Beyond the Pill: A Revolutionary Program for Hormone Balance, Reversing the Side Effects of Contraception, and Reclaiming Your Health

by Jolene Brighten

Pharmaceutical companies have very little incentive to improve upon the pill because they know the burden of pregnancy falls on us.

women will tolerate even the worst side effects in order to maintain their freedom.

Unfortunately, too many women are prescribed the pill for non-contraceptive reasons—painful periods, endometriosis, PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome), acne—without being told of the possible ramifications on their body and hormones.

Extended use of the pill also destroys your gut integrity, causing inflammation, altering your microbiome, and ultimately creating so many issues with immune regulation that it may spark an autoimmune disease.

Maybe you’ve heard the story that being a woman is inherently awful—that we have wild mood swings, and our hormones and our bodies constantly betray us. This is a myth and a lie meant to keep us from demanding better for ourselves. Here is the truth: your body is in no way betraying you. In fact, your hormones hold the key to an incredible life.

If the pill causes women to select mates who create babies with less than optimal immune systems, and we’ve been on the pill for multiple generations, is it any wonder there has been a rise in the incidence of autoimmune disease?

“Post–birth control syndrome” is a term that refers to the collection of signs and symptoms that arise when you stop taking the pill.

I’ve been in health for over two decades now and can remember when people were called crazy for saying “leaky gut,” which is now well accepted as a term for intestinal hyperpermeability. Doctors who prescribed probiotics a few decades ago were ridiculed for the practice, and now conventional medicine prescribes these regularly. I remember when people who said “adrenal fatigue” were called quacks, and now HPA dysregulation is a documented phenomenon in the literature. And you better believe that PBCS is no exception.

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You don’t need the pill to fix your period. In fact, the pill can’t fix your periods, your acne, your PCOS, your PMS, or your hormones, because it is designed to shut down your entire reproductive system and psych your body out. The reality is that the only person who can fix your period is you,

I, like many women, used to think PMS is a normal part of being a woman. But it doesn’t have to be. The problem with ignoring these symptoms and popping an ibuprofen or taking the birth control pill for them is that you don’t get to the root of why you have them.

The individual differences in both genetics and environment is a big reason why some women do fine on the pill while others feel completely wrecked by it. It’s also the reason why some of us start out fine on the pill and eventually develop major issues.

mind–body detox. When you’re detoxing, look at your relationships. Are they toxic? Look at the way you talk to yourself. Is that toxic? Look at the choice of words you use every day. Do you watch the news? Stop that! That’s toxic. We are such complex biological and energetic systems that literally everything affects us.

So, there was this guy named Hippocrates who said “All disease begins in the gut” about 2,500 years ago, and you know what? He was right. Your gut is responsible for absorbing the nutrients from your food, which in turn help you make the hormones you need and break down and eliminate the ones you don’t. It houses a whole lot of organisms—we’re talking more organisms than there are cells in the body—that influence your mood, your weight, inflammation, and your overall hormonal health.

When you nourish your gut, you nourish your body.