@Blue_Bird - I love your painting! I can't take birth control at all. It really messes with my mood in a severe negative way, irritability, water weight gain, fatigue, overly emotional. I tried a few different pills, low estrogen, higher estrogen, middle range. I got on one of them, LoEstrin, maybe it was, it had me feeling and looking exactly as I did when I was 12 weeks pregnant! Because I need birth control, I'm on the non-hormonal IUD (Paragard). But birth control has helped other women on this board. So you never know until you try.