Post-Birth Control Syndrome Is Real

Millions struggle with symptoms after going off the pill. Why is it so hard for them to find answers?

- HANNAH CHUBB

Search "birth control" on TikTok, and you'll be met with more than 130,000 videos, many of them about quitting hormonal contraception. In some, people share how doing so drastically improved their lives ("I finally feel like myself again!"), but in a significant number of posts on TikTok and beyond, others deliver a warning. They tell stories of day-to-days thrown into disarray, of mood swings, fatigue, acne, hair loss, or irregular periods. Unbeknownst to them and to the majority of people considering, using, or stopping hormonal birth control-this kind of experience has a name.

Post-birth control syndrome, or PBCS, affects an estimated 1 in 5 women. It covers what happens when someone goes off hormonal birth control (any form but most commonly the pill) and suffers one or several of the aforementioned issues in the following days or months, says Aviva Romm, MD, author of Hormone Intelligence. To clarify, PBCS isn't a disease or official medical diagnosis, she adds. It's more of a catchall term that groups together and acknowledges the post-pill symptoms many people have been reporting for decades.