 Hey guys, welcome back to my channel, or welcome if you're new. If you are new here, my name is Sam, and oh hi, and this is Benny. Are you gonna sit here the whole time? This video's not appropriate for little boys. A few months ago, I posted a video telling you how I was planning on getting off of the birth control pill, and that I wanted to share my experience, document my symptoms. So here I am with my first update. I really wanted to allow a good amount of time to go by so that I could really see what was going on. I've always been told by my doctor, and based on research I've done online that it typically takes a trimester or three months in order for you to see changes in your body when it has to do with hormones and your cycle and stuff like that. So it felt kind of pointless posting an update right away. I will post a link to that original video in the description because in that video I shared why I wanted to get off the pill, my experiences in the past when I attempted to get off of it previously and why it took me so long and why I was so scared to finally attempt to get off of it again. So I do recommend watching that video first if you haven't already seen it, but let's just recap either way. So I first got on the birth control pill and I was 17 and prior to getting on it, I never had any issues with my menstrual cycle at all whatsoever. I had normal periods, they came on time. I didn't have significant cramping or super heavy periods or anything like that. I strictly got on the pill for birth control purposes. After being on it for about five years, I just didn't like the way it was making me feel. So I just stopped the pill cold turkey and at first things seemed okay, but after a couple of months, I got a lot of really bad symptoms. My skin was breaking out like crazy. I had a lot of bad cystic acne around my jaw and chin area. My weight was just uncontrollable despite exercising regularly and watching what I was eating. I was just gaining weight very rapidly. I felt very depressed and I completely stopped getting my period. So naturally I freaked out, went to my gynecologist and that's when she diagnosed me with PCOS or polycystic ovarian syndrome and she suggested the best thing to do is just get back on the pill and me being young, I think I was 22 at the time, scared, felt like I had no control over my body anymore. I just got diagnosed with this thing I've never heard of before. So of course, I took my doctor's suggestion, got back on the pill even though I didn't really want to and continued living my life for several years, thinking that I had PCOS and not really wanting to be on the pill anymore but being terrified to get off of it because I didn't know how my body was gonna react if I stopped it. But I started to do a lot of research online, found some great resources and I just finally got to the point where I had had enough and I just wanted to try to repair my hormones naturally and just kinda see what happens. And in that first video, I was questioning if I even actually have PCOS. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. So I'm 29 now. I stopped taking the birth control pill at the beginning of August. So I have now officially been off of it for a little over five months after being on the pill for 12 years. I did take notes throughout this whole process. I highly recommend if you're planning on getting off of the pill as well or even just changing your birth control in general, take some notes, keep track of any symptoms you have and how you're feeling. It's been really helpful for me to go back and kinda see where I've been at, when things changed, et cetera. So yeah, it was right at the very beginning of August. I decided to just finish my last pack of birth control pills and then once it was time for me to start a new pack, I just didn't. So the symptoms that I had prior to stopping the pill, this is what I wrote down back in August. I always felt slightly bloated regardless of how much or how little I ate, how much I exercised, et cetera. My stomach never felt flat. I always felt like it was kind of like pushing out and protruding a little bit. I always felt tired and had a really hard time waking up in the morning. Again, that was regardless of how much I slept, how little I slept, whether I was exercising, et cetera. I always felt very low energy again, regardless of my routine, my lifestyle. And I always just felt like I was kind of in a slight fog. I always had like a little bit of brain fog, just like kind of slightly out of it. I don't really know how to describe it, but if you have been there, you know exactly what I'm talking about. My body really held onto fat in my hormonal areas, which is the upper arms and lower stomach. And again, no matter how I changed my diet, no matter how much I worked out, what kind of workouts I did, nothing really made a big difference. Like I could be in really great shape and look great and be super toned everywhere else, but those parts of my body just held onto this stubborn fat for dear life. Like it was not going anywhere. I did have pretty clear skin though while I was on the pill. So now let's talk about what have my symptoms been, how have I felt, what happened throughout these last few months? Honestly, there's nothing to report. And I think that's part of the reason too, why it took me this long to finally post an update because there was just nothing significant to share. I really was scared that I was gonna have these bad symptoms. My body was gonna like totally go out of whack. Like it did the first time I tried getting off the pill back in college, but this time around, it's been a completely different experience. As soon as I stopped taking that pill, I started to feel better. And in the beginning, I thought that maybe it was just a placebo effect. I was like, it's probably way too soon for me to really feel a difference. Everything was so good that I was like almost waiting for something to change and like negatively something bad to happen. And it hasn't. And at this point, I'm almost at the six month mark. So I think it's safe to say knock on wood that I'm in the clear and things are gonna stay good. So I talked about how before I always felt bloated that is not the case anymore. My stomach is actually flat now and I actually feel good and comfortable. My energy levels have improved significantly and I don't feel super tired all the time, which is crazy. I've felt that way for so many years that it just became the norm to me. And I just thought like, well, maybe this is just how I am. And my skin has stayed really clear. And if anything, I feel like it just looks better and better. And my skincare routine has not changed. I've always been very consistent with that, but I just feel like I have this natural glow to my skin now. The first few months after getting off the pill, I was getting a couple of breakouts here and there, but they only were happening right around the time when I would get my period. And I would only get maybe one or two. And they were just normal, regular, like whitehead pimples. They weren't those deep cystic painful ones. And they would go away pretty quickly. There was one month, I want to say it was maybe in like October or November, where I got a lot of them kind of all at once. Again, none of them were cystic, which is great, but my skin wasn't looking its best during that time. I feel like that was the period where my skin was kind of like purging. And also now that I think about it, that was probably about three months after stopping the pill, which like I said at the beginning, they say it takes three months usually for things to change hormonally. So that would make sense. But ever since then, totally clear. And now when I get my period, I don't even get a single pimple. Like things have been really good. I also do feel like those first few periods, I noticed that I was experiencing PMS for the first time where I would just kind of feel like agitated and a little bit like moody and pissed off. And it would just be like, you know, the day or two before I would get my period. And I don't know if I've ever experienced that before. Like prior to getting on the pill, I don't really remember. I don't think so. So that was something that was a little bit different, but it wasn't like so bad that it was affecting my life in any kind of way. It was just something that I was like, oh, hmm, interesting. But I want to say like the last two months, maybe I have not experienced that anymore. Let's talk about periods. My period has been completely normal. I have gotten it on time every single month, at the same time every month consistently. And it's crazy because I really didn't know what to expect with that. So I got my fake period on August 4th, which if you didn't know, when you're on the birth control pill, you don't have a real period. Like yes, you may still bleed every month, but that's not technically a period because you're not ovulating. It's just like hormone induced shedding. So I got my last shedding, my fake period on August 4th. And then after that, I should have started a new pack of birth control pills. I didn't. So I had my first full month hormone, fake hormone free. And then September 3rd, so like exactly one month later, I got my first real period. And then October 4th, I got my second period. And then beginning of November, I got my next one. And then I had stopped updating at that point. There was just nothing really to update, but it's been consistent. So I get my period every month, right at the beginning of the month. And I haven't had any like crazy excessive cramping or anything like that. I do get some cramps the very first day, but it's not bad enough that I have to take medicine or even use a heating pad or anything like that. It's just kind of like, ugh, I have cramps, this kind of sucks. Like it's a little uncomfortable. But then usually after that first day, I don't have cramps at all. And I noticed that my periods now are pretty much exactly what they used to be like when I was a teenager, before I ever got on the pill. Only usually like three, maybe four days long. They're pretty short. And it's only really like normal flow, I guess, like the first day or two. And then by the third day, it's like barely there and pretty much completely gone by the fourth day. That's how they used to be before getting on the pill. And that's exactly how they've been now. So I'm like, oh wow, it's nice to see my real normal cycle again. So what's changed? Like why has my experience at this time been so completely polar opposite from my experience? The last time I got off the pill. So I haven't really changed much in my routine. I'm not doing anything super strict. Yes, I watch what I eat and I do try to stay as active as possible, but nothing crazy and nothing like super, super strict. But what I have been doing and I know with 100% full confidence that this is what has made all the difference for me and why things have been so good, I've been taking these a lot of new balance supplements every single day. And I started these like a few weeks before I even had stopped the pill and they are amazing. I cannot rave enough about these and I'm not sponsored at all. I wish that I was. Oh my God, I really wish because I love this. So these are pills that you take every day. They are a little bit large. You have to take four of these every day with a meal. It does come in a powder form if you're not a good pill taker, but these are strategically designed to support hormonal balance, weight management, complexion and fertility. Enjoy restorative sleep, improved energy levels and more. And everything that I just talked about is that not like exactly what I just described. They've helped my body and my hormones balance naturally and adjust post birth control so that it can function normally and do what it's supposed to do and so that I wouldn't have these crazy symptoms and things wouldn't be super out of whack. So I cannot recommend these enough. A few people also had recommended another thing to me. I wanna say it was like this at all or something like that maybe. But the main ingredient that's in that is also in these. So I'm pretty sure it's all the same thing. So I'm probably going to continue taking these for another few months. And then maybe once I get closer to like the one year mark of being off the pill, I will gradually like wean myself off of those and just see how I feel. Oh, and I wanted to talk about the whole PCOS thing because I mentioned how I got diagnosed with that last time I got off the pill and I started questioning if I actually even had it because so many women are diagnosed with this. All of a sudden, you know, 10 years ago, nobody like when I first got diagnosed, I'd never heard of polycystic ovarian syndrome and now it seems like every woman that I meet has it. And what I've learned is it's not like there's one specific test that they can do and they can definitively say yes, you have it or no, you don't. There's just like certain criteria that you have to meet and it's all very symptom based but the thing is the symptoms that they use to diagnose people with PCOS could be symptoms from something else too. And obviously I'm no medical expert, do your own research but I just really feel like a lot of doctors are quick to diagnose women with this without really like digging deeper into it. And I think that in my case, I was diagnosed with it because of those negative symptoms I was experiencing and mainly because I wasn't getting my period anymore but I think the symptoms I was experiencing and the fact I wasn't getting my period was just because my hormones were thrown so out of whack from being on the pill for so many years and then all of a sudden stopping it without taking any kind of supplements or doing anything to help my hormones balance themselves out. So it's interesting now that I feel totally fine, I'm symptom free, I have normal periods again, I had normal periods before getting on the pill, I really truly believe that I do not have PCOS because at this point, there's no way I could be diagnosed with it. I don't fit any of the criteria for it anymore. And they say that when you have it, you have it forever, it's not something that can go away, you can manage it but you can't get rid of it. And who knows, maybe I do actually have it and these supplements are just helping me manage it and that's why I'm not experiencing the symptoms of it, I don't know. I do have my next yearly exam with my gynecologist this coming June, so I'm really interested to talk with her and maybe see if she can order some blood work for me because I am really curious to get all of my levels checked and see how everything is and get her medical opinion and see if she actually still thinks that I have PCOS or not. But I think that is everything as far as my updates go, I will definitely update you guys again in a few more months after I go to the doctor and get the results of my blood work. So stay tuned for that. Make sure that you're subscribed so you don't miss that video. Thank you so much for watching, thank you for being here. Hopefully I will see you in my next video, bye.