Monday, February 9, 2015

Chapter 3 Template

            Jamie Hergenrader shares her story about her personal experience with hormonal birth control in her article on the Huffpost website titled “The Dangerous Side of Birth Control.”  She was taking a newer pill containing drospirone, which is a synthetic version of progesterone and causes the user to have an even higher risk of blood clots.  According to Jamie, when she started developing pain in her leg, she “…had no reason to worry because I had no idea what kind of damage birth control caused.”  Today’s women are not completely and properly informed of the dangers and consequences of taking birth control.  After this one event, which nearly costed her life, she spent seven months recovering, which consisted of “... ER trips, doctor visits three to four times a week and a few blood-thinning medications consisting of shots injected in my abdomen and a daily pill.”  All this suffering could have been avoided had Jamie been properly informed of the risks of the pill she was choosing to take.
            Jamie was lucky that she caught her symptoms early on and was able to act, but many women are not so lucky.  She states that according to research, “about half of people who have blood clots show no symptoms, making it much harder to diagnose and therefore, possibly fatal.”  Even those who survive often have lifelong health issues as a result.
Because of this experience, Jamie says she will be more careful and educate herself more about the dangers of birth control in the future.  It is unfortunate that many women learn the hard way about the risks of hormonal birth control by going through what she went through.  Women should be more informed of the risks of hormonal birth control and need to be educated on safer and more natural alternatives.

No comments:

Post a Comment