Birth Control Pills and Breast Cancer Link

[Paula O]

http://bustingbreastcancer.org/american-cancer-society/birth-control-pills-now-linked-to-triple-negative-breast-cancer/


Anybody here looked into research linking birth control pills to breast cancer? One of my teenaged daughters, who is a very healthy, active kid in general, has very difficult menstrual cycles (vomiting, severe cramps, weakness, passing out, having to go to bed with a heating pad a day or two, but no heavy bleeding). We've tried multiple natural supplements to balance her hormones to no avail. I've been hesitant about the standard of care which are birth control pills because of her strong genetic history of breast cancer (me and my husbands sister and 3 of his aunts have/had breast cancer). I had read long ago about a possible link between breast cancer and birth control pills. After trying everything else we can think of and the reassurance of our primary care dr, the GYN, and my oncologist that there is no additional risk to her, she started a couple months ago on birth control pills with some, but not total improvement. Now I just came across this article from 2010. I am hoping the benefits outweigh the risks for her. It looks like the risk increases for those using it over a year.

Paula
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Eph 3:20

[kvogler]

I'm interested in this topic myself. I must say that I too started birth control pills for irregular cycles in my teens and stayed on them for birth control after marriage. Thought it was okay since it was low dose pills and although cancer ran in my family, it wasn't a pattern of breast cancer. As some of you regulars know from some of my posts, I was diagnosed with HER2 cancer at 36. Not triple neg like this article however. But my use of birth control is on my "what if" list.

[Jackie07]

I was told to stop taking the birth control pill right away when I was first diagnosed even though the tumor was only 5% ER positive. I'd only started taking the pill for difficult cycles a few years before the BC diagnosis.

Based on my own experience, your daughter will be better off if she can find the source of the problem. My painful cycle was caused by the interrupted sleep cycle due to the life-long brain tumor. Part of the reason why I enjoyed participating in sports at youth could be that I'd have good, deep sleep after a good work-out.

Doctors are often too quick to give an easy answer to young women who complain about difficult cycles.

[Lien]

My growth was stopped with huge doses of hormones when I was 14. I took them for two years, the equivalent of the morning after pill. There is a lot of cancer in my family (1 aunt on mothers' side with BC, mother stomach, father prostate, uncle on mother's side pancreas, cousin on mother's side leukemia and non-hodgkins lymphoma, uncle on father's side Hodgkins lymphoma) and I developed breast cancer at age 2004. I took birth control pills from age 17 - 19 or so and again at age 24 for about a year. It didn't really solve my menstrual problems and gave me other side effects, so I quit taking them.


I too had very very bad periods and found relief in foot reflexology. I had tried everything I could think of, went to a reflexologist for other issues and then as a side effect my horrible, horrible periods became a bit of a nuisance. It was amazing. Ofcourse all this is anecdotal and I know that birth control pills are not supposed to bring an increased risk of breast cancer. It seems that the risk of ovarian cancer is even reduced. A friend of mine used to take a birth control pill that she would take without stopping for 3 - 6 months, skipping periods that way.

So if it works for your daughter, I wouldn't panic. But you might want to try a good certified reflexologist.

Oh, and my Mom had the same issues with her periods and her problems went away after her first pregnancy. Your daughter may be a bit young for that, but at least it can give her hope.

Jacqueline

[Becky]

One year at the San Antonio BC Symposium I went to the Gold Medal award winner presentation speech (this award is given to a scientist as a Lifetime Research award - very big thing). This person (woman's) work was tracking about 150 girls from the time they were 7 until they were in their 50's. Pretty cool (Jean from this board was with me during this). This woman tracked everything from diet, exercise, and menses. Just about everything you can track, she tracked. One big part I remembered is that of course, some of these girls had menses problems - many due to intense exercise (big soccer players etc). Others for unknown reasons. The girls that didn't have periods while they were young for exercise or other reasons had a nonexistant BC rate. Her explanation was that since they were not menstruating, they didn't get the rise and then spike in estrogen that happens every month. Someone did ask her about birth control pills and she said, why would you want to do that for any other reason than birth control as she felt it does contribute to BC eventually. Big talk on Birth control pills then.

However Paula, your daughter does get her period and is suffering. It seems to me, she is greatly suffering and this may be a medical/quality of life issue. Way different than just not getting her period. Therefore, you need to really explore options that may help her and the pill may be one of them.

I want to comment on Lien's - I too had really bad cramps that took me out day 1 of my period. They greatly subsided after I had my first baby. They didn't go away but a couple of Advil took care of the problem.

[Paula O]

Thanks for the input, ladies.


I wonder how much influence hormone imbalance played a role in my cancer diagnosis. Two years before my ominous mammogram I was premenopausal and had some dysfunctional uterine bleeding and hemmorhaged.. I had a D & C followed by using perscription bioidentical progesterone cream topically (which was my preference over oral hormone pills or ablation) Then one year before diagnosis I had a second episode of very heavy bleeding. I was perscribed a heavy dose of two packs of birth control pills to stop the bleeding which worked without another D & C. This was the only time I've ever taken birth control pills and I imagine my hormones were way out of wack which triggered the excessive bleeding as we found no other physical cause)..


I'm glad for you Jacquline, that you got some good relief from reflexology. We did look into it for our daughter last year and she did maybe 5-6 one hour sessions. They did not seem to make any difference. Neither did Chinese Medicine or several herbal approaches. Here's a blurb if anyone is interested http://voices.yahoo.com/how-reflexol...s-8496243.html
I did a quick search --here are some more articles about the topic:
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/f...contraceptives

http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/ka...ancerpill.html

http://polycarp.org/overviewbreastca...raceptives.htm

Has anyone here happened to read this book or took a look at this guy's research?:
Breast Cancer : Its Link to Abortion and the Birth Control Pill [Paperback]

MD Chris Kahlenborn (Author)
http://www.amazon.com/Breast-Cancer-.../dp/0966977734
"Based on six years of study and a meticulous analysis of hundreds of scientific papers and other sources, Dr. Kahlenborn examines and documents the effect that abortion and hormonal contraception have on breast cancer, uterine, cervical, liver, and other cancers, and the transmission of AIDS. Hormonal contraceptive use before first full term pregnancy is found to increase risk of breast cancer by at least 40% (my note--could this be accurate I wonder?). Special attention is given to black women and to various populations of the world. Dr. Kahlenborn shows great skill in presenting this very technical material in a way laypeople can absorb. A very timely and powerful work."

Paula
1 Corinthians 16:13 Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love

[BrendaB]

I was on birth control pills for 19 years, but my cancer is er/pr negative, so not sure if it made any difference.