NuvaRing and severe abdominal pain

Oh, and I was just recently in the hospital with severe abdominal pain. I had been in pain for about 6 days so went in to get checked out. They found that I had 2 massive cysts on my ovaries that had ruptured. I think the Ring may have had something to do with that. I had never once had that problem prior to now....

Where do I begin?

I can’t tell you all how appreciative I am to find this site! I have been on the NuvaRing for nearly three years and was ignorant enough to never attribute my increasing problems to this terrible medication. In all fairness, I must admit that the initial reason I decided to use the ring was because I had even worse results with three different types of pills. My doctor then prescribed the ring, telling me that it would have the very least amount of hormones of any birth control. What she didn’t tell me and may not even know is that some women can not physically handle any type of added hormones at all in their body and must use a non-hormonal method. Why don’t they warn us of this?!

I come from a generally nervous and careful family. You could say they take life very seriously and perhaps too much at times. However, I myself have always been very social, productive, and had a passion for life. I used to love to write. I was good at it. When I started taking birth control, I was busy planning my wedding and so I just figured all the stress and business of life was taking all the fun out of everything. When I did get married, my sex drive tapered drastically (with the exception of my “free week” when it’s at its highest all month long, but still not what it used to be). I stated suffering from severe abdominal pain at certain yet random times of the month. One month, it got bad and was associated with a mild fever. The doctors did an emergency appendectomy on me just as a precaution. It turned out my appendix was fine and never needed to be pulled! Since the beginning, I’ve suffered the same pain almost every month. Not a month goes by that I don’t have weird things happening to me physically. About a year ago, I started suffering terrible panic attacks! I get extremely dizzy in stores, in traffic, while eating, lying in bed and it happens completely randomly. I suffer terrible leg cramps at night during the week of my period. They’ve gotten so bad that I wake up crying sometimes. I never used to grind my teeth and now I have TMJ! I’ve become overly paranoid and find that at certain times of the month I have more courage to do things I know I shouldn’t ( I have crazy thoughts), while at other times, usually right before my period, I’m afraid to do anything at all. I become obsessed with the thought that I’m dying and I suffer from extreme panic attacks for no good reason at random moments. Rarely, but on occasion, I feel completely normal and just wish I could stay in those moments for good. I suffer from: night sweats, bouts of intense emotion and sadness at the start of my free week, nausea upon insertion of the ring, lethargy and the feeling that my body is held down by weights. My appetite fluctuates greatly from day to day. One day, I’ll eat very little, and the next I’ll want to eat everything. Also since I’ve been on birth control, I’ve developed what you could call an eating disorder. I argue that I don’t have an eating disorder simply because I know that I am not myself on birth control. I haven’t always been this way, and I look forward to the day when I’ll be back to normal. I’ve grown so neurotic that everything in my life is just one big disorder! Doctors can only seem to diagnose what they can see, and so naturally they label me anorexic at 5’7 and around 90llbs. Two and a half years ago, I was a thin, normal girl at 105lbs. The pill made me gain about ten pounds, and since I’ve been on the ring, I’ve lost more and more weight as I’ve grown weird about everything in my life including food. I don’t use laxatives or throw up my food; I’m just a strict eater, disciplined to a fault and with more self control than one should be allowed to posses. I hate my life now. I’m terrified of having an attack in front of people and my daily life has become unpredictable and daunting. I want to be normal. I don’t want to have another dizzy spell ever. I hate it! I feel for women everywhere who are put on such drugs. I did decide to contact NuvaRing first, even before I found this site. I figured they could provide the best answers. Since it’s the only form of medication I take continually, (I’ve decided NOT to follow doctors orders to take the three different anti-depressant meds they’ve prescribed to me in the past two and a half years) I started to wonder if this was the cause of my problems. A representative of the drug told me that there have been no known reports of dizziness, my main complaint. This made me feel alone in my frustration. Now, either she was out right lying to me or the company hasn’t been notified by patients like us who suffer everyday from the adverse reactions to the hormones unnatural to our varying bodies. Regardless, this will be my last month on the ring. I’m pray that I can go back to life as I knew it. I don’t know if that’s even possible. Right now, that just seems like a dream.