I'm not sure why I just now started questioning the safety of the pill I've been popping every morning now for most of my adult life, but I believe it was a signal from my body to stop.

I don't believe any drug is safe, they are all liver toxic and take nutrients from our bodies. I have choosen to live a natural, holistic lifestyle my whole life while popping a pill that I thought was safe and even good for my health because my GYNO reassured me year after year.
Birth control pills fuel a $8.2 billion dollar industry, of course my doctor is going to tell me it's safe, big pharma assure the doctors and the public of it. It's just like any long-term drug; a profitable business that is distroying people's health and lives.

Once I started becoming conscious of this choice I've been making, I decided to give my body a break and see what happens. I stopped taking it a couple of days ago, and I'm sure it will be months to get the artifical hormones out, and I started doing research about the health risks. I've also paid attention to the signs in my life; in one week I've received three articles relating to the health risks of the pill and some deaths.

Here's the best summary I found from Dr Mercola's site written by Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D.:

What's Wrong With the Pill?

"In simple terms, what's wrong with the pill (by the way birth control shots and patches are essentially the same thing) is it promotes continuous high levels of estrogen in a woman's body.

Science tells us this is dangerous.

A woman's natural cycle is composed of rising and falling levels of estrogen and progesterone. Birth control pills work by keeping estrogen at a sufficiently high level that they fool the body into thinking it is pregnant, therefore another pregnancy cannot occur.

They work by one or a combination of methods:

* Some pills prevent ovulation.
* Others prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the endometrium or lining of the uterus.
* Still others thicken the mucus around the cervix, making it difficult for sperm to penetrate.

There is even a new brand of birth control pill on the market that boasts woman can safely have a period only four times a year or they can avoid having periods altogether for years at a time without a break from the estrogen blast.

We certainly don't know everything about estrogen or estrogen dominance, as it is called when estrogen levels remain high without being balanced by progesterone, but among the effects we do know are:

* Increased risk of breast cancer
* Increased risk of blood clotting, heart attack and stroke
* Migraines
* Gall bladder disease
* Increased blood pressure
* Weight gain
* Mood changes
* Nausea Irregular bleeding or spotting
* Benign liver tumors
* Breast tenderness

In addition, the use of antibiotics has been shown to decrease the effectiveness of birth control pills.

What is not usually mentioned, or even known, is the metabolism of birth control pills by the liver requires extra amounts of the B-complex vitamins, vitamin C, magnesium and zinc. That means if you're taking birth control pills for years at a time, as are most American women, you're creating nutrient deficiencies. Weight gain, fluid retention, mood changes, depression and even heart disease can all arise from nutrient imbalance.

For example, we now know high levels of an amino acid called homocysteine cause heart disease. And high homocysteine occurs when there is a deficiency of B vitamins and magnesium.

In addition to all this misery, the continuous use of birth control pills like the new no-period pill has not been sufficiently studied. Women who use these methods -- that may be you -- are the "test subjects," if you will, for an ongoing experiment. We have no idea what the long-term effects of daily hormones will do to fertility or other aspects of our health.

The Pill and Yeast Overgrowth

The insidious yeast, candida albicans, generally makes its home in the human digestive tract. But, in a modern society where common lifestyle choices for women include birth control pills, antibiotics, a highly refined bread and sugar diet, coupled with high stress levels, candida overgrowth can have wide-ranging effects.

When the right set of risk factors occur, toxins from yeast overgrowth and their byproducts can adversely affect the entire body, causing problems far beyond the common vaginal infection.

Symptoms ranging from migraines to infertility, endometriosis, psoriasis, PMS, depression, fibromyalgia, digestive disorders and many other seemingly unrelated health problems have been attributed to yeast overgrowth. And evidence-based results show that treating the yeast overgrowth often alleviates these symptoms.

These symptoms can be so widespread that it is difficult for patients and most doctors to comprehend that this is a complex of indicators that could be related to one underlying cause.

The use of birth control pills is a major risk factor for developing yeast overgrowth because it promotes estrogen dominance. Because birth control pills give a woman's hormonal system a continual stream of estrogen, an imbalance is created, Science has shown us that there is a close link between estrogen dominance and yeast overgrowth."

I'm looking forward to the detox.