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I'm no longer on oral contraceptive birth control, but I tried it out in my first year of university.
I took about 17 pills of Alesse - it gave me ridiculous mood swings, so I stopped.
I then went on Yasmin and, oh boy, did the problems start. I gained 10-15 pounds overnight and felt constantly bloated. I'm a pretty small person, so gaining the weight so quickly gave me stretch marks on my bust (which, luckily, faded once I went off the medication - but it did take a good year). I brought up the issue with the doctor at the campus clinic, but he said it was likely the freshmen fifteen. It wasn't, because I hadn't changed my diet/exercise, but I figured gaining a few pounds was better than getting pregnant. Whatever, right?
Then, a good 4-5 months I started getting these nasty migraines, to the point where I was so nauseous I couldn't go to class. These migraines had no rhyme or reason to them, they just happened out of the blue. The campus clinic doctor told me to keep taking the pill, that it was stress, my period, etc. causing the migraines.
I finally went home at the end of first year and brought up the issues with my family doctor. She immediately told me to stop taking Yasmin and any combined oral contraceptive - she said the migraines could be a reaction/allergy/intolerance to the synthesized estrogen in the pill. She said, if I continued I could possibly have stroke - even though I don't smoke, am relatively healthy and don't have a family history of strokes.
The second I went off Yasmine, I lost fifteen pounds. All gone in ten days. My family doctor said I could trying the "mini-pill" as a future contraceptive. It doesn't have estrogen in it, however, it's not as effective as the combined-pill. I would still have to use another method of birth control if I wanted to be 99.9 percent sure.
Instead of playing russian roulette with birth control pills, my current main method of contraception are "barrier methods" (i.e. condoms, form, sponges, etc.) It might not be as sexy as the "spur of the moments" which the pill allows, but my hormones are not all over the place, I don't gain weight and I don't have to worry about taking medication/hormones which may affect my health.
Silver lining: When I was on yasmin, my skin got really clear. As in I could sleep in my makeup and wake up with beautiful, crystal clear and smooth skin.
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