Hi all,
Recently, we've noticed an increasing number of posts asking for people's reactions to or side effects with specific brands of hormonal birth control. Because of this increase, we wanted to remind posters that we consider these types of questions
frequent topics that will be deleted.
It's not that we don't want you to get answers to your questions; rather, with these types of questions, it's more that there aren't any solid answers. Because personal experiences with any form of hormonal birth control can vary so wildly from person to person, others' side effects (including the severity or lack thereof) won't have any bearing on your experience.
If there was a single brand that was the Best Thing EVAR, very likely that brand would dominate the market. At the opposite end of the spectrum, if there was a brand that was truly Evil Incarnate, very likely most health care providers would be reluctant to prescribe it.
We understand how comforting it can be to hear from other members, but in the case of personal experiences regarding side effects, that understanding is outweighed by our concern that others' experiences (positive or negative) will give members a skewed idea of what they should expect when taking a particular formulation of HBC. This is especially true when someone is getting feedback from a relatively small group of people, as would be the case in a single Live Journal post.
So it's not that we delete these posts because we're unsympathetic to your concerns. Rather, we want to make sure you get the best and most accurate information about
side effects overall, rather than relying on anecdotal evidence that may or may not play out for you.
If you definitely still want an outlet for asking about reactions to particular types of HBC, you may want to try the community
birthcontrolled. They're a less busy -- but not dead -- more narrowly focused community with an explicitly "ask anything" policy.
If you have questions about VP's policy, you're welcome to contact us via
email or by opening up a dialogue over in
contact_vp.
Thanks for reading,
Tori
For the VP Team
contact_vp