FELIX HEALTH & BIRTH CONTROL

A very scary and unexpected experience at the ER in November last year led me to discover things about my body that I had once overlooked or even worse, categorized as normal.

For as long as I can remember, I normalized having extended periods of really heavy menstrual cycles as “one of those things a few women go through”. I unknowingly joked about how I went through packs of sanitary towels, resonated with all the favorite anemic memes, and was no stranger to iron pills. Little did I know that what was going on with my body, albeit semi-normal, was not healthy.

However, things got worse one fateful Thursday afternoon, as I found myself in the back of an ambulance due to an uncontrollable pain in my abdomen. After a series of pelvic exams, I found out I was dealing with both a ruptured ovarian cyst and a new discovery – fibroids. Hearing this was nothing short of shocking, as the doctor went on to explain that fibroids were the cause of my excessive bleeding cycle and I had to get on treatment as soon as possible to avoid it from growing any further.

This was both shocking and relieving for me – shocking because I had spent all my adult years categorizing this as just “one of those things” and relieved because I had more information about what was going on in my body and it was caught in time before getting more critical.

According to statistics, fibroids affect around 30% of women by the age of 35 and from 20 to 80% of women by the age of 50 years. I had vaguely read about these stats, the symptoms, and side effects but it had not completely registered till I was sitting across the doctor’s chair. Sitting there, I thought about all the ways I could have paid more attention to my body, questioned more, and ignored less.

After a series of pelvic exams to determine the size of fibroids and my overall health, I was referred to a gynecologist for proper assessment and appropriate treatment. In my case, I was prescribed birth control as medication to regulate my hormone levels, control my bleeding, and eventually, shrink the fibroids.

Which brought me to my next struggle, which was the best and least evasive birth control to get on? I had a non-pleasant history with birth control pills and I was scared of going down that road again. This time, I considered getting the patch or a ring. I shared this experience with my twitter followers and received messages from other women, about their own battles. Some, more than others were also on the same path of treatment I had been prescribed by a gynecologist.

Access to birth control isn’t always easy for some women, for a variety of reasons. Personally, I didn’t start getting any knowledge about birth control till about 2 years ago. Some women move cities and lose access to their doctors with patient history, some women are not comfortable talking about their sexual health with different doctors, some women are not sure which method is the best for their bodies, or in some cases, some women are not able to access a consistent prescription. That’s where Felix Health comes in.

Felix Health is a digital health platform that provides online diagnosis by connecting customers to doctors for the ease of access to prescription and delivery of medication. The doctors on the platform prescribe the birth control pill, patch, or ring, depending on what the patient needs. They can also recommend options like an intrauterine device (IUD).

This is great for women that are new to getting birth control, already have a consistent prescription, or are trying to change methods.

The Felix Health experience is pretty easy in 3 steps:

What are your thoughts on birth control? Have you ever been on it? Thinking about it? Did you know that asides from being used as contraception, birth control can also be used in the treatment of fibroids or acne? I’ll love to hear your thoughts on this.

Till next time,

A.R.E

xx