Yasmin and few minutes

I took Yasmin for 3 years and stopped about 3 weeks ago in hopes of becoming pregnant soon. I am experiencing a rapid resting heart rate (100) and occasional mild chest pains. My blood pressure, however, is normal. I have also had a pain in my lower right abdomen below my hip bone off-and-on for a week. The first day it was sharp and lasted about 20 minutes and I thought it was ovulatory pain (and I guess it still could be). When it lingered, I thought it was my appendix, and now I'm a little confused as to what it is. It is mild and only happens for a few minutes a day. I'm just wondering if these things are all linked to the timing of stopping Yasmin. Has anyone else experienced any of these symptoms? I'm becoming paranoid about my health.

Hi, I am just after coming off Yasmin 5 days ago...
I 've been on it for 5 or 6 years and it's just really the last year, especially the last few months that I feel like I just can't take it anymore... Previous to taking Yasmin, I had never experienced any period pain, however when I started taking Yasmin the period pain started and got progressively worse from then. The last few months I have been all over the place when I get my period, awful pressure pains in my lower abdominal and emotionally up and down every few minutes, half an hour, I could literally be in great form, and then I'd just get really quite and I can't even tell whats wrong with me because, I feel, there's so many hormones in me my mind does not know how I feel.... Anyway, i refuse to take it anymore, but now I am left with the dilemma of what form of contraception to use and also experiencing very bad back pain and light headaches....If anyone has been in the same situation or has any suggestions at all, they would be much appreciated.....!

i am on my second pack of Yasmin. In the beginning,i got really sick to my stomach, probably because my body was getting used to the pill. As soon as i began the week of sugar pills, i had terrible headaches on one side of my head. the headaches lasted about a week, and by the end of it, i was ready to lose my mind. now, today,i woke up and began feeling very dizzy and numb all over my body.after a few minutes my vision was fading until it got to the point where all i could see was outlines of things. Everything looked like a picture with really high contrast.i looked at my mom and her face was bright white with black detailing. it was really weird. i also noticed a sort of white glow all over everything. i was so terrified. i am not the type of person who ever faints or anything, so this was really odd. it went away after about 5 minutes, but it was so scary that it felt like an hour had passed. I'm not 100% sure if this is caused by Yasmin, but i haven't done anything different that would make this happen to me. i am going to the doctors, but in the mean time, i'm going to stop taking the pill. please let me know if anyone else has had an experience like this

Yasmin - Sudden Panic/Anxiety-

I have been on Yasmin for 7 years. I started a new box and pack 3 weeks ago and 72 hours later had what I thought was a "panic attack". I had never suffered panic or anxiety before and I am 32. Then, the chest pain and anxious feeling wouldn't go away (not normal with panic I hear). I went to the Dr and my bloodwork was all "great". I went to a cardiologist and they tested my heart. It was indeed beating "extra" so I had to be one a monitor. Still, the entire time I was miserable and wondering what the heck had happened to me. How could I go from being a normal, well adjusted women to a crazy lady in one day. I was crying and couldn't function, concentrate or eat. I felt like an "out of body" type of experience almost, like it wasn't really me who was feeling all this. Very disoriented feeling. Well, the Dr gave me anxiety pills and I was going to take them. But, in the meantime I went on the "sugar pills" of my Yasmin and guess what? 72 hours after I stopped the pills I felt normal again!!! I'm still not 100%, I'm 90%. Now I have no hard evidence that Yasmin caused this, particularly since I've been on it so long but I can't help wondering if they changed the dosages or something. I have NEVER experienced any level of anxiety or panic before this and going off the pills was the only thing I changed when I started feeling better. Sounds like more than a coincidence to me.

Has this happened to anyone else recently???

Well, Ladies I've taken Yaz for almost three years and what I am now figuring out is it's makes me photosensitive. I get sun-poisoning! Even when it's only for a few minutes here and there. Also, has anyone noticed when they get in the sun your upper lip turns darker? That's the Yaz, too.

Kim:

It seems you didn't read all of the posts, that have been written here during the last days. There is noone who says, you will be like you are now forever!!

You think noone here was as bad as you and dejay Kim???
Ok, I think I didn't tell my whole story for too long. So here it is. And dear, believe me: I and many other ladies were exactly as bad as you and maybe even worse!!!

I also nearly lost my job, because I wasn't able to work for months!!!!! I wasn't able to sing in my band, which I had done until that time for 14 years, which really broke my heart!!

I didn't even leave my house for about 3 months, and after this time I went out to the supermarket only together with my husband, never alone and only for a few minutes because I wasn't able to stand more than a few minutes without getting a fainting spell!!! I simply was no longer "alive"!!!

Tingling arms and legs, hurting muscles, muscle weakness, headaches to the point where I wanted to put my head off! Fainting spells without any reason, just doing a few steps to the toilet nearly made me break down, breathlessness like an 90years old ill person just after doing a few steps around here in my living room, aching joints, numb feeling in my legs, arms, and the list goes on!!

I went through a total hell and worse! I really believed I was goin' to die within the next months and believe me: At some point I couldn't even awate it, because I didn't want to feel all this any longer!!!

Well, I normally don't really want to think back to that time, because it was a living nightmare, which I'm still somehow shocked about!

Some days I even wasn't able to go into another room here in my own house because of the anxious feeling, the dizziness, the faint feeling and the breathlessness and weakness! Most of the time, my husband had to stay with me even on toilet!!!!!!

My head was foggy, I felt as if my life was just a dream and I wasn't really awake. I was sitting here all day in ONE room, trying to read a paper or watch TV, couldn't even work on my computer or do ANYTHING else because I had very bad vision problems and nervousness to the point where I thought, I'd go crazy about that!!

Sometimes a day I got some tiredness which wasn't only tiredness. It felt, as if someone had knocked me down and I was going to faint! I never had such a frightening feeling my entire life before!!!

My mum and dad had to come around here every day to cook for us and do our household because I wasn't even able to wash the dishes or something else because of my severe symptoms. I had turned into a total "baby", just awaiting the day that they would even have to wash me and put my clothes on!!

And for about 5 months NOONE could find out anything, thousands of doctor's visits and NOTHING!!!!! And no one was aware, my bcp could make me feel like this until I found an endocrinologist who really admitted, that all this could be brought on by my holy Yasmin!!!!! That was day 1 of my new life!!!

The next 3 - 4 months after getting off still were pure hell. But Kim and dejay, one thing you should know: I HAD BEEN ON THAT NIGHTMARE PILL FOR OVER 5 YEARS!!!!!!! And not only a few weeks or months!!

What should I tell you more?? I think this should be enough for you to see, that you're not the only ones who are doing that bad!

And comparing how long I had been taking that sh... and knowing how long you only had been on it should give you so much hope! Think about it!

I went through the hell I mentioned above for about 8 months!! And what do you see: I'm still here and look at me now:

I'm working again, singing again (have 3 new bands!), living again. Even though not everything is back to where it should be I started to live again and have still hope, that I'll be back to normal one day and completely can forget, what I've been going through!! What do you think how anxious should I be about a permanent damage, after being 5 years on this poison??????

So please kim and dejay, listen to what the ladies here are telling you and try to keep your chins up and keep in head what you've been told here so many times. IT WILL GET BETTER!!! I think you NOW know that I'm aware how hard that is and that I don't tell you just some "stories" without knowing what I'm saying.

I'm working as a lawyer's assistant and believe me: Even my boss isn't willing to start a lawsuit against a pharmazeutic group! It's sad but true: We can't really prove that we got those problems because of Yasmin and that's the problem!! There IS no doc who will attest us that fact!!! The only thing we can do is help each other, listen to each other and try not to loose hope and stay strong. This is what brought me back to life again, and nothing else!!!

And to your pacification: I finally found TWO doctor's who admitted, that the cause of all this COULD definitely be Yasmin!!

Hope that helps somehow, but please READ it, especially kim and dejay!!

Ant the others: Sorry for that long post, but I think it was really necessary!!!

Best wishes !!

Silke

Hi everybody,
Flowerbabies, good work on finding that site. I will connect in a few minutes and fill in the details. I live in ireland but will fill it in anyway. In the meantime i will see if there is an irish equivalent of that site. As you said the more we can all do to make the side effects of this pill known the better.
Everyday i connect to this site and find that more and more women are complaining of common symptoms.
It cannot be coincidence.
A note for poster yasminresearcher. While i was on yasmin i was almost blind. My eyesight had got so bad. I am off yasmin now for about 8 months and my eyesight is perfect.
Certainly it had a bad effect on my eyesight. Cannot explain it, just another one of the side effects.
Greetings to everybody
Murph70

hi all,
for all you ladies in the uk that want to report your side effects please fill out the yellow card section on the following website. i am so angry about the problems i have had since being put on yasmin that i really really wanted to do something. i know many ladies on here have listed sites for reporting the side effects but they seem only to apply in the USA. this is the uk equivelent. www.mhra.gov.uk click the yellow card tab on the right hand side or click on the online services tab on the top and follow the links there. please please please ladies do this,maybe if enough of us report the awful things we have suffered someone will listen instead of just fobbing us of with a dodgy diagnosis! it may also stop other women having to live the nightmare we have had to.it only takes a few minutes and could potentially prevent this happening to other women or at least make our gp's aware of the possible mental,psychological and physical side effects instead of just sending us off with a prescription for anti depressants.

hope you are all hanging in there...... sophie,silke,murph70..how are you all doing?

sarah

hi nightowl.
you won't find insomnia or anxiety listed on the side effects leaflet that comes with yasmin but you will definately find them and many many more listed on here,if yasmin is making you feel like this now STOP taking it before it gets any worse,please take a few minutes to read through some of the posts here from women that have been suffering some awful effects. i do dispute that yasmin may be a "wonder pill" for some women but for many of us it is the worst pill we have ever taken. i am ansure as to why your doctor has put you on birth control pills at your age,i understood it was risky to prescribe the pill to women over 35 due to the higher risk of thrombosis,heart attacks and strokes etc? have you discussed using natural bio identical hormone creams to ease your symptoms. pro-gest is meant to be very good. please discuss your symptoms with your doctor but do not let them tell you yasmin cannot possibly cause these effects,there are thousands of women here who KNOW differently.
best wishes to you nightowl.

sarah

Dear Silke,
That must have been very frightening for you! I do not know much about seizures. There appears to be many different kinds-- from "petit mal seizures" where the person 'tunes out in a daze' for a few minutes, to falling on the floor, to "grand mal" or "tonic clonic seizures" like I had where you fall unconscious, convulse, eyes roll into head, muscles contract, jaw clamps down on tongue. I was unsconscious for 15 minutes after the seizure and even after I reached the hospital I was groggy, confused, uncertain what was happening to me, etc. I didn't know who I was. In my confusion I assumed I was dying.
Yasmin is REALLY not worth all that! Silke is right-- there is no point 'adjusting' to this drug.

Good luck to every one of you! I'd get off of it while you have some semblance of health. If you later discover that your side effects were caused by something else you can always go back on it. I truly regret I ever tried it. The upside: just look how Yasmin is uniting the world in side-effects and ill health. :)

Hi everyone,

I too had BP of 140/100 (or MORE) when I was on Yasmin. My face was extremely bloated - looked like I had 3 chins and a very round face. My hair fell out in clumps when I was on Yasmin - now my hair is fine and I don't "shed".

After quitting Yasmin, it took a few weeks, and the facial bloating was GONE! When the doc saw me she said "half your face is gone" :-) My family cannot believe that my face looks so different.

My BP now is 110/80 average. I do not take BP medicine and I do not take BCP any more.

My chest pains are for the most part GONE!!! They really had me scared.

I am on Paxil CR 12.5mg once per day for the extreme anxiety that I have which I attribute to taking Yasmin for about 9 months. I also have trouble staying asleep at night. I have observed that my anxiety is peaking when my pd is due.

I had an anxiety/panic attack on Dec. 21, 2005 and I took my last Yasmin in late January 2006.

Thank you all for your informational posts and concern. I had a few minutes so I thought I'd post an update.

PS- I think that the manufacturer better read this site and DO SOMETHING!!!!

Hi again -

I just received this from the FDA in response to my submission...

"One or two well-documented case reports may provide an early signal of unexpected problems and lead to additional evaluation. This may result in FDA regulatory actions that improve the safety of the products used in patient care each day."

If they only need "One or two" case reports, let's give them a few hundred!!! The more red flags that go up, the faster they'll take action. Spend a few minutes at www.fda.org and give them your complaints - PLEASE!!!

I get so frustrated because I spent months following "false leads" because absolutely NOTHING in Yasmin's product literature warned about palpitations, anxiety attacks, etc! If there had been some mention, I could've saved myself months of misery and worry (not to mention trips to cardiologists, gynecologists and the like!) I could've figured out what was going on and done something about it before things got so bad.

Julie

Dear Lisa,

a few posts ago I had already told about the blurred vision and thought you had found that.

Well, the blurry vision was so bad around January/February 2005, that I couldn't read anything, watch tv or work at my computer. It felt as if I looked through a milky window or such. Everything was like behind a "fog".

That has improved a lot, but it took time!! About 3 - 4 months AFTER Yasmin it slowly got better and I finally was able to work on my computer a few minutes a day, then a few hours and today I'm sitting here, working again the whole day long if I have to, read books and watch tv without big problems!!

But remember: IT DEFINITELY TAKES TIME!! And no one of us here can say, how long it will take for your symptoms to decrease cause every woman is different. I'd been taking this poison pill for 5 long years, so I think that I will have to be patient much longer than only one year... (Today I'm nearly 1 year off Yasmin and still not feeling 100% fit and healthy again!!).

The blurry vision comes back sometimes when I'm really nervous or under stress, but not as bad as it was last year at all. And remember: Every symptom brought on by Yasmin and the hormone chaos after getting off seems to get worse around ovulation and the time your period starts or SHOULD start (I still didn't have one since easter 2005 but in spite of that I realize more symptoms around 2 weeks a month.....).

And so it is with the libido thing. In my case my husband had to "ask" me, if we just could TRY it again, very slowly and careful (well, this time he had already been waiting for about 8 months, cause I wasn't fit enough at all to even just TRY...). I said yes (though I didn't really have the feeling, that I was ready for that thing again!!), and a few days ago I started this "thing" by myself, because I recognized, that my feelings came back and believe me, those were feelings I didn't have for many many years (you could say 5 years not really feeling alive under Yasmin......).

And I'm afraid, but 10 weeks off Yasmin is not really much... Sounds hard but that's a fact. At 10 weeks after Yasmin I still didn't feel, as if I would live any longer... But always remember: Every woman is different. No one can give you a time plan that is working 100% correctly in that case!!

So please give your body the time that it needs (and it can, I don't say MUST, but CAN last months!!) and everything will come back if you're just patient enough and believe in better times that are ahead!!

All the best to every Yasmin victim out there and stay strong and patient, there's light at the end of the tunnel!!!

Silke

PS: Sorry, that my posts always get that long...

I started my second pack of Yasmin yesterday.
This past month has been the worst month of my life. I have been crying constantly, worrying about my boyfriend, stressing more than usual about my workload and have had severe/lasting headaches much more frequently than usual.

Basically, I've had all the symptoms talked about here. I just talked to my mother on the phone complaining that the crying was so exhausting that I was too fatigued and depressed to function and get my homework done. I thought it might be because I've recently moved forward in my relationship with my boyfriend and so I've been rather emotional because of it. However, she suggested it might be because of the pill I'm taking.

A few minutes ago she sent me the website to this board, and I am now so happy to know I'm not insane, and so angry at the nurse practitioner at my college health services who claimed that her "2 decades of pill prescribing" had shown that people who had done badly on Ortho Tri Cyclen would do well on Yasmin. I WASN'T doing badly on Ortho. It didn't shorten or lighten my periods, and my cramps weren't much better, but at least I didn't go insane! I want to march over to her house and tell her that she has absolutely ruined the last month of my life, but I suppose she couldn't have known this would happen. I'm going back to Ortho Tri Cyclen.