Elon Musk tweeted about the scientific evidence that hormonal birth control increases risks of depression, suicide and weight gain.
This prompted many women to respond sharing their own negative personal experiences of side effects from taking contraceptive pills.
“Hormonal birth control makes you fat, doubles risk of depression & triples risk of suicide,” Musk wrote on X. “This is the clear scientific consensus, but very few people seem to know it.”
Hormonal birth control makes you fat, doubles risk of depression & triples risk of suicide.
This is the clear scientific consensus, but very few people seem to know it.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 16, 2024
Some reported being placed on antidepressants after developing depression from the pill.
Others discussed long-term health impacts like pseudotumor cerebri or increased cancer risks.
“Hormonal birth control gave me pseudotumor cerebri, which causes debilitating headaches and if untreated, blindness,” former Planned Parenthood clinic director and pro-life activist Abby Johnson wrote. “I will have to be on medication for my entire life or otherwise lose my sight.”
“Fertility is a sign of HEALTH!!!,” Johnson said. “Don’t take a pill to break something that is working! I’m so thankful to have gotten off that crap and now have 8 beautiful children.”
Some felt misled by doctors downplaying side effects, with one saying being prescribed the pill for acne as a teen was like using “a rocket launcher” for a mouse.
“I was placed on the pill at just 14 years old for acne. A few months later, I saw my first-ever therapist despite no prior history of depression,” Ashley St. Clair wrote. “Shortly after that, I was placed on an SSRI. Each time I would talk to my doctors about my deteriorating mental health, not a single one in nearly a decade of being on the pill suggested that it may in fact be the hormones I was taking every single day. Not one.”
“In retrospect, after being on birth control for nearly a decade, being placed on the pill for ‘acne’ was akin to killing a mouse with a rocket launcher,” St. Clair said. “Hundreds of thousands of women across the United States and the world have had a similar experience to mine — feeling completely out of their mind on a pill their doctor told them was relatively ‘harmless.’”
“I’ve been (wrongfully) slandered time and time again as an anti-science conspiracy theorist for pointing out all the legitimate reasons why we shouldn’t shut off our natural hormonal functioning,” writer Andrea Mew wrote. “Is the tide finally turning for mainstream opinions on hormonal birth control?”
“I CAN VOUCH FOR the weight gain and mood swings, etc. I took this stuff for about 2 years as a very young wife,” another woman posted. “Hated the way it made me feel, and stopped taking it. I’m a grandmother now … never regretted getting off the pill. I feel the same way about many modern meds. Be careful folks and listen to your body.”
While the pill is commonly recommended, especially for young women, the responses highlighted underexplored risks and how natural hormones can be disrupted, with some advocating listening more to one’s body over medicalization.
The post garnered significant attention and discussion over hormonal contraceptive impacts.
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