Yeah, that's what I've gathered from my research. I just feel silly to be on an antibiotic and a probiotic/antifungal at the same time, when I get my yeast infections x_x

But, that's what my doctors tell me to do. /shrug/

ALWAYS take a probiotic and eat a lot of yogurt whenever you take antibiotics. It's absolutely necessary.

I had so many courses of antibiotics that the yeasts just grew stronger and stronger. That's how I ended up with a systemic yeast infection, instead of just vaginal ones. :yes:


And thanks gamer. :D The more I've been thinking about it, the more I'm debating. I spoke to a good RL friend this weekend, and she's also thinking of getting an IUD.

There are just so many side effects that I'm just not sure about. I asked my bf to look into both IUD choices as well, and see what he thinks. Yesterday he told me that since I've been working so hard on getting healthy, that I shouldn't do something that'll affect me negatively. Good to know he's not going to push it if I decide I don't want to do it.

I guess I could take a chance and just try it out -- either it'll work or it won't. If it doesn't, I can always get it removed. :yes: Now that I know about the horrible side effects that some women get, I know what to look for if things go wrong, and can have it removed immediately.

Have you had your boyfriend do research on it as well? I'll be talking to Ian about it this weekend when he comes to town. I do hope he'll take some time out and read up. :yes: Birth control should be discussed with your partner. For so long, I was all... "Oh, I'll just take the pill, no worries." But now, after having so many weird health problems, I have to research EVERYTHING and pretty much scare myself to death. He knows of this awful anxiety, and while I've gotten a lot better about my health anxiety in the past year, I still read wayyyy more than I should (both positive and negative). :sweat: So I like Ian to read things over too and give me his opinion, just to make sure I'm not being overly anxious about things.

I think that no matter what medication/medical device you're using, there are always potential side effects -- that's just the risk you take. Luckily I have had few side effects with most of the medication I've taken -- the only bad one was when I took Acutane for six months. God, my skin was gorgeous for years after that, but my hair thinned A LOT. It was almost scary. But I was on it a short time, so not too much damage was done. Other than that, pills have been good to me -- with the exception of antibiotics -- we have a love/hate relationship. :headdesk:

Anyways, I'm sure it's rare for the people who are happy with their meds, etc. to post about them in forums and whatnot. It's the people who've had bad experiences that complain, and loudly!

I have a RL friend who is also considering getting an IUD, and this weekend she told me that she has three friends who have them. One of them has switched hers out with a new one, another loves hers and she didn't know about the third one -- but none of them complained about it to her, so she assumes she's fine with hers. :yes:

----------

Also, I asked this same question on Gaia today in Life Issues. :lol: So far, no great advice. But no trolling either. I'm sure it was all too tl;dr for them... :rofl: The one girl who had one who did decide to post likes hers... I actually PMed her and asked nicely if she'd tell me how her experience has been. I saw her post that she had one in a thread about pads vs. tampons. :rofl:

----------

Here's her reply:

I hate that you have to pay for birth control in the US D:
It's free in the UK, for everybody!

I haven't heard anything bad about the IUD other than the pain of insertion and heavy periods.
You need to be so so careful if you have a particuarly heavy period, as sometimes it have move out of position. You need to check. I know someone who fell pregnant because she was careless with it!