When I called Dr. Gerard Abreo, a , highly-regarded , doctor in the Houston area, to question him about the problems from birth power he sees in his practice, I fully expected to have a conversation typically centered around  , blood clotting. Blood clots ( and , pulmonary embolisms ) certainly were part of the conversation, but they took a backseat to other, more common concerns — many of which had to do with ( of all things, for a cardiologist ) mental health.  ,
You want to know more about 18 to 25 year old younger women’s health than anything else?  , Anxiety“. One Sunday evening, Abreo told me over the telephone.  ,
Anxiety and Heart Palpitations
I was stunned. Why, I asked, do people need to see a doctor for stress? Was n’t that under the purview of a psychiatrist or psychologist? ” Center beats”, he responded. ” Anxiety-related heart palpitations, caused by their birth control” . ,
Many of these fresh women’s general experts refer to Abreo, according to Abreo. Even in otherwise healthy, young ladies, heart palpitations and improper hypertension are not something to take lightly, but patients who experience palpitations are frequently referred to him for echocardiograms to find the cause.
However, Abreo claims that the cause is frequently their physiological birth control, and his theory is based on statistics. We already know that hormonal birth control is clearly change children’s brains, so much so that it may adversely affect their ability to , approach fear , and , cope with stress. It’s not difficult to see how either of those adjustments may cause more stress and its negative effects, such as heart palpitations, in people taking birth control pills.  ,  ,  ,
In reality, Abreo believes that 95 % of the visits he receives for otherwise healthy young women who experience heart palpitations are actually just experiencing anxiety as a result of their hormonal birth control. For instance, he told me,” Four months ago, a 28-year-old, sport, married, young woman came to me with beats with little exertion for the last six month”. He continued:  ,
She had visited various family doctors and still had the same problem. First, on questioning and examining her, I found no medical explanation for these pulses. Then I remembered to ask her if she used baby control. It was not documented in her table, but she then told me she was already on the intramuscular contraceptive , Depo-Provera. She unapologetically realized that these beats started a week after the shot, so I did n’t conduct any further center research; otherwise, I asked her to quit receiving any more shots, which she agreed to.
” A few weeks ago”, Abreo continued,” I saw her father and her mother-in-law as new clients, and they were thankful for my guidance, which had led to this young woman no longer experiencing beats and a total quality of her anxiety”. Abreo estimates that, unfortunately, less than 50 percent of his patients take his advice to discontinue their contraceptives in an attempt to get to the bottom of their anxiety-induced heart palpitations.  ,
High Blood Pressure
According to Abreo, “high blood pressure” is the second most frequent complaint he sees as a cardiologist regarding birth control.
I did n’t think this one would surprise me nearly as much as anxiety. However, while women with high blood pressure ( i. e., hypertension ) are often steered away from , starting , hormonal birth control, many are not informed that their birth control can cause high blood pressure. Similar to how women who have a family history of breast cancer are occasionally discouraged from using hormonal birth control but are not informed that birth control itself can lead to breast cancer.
Estrogen-containing hormonal contraceptives specifically can cause high blood pressure because of , the hormone’s effects on the cardiovascular system. In other words, it’s yet another wake-up call that hormonal birth control does so much more to women’s bodies than simply preventing pregnancy.  ,
Depression
The third birth control-related complication steers right back into mental health territory. ” No. 3″, said Abreo, “is depression”. What complaint do these patients seek? ” Cryptic pain and shortness of breath.” Again, these patients are referred to Abreo so that he can perform an echocardiogram to rule out heart issues. He frequently discovers birth control and nothing to do with their ( healthy ) hearts.  ,
Abreo believes that the vast majority of women who use hormonal contraception “have some degree of depression and anxiety,” and that these conditions can ( and frequently do )” cause cardiac symptoms of palpitations and shortness of breath.”
” These are mistakenly diagnosed as panic attacks, and sometimes]as a result], women are unnecessarily put on beta-blockers to slow the heart, causing severe side effects of fatigue and tiredness”, he said.
[RELATED: Do n’t Read This Birth Control” Misinformation” Unless You Want to Be Twice As Happy As You Are Right Now.
Abreo told me that when he believes that his patient may be suffering from cardiac issues brought on by birth control-induced depression:”…
I advise them to discuss this with their primary care providers and OB-GYNs, but I believe the majority of physicians do not want to acknowledge these serious side effects because, in their opinion, [these effects ] only have an impact on the quality of life. However, some of them return to me and agree to stop the contraceptives because their clinical concerns and obvious symptoms are so severe.
Over the past few years, numerous peer-reviewed, high-quality studies have identified a strong link between using hormonal birth control and depression. The relationship is especially strong when birth control is used in adult women’s first two years of pregnancy and first started in adolescence.  ,
Blood Clots
At the conclusion of our conversation, Abreo estimated that blood clots and pulmonary embolisms are only about the fourth most common birth control-related issue he sees because so much of the conversation revolves around mental health issues. He did n’t even mention them until the conversation was over. Of course, these are among the deadliest birth control complications,  , cutting some unsuspecting young women’s lives all too short, to the devastation of their surviving family and friends.  ,  ,
We are also aware that women are frequently unaware of the risks of birth control, and this also applies to blood clots. In fact,  , as one researcher found, many women believe that if they’re under 35, of normal weight, and non-smokers, the blood clot risk does n’t pertain to them. Only one woman out of 311 could correctly identify all of the health risks associated with birth control pills, the researcher observed after conducting a survey.
What Women Need to Know
Listening as Abreo described seeing young women with symptoms such as heart palpitations, shortness of breath, and chest pain, I could n’t help but wonder how many of these young women were put on birth control as teens, for things as innocuous as acne or , irregular periods. How many of them were put on it for health issues such as , endometriosis , and , PCOS, for which they’ve never received help beyond the birth control Band-Aid? And how many people are now facing the double whammy of believing they have heart problems in addition to everything else?
It made the case that birth control is a bad medicine because it” cures” nothing and causes all sorts of unanticipated problems of its own.
We’ve made significant strides in educating women about the risks of hormonal birth control, as evidenced by the fact that many women are looking for natural alternatives, such as restorative reproductive medicine and fertility awareness techniques for treating painful cycles and infertility.
However, my conversation with Dr. Abreo made it clear that there are still so many women out there who are affected by birth control’s side effects. Sometimes all they need is someone to help them figure out how to handle their birth control ( and all the problems that come with it ) goodbye, whether it’s a friend, a family member, or a trustworthy doctor.
Grace Emily Stark is the Editor of Natural Womanhood, and she is a freelance writer with publications in various outlets. Additionally, Grace is a former Novak Alumni Fund journalist fellowship recipient and a current Ramsey Institute Fellow at the Center for Bioethics & Culture. Follow her writing at GraceEmilyStark .com.
