and convenient the NuvaRing seems to be, but there is really nothing convenient about the things it has done to my mind, body, and my relationships.

No birth control is worth that much aggravation. I stopped taking it 2 weeks early, about four days ago. No real signs of improvement yet, but I'm hopeful that I'll soon be the same kind of person my boyfriend started dating.

I'm hoping to find a new form of birth control, but I'm mortified to get on another type that does the same things...
Has anyone switched from the NuvaRing after these kinds of symptoms and found something that works and doesn't do horrible things?

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 :)

I started taking nuva ring for the second time about three months ago. It took away the cramps but instead added a whole new list of worries. I started getting extremely irritable and would anger at tiny little things. I was also extremely emotional and would cry about everything which I have never done in the past. I became very very depressed and my sex drive completely disappeared. It caused tons of problems with my relationships with people (especially my boyfriend) because of the irritability. I did not know that a birth control could have these side effects. Since taking the nuva ring out the irritability, crying and depression have completely gone away. The only thing I found positive about the nuva ring was that I lost weight (maybe from the depression?) and I didn't have to remember to take a pill everyday. Heck, I'll just take the pill.