#thankfully… i have cousins on both sides who genuinely medically needed accutane bc of the chronic pain from their severe cystic acne

[snarltoothed]

like, don’t get me wrong, i far prefer the side effects of synthetic progesterone to developing ovarian cysts (which is actually countered more by the ethinyl estradiol iirc… but getting estrogen without a progesterone would require an actual PCOS diagnosis and i’d have to go off the pill and let myself grow a bunch of cysts and wait several months after the continuous bleeding starts for the ultrasound appointment to confirm them and… no thanks) and just not having a period rather than cramming the whole cycle’s worth of PMDD into like 5 days and then having a 2 day long period…

but ffs insurance won’t cover any type of birth control with a semi-active off week for continuous use… and they don’t MAKE the newer (BETTER) synthetic progesterones with 7 days of pure sugar pills (for valid reasons) and they don’t make ANY birth control packs without an off week (to appease the catholic church — although there are debatably valid medical reasons to have an off-week if you’re using oral contraceptives as, well, contraceptives… they’re just kind of irrelevant because they HAD to include the off week as a compromise with the catholic church) SO i’m stuck with shitty synthetic progesterone that has convinced my pelvis as well as my ovaries that i’m already pregnant and my SI joints need to be even MORE flexible than usual to prepare for the fetus that is not and will never be developing in my inhospitable womb

there are in fact both advantages and disadvantages that come with continuous oral contraceptive use