Yaz and appointment

My daughter started taking YAZ birth control August 2007 and was starting her second year of college. Everything in her life was going well, she loved her choice of college, had a wonderful boyfriend, was excited to live in her sororiety house, had wonderful friends, and was always one of the most focused individuals I knew. She was home for the Thanksgiving holiday and the night before I was to drive her back to school, she broke down at the kitchen table and said she can't pretend anymore, that she is not happy and doesn't know what is wrong with her. I took her to the doctor and she was treated with Effexor for depression. After 4 weeks there was no change, she fell into a deeper depression and they doubled her dose of Effexor. Still no change. I started looking on the internet and found that one of the side effects of Yaz was depression. I told her to immediately stop taking it. Two days after she stopped the pill we had an appointment with a psychiatrist. I told him that this was the first day I saw some improvement and that I thought it was related to her stopping YAZ. He disregarded my statement and didn't feel that was the case. He didn't like Effexor because he said that it was "a bear to get off of". He titrated her dose down by half and introduced Wellbutrin into her system. Two days later she overdosed on pills. She couldn't bear how bad she felt. I remember it like it was yesterday, she stood in the corner of the hosital and cried, "How did I get to this point, how did this happen to me?" I knew then that it was the pills. After her release from the hosital they handed her a prescription for Lexipro. I was advised by ALL of the PROFESSIONALS that she needed to take this antidepressent because she will definitely have a relapse.

My daughter chose NOT to take any more medications. We both KNOW that it was the YAZ that started the depression and the other antidepressents just put her over the edge. It took several months to get her life back together. We pursued counselling to make sure she was equipped with good coping skills for stress before attempting to go back to school. She missed 5 weeks of school and we knew that she had alot of catching up to do and the counselling helped her get through.

It has now been almost 1 year since that incident and she is back to her old self again. NO MORE BIRTH CONTROL AND NO MORE ANTIDEPRESSANTS. I'm not against any of these medications, however, I don't feel that health care professionals equip these young girls with enough information about side effects. Depression is listed way down on the list of side effects. If her gyn would have warned her that depression was a side effect, we may have never gone down that dark frightening road and if the psychiatrist would have taken into consideration that it could have been the birth control pill things could have been different. I also work for 4 pediatricians and none of them were aware that birth control can cause depression. I am now noticing that there are mother's calling our office because their daughters are depressed and as I am looking at their charts, I see they are on birth control. I have to wonder how widespread is this epidemic and how many young woman may have been diagnosed with clinical depression when the cause could be birth control. I know that at my daughters last well visit she was asked if she was taking any medication and she said no, she didn't realize that the pill was medication. Professionals need to be more specific when asking teenagers and yound adults questions.

I hope that this helps someone else out there to understand what could be causing their depression.

I am so glad I found this page! I am 16 and have been taking Yaz for a month and a half.. the first month I felt great. I was loosing weight and getting shorter, lighter periods. About a week or two ago I started feeling pressure throughout all of my head and I just didn't feel like myself, so I suspected a head cold or an ear infection. At the same time I was also experiencing SEVERE panic attacks to the point where I thought I was having a heart attack and might be dying. These would sometimes last until 4:00AM and cause me to loose a whole night's sleep. Finally I had my mom make me an appointment with my primary physician. I had an EKG done, which came back normal, and my doctor put me on the handihaler. The panic attacks, anxiety, and paranoia had all continued. Almost a week has gone by since and I had another severe panic attack just last night... needless to say, after finding this website my mom has already called my OB/GYN and scheduled an appointment to change my BC pill. I took my last Yaz pill day before last and don't plan on ever taking anymore. I never thought that something as simple as a birth control pill could do this to a person.

I have been on Yaz for about 3 weeks now. About 2 days into it, I started spotting lightly, which progressively got worse. For the past week it's been as heavy as a normal period. I've had headaches every day, and I've been nausious since day one, and had diarhhea just about every time I eat. I have had bouts with anxiety and depression and just feeling overwhelmed, and exhausted! I am calling to make an appointment next week to switch to something else. This is awful.

I'm so glad I found this site. I, too, thought I was going crazy! The first two months were ok on Yaz. Lost some water weight and my periods were light and short. As the months went on things got worse. Depression, anxiety heart palpitations that sent me to the Urgent Care Center, extreme fatigue, irritability, irrational mood swings, absolutely NO sex drive, neck and back pain and an increase in my acne. This has been 3 months and I can't stand it any more. It just amazes me that doctors still don't even consider that extra hormones in our bodies would not cause some of the horrible side affects we are experiencing. Good Luck to all.