You need to try them to see how your body reacts. Some women do great on HBC's and have no problems, some women (like me) are WAY more sensitive to hormones and they screw us up.
All of the HBC's (hormonal) made me completely psychotic, started losing my hair, no libido, couldn't self-lubricate so sex was painful and a waste of time for me, and I gained weight on them and could NOT lose it no matter how hard I tried. I was also a lot more hungry when I was on HBC's so that might have very well been why. Nuvaring gave me chronic yeast infections ONTOP of all the symptoms I mentioned above, and the old doc refused to believe that my ailments were due to the HBC. When my husband left for Iraq I threw my pills in the trash and took up a fight against Tricare to refer me to someone else.
A week after stopping the HBC's, I was noticeably more sane -- ie: I wasn't seriously thinking about committing suicide every two seconds, I could drag myself out of bed in the mornings without sitting and crying for 30 minutes before I could brush my teeth, and I could sleep again without self-medicating. My hair wasn't coming out in clumps in the shower anymore.
Fast forward -- New doc, had a Paragard IUD for about a month now and i'm in LOVE. All of the bloat I had while on HBC's is gone, my appetite is back to normal for me (note: before HBC's I had a tiny appetite. One or two small meals worked great for me) Periods are heavier and longer than on HBC, but to be honest, they're identical to the way they were before I started the pill in the first place. It's a non-hormonal, long term option. I don't plan on having any kids within the next five or six years, so it's great for me. The Paragard lasts for up to 10 years. I've heard insertion can be very painful, but i've never had children before and it was a breeze. Not painful at all, more of an irritating twingey kind of feeling. Like when you have an itch you can't scratch. They did have to use the long q-tip with the numbing stuff to soften and dilate my cervix, so my insertion took a little longer than normal, but all in all the procedure took 5 minutes tops. I cramped pretty bad that evening, but it was nothing advil couldn't handle and I even did the 30 Day Shred that night.
