Effects of Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo

I’ve been taking the stuff for almost two weeks now, and the effects are interesting enough to write about. The two effects I primarily notice are (in no particular order) water retentention and sex drive change.

Oh, yeah. This may fall under TMI for some folks.

Water retention is up. OMGBBQ, I feel like a cow. I’m drinking close to three liters a day, and the shit ain’t going anywhere. No excess tinkling at all. I’ve even added in 30 minutes of cardio after weight-lifting workouts in order to try to purge some of it (which is helping), and running harder than before. I’m watching sodium intake now, too. Ugh.

Sex drive is down, and it’s causing a funny dichotomy in my brain. See, my body is convinced that it doesn’t particularly care about sex. All the good ol’ errogenous zone are a little deader than they were a couple of weeks ago and I don’t get so worked up about things anymore.

But my mind… my poor stupid mind is going, “But, but… no! It’s summertime and school’s about to resume and you’re going to be all busy with brainy stuff and work–get sex while you can, woman!”

It ain’t happening, though. Maybe it’ll return briefly while I’m on the placebo pills, but by that point my mind will most likely have given up the ghost and conceded defeat (it will have been three weeks of getting used to the new arrangements, as it were).

…Maybe this is more like what having a normal sex drive is like.

I haven’t noticed any other side effects–no spotting, no headaches, no blood clots exploding in my brain. If things go well through the rest of this cycle, I’ll probably keep the Tri-Cyclen Lo for a while.