B – Birth Control

This is a rant.

I absolutely hate the healthcare system in America. Insurance companies are the devil. Even when you have ‘good’ health insurance, it is ridiculous trying to get basic care. It is somehow worse when it comes to women’s health.

The entire country is going backwards regards to a woman’s autonomy but even ‘liberal’ parts of the country like Southern California are not what you’d expect them to be.

I have historically had terrible periods, it isn’t PCOS but my doctor described it as PCOS light and birth control saved my life. It wasn’t easy getting the right birth control either. Since I have Hashimoto’s, it took several months to find the right dose of estrogen that would work well with my thyroid medication. Fun fact – even slight fluctuations in hormones will cause an autoimmune response. Hell, my body is so sensitive my doctor has to add a ‘do not substitute’ label to my thyroid medication because changing the company my pills come from makes a difference. I learned that the hard way.

I have been with the same doctor, the same insurance company, the same pharmacy and the same birth control for over three years. I get my pills in a three month supply. My Ob-Gyn prescribes a year’s worth of refills. I also have anxiety and so I am always making sure I have all my pills around the time a refill is needed.

I have been working on my anxiety which means I am giving myself a break, not being too hard on myself and trying not to always expect worst case scenarios. Also, I am human and yet, yet, when I opened the last pack of my three month supply, I checked I had one more refill left. Now, I don’t know if you know but you can’t get a refill ‘early’. I usually have to wait until a couple days before I run out of pills. This time, I forgot to call the pharmacy to pick up my pills three days before I run out. But hey, no issues, I do still have a refill left, I live in the middle of a bustling city, there is a 24-hour pharmacy and great insurance so it should be no problem to go grab my refill.

I wouldn’t be writing this post if all had gone well. I called the pharmacy and apparently my ‘refill’ has expired. What the hell does that even mean? It has barely been 365 days since I last say my Ob-Gyn and important to note, my insurance won’t let me get a health check up twice in a 365 day period and this is why my Ob-Gyn prescribes a year’s worth of supply. So here I am, cramping like nobody’s business, hives erupting because stress isn’t good for my Hashimoto’s and wondering why is it so incredibly hard to get hold of a medication that I need, that I have been on for years, that is as basic as birth control. The pharmacist was unhelpful, the ‘on call doctor’ was unhelpful and my doctor is sleeping.

My anxiety to the rescue though because I have kept an older brand of birth control, I discontinued it because it was causing my issues but my doctor had said I could use it for emergencies. I didn’t know what she meant – why would I have a birth control emergency – well here we are. You might be wondering why I can’t just wait until the morning, call my doctor and have her re-refill my prescription. I am going to but without my non-placebo pill tonight, I will have to suffer through another 30 odd hours of cramps, bleeding, mood swings and thyroid annoyance. Birth control doesn’t remove all my symptoms but the hormone regulation makes life a lot easier. You can only imagine how bad my ‘regular’ periods would be. The added stress and annoyance don’t help.

So thank you American health care system for making me feel like my medically diagnosed anxiety is the only thing that can help me.