Insomnia after taking the contraceptive pill

This case is shared with permission.

This lady was 27 year old. She came to see me after struggling to sleep after taking the contraceptive pill. She was desperate for help, being a young mum with two young children and a busy farm to look after, which she loved.

She said she has been well all her life, but she started downhill six weeks ago. Her son got ill, then she got sinusitis; she took antibiotics for it and since then she couldn’t go to sleep. She might have a couple of hours at night, maximum.

The doctor prescribed sleeping tablets to no effect. She then developed headaches, pain around the forehead, behind the eyes, pressure on her head and her eyes ached.

Then I inquired about her menstrual health, and she said she started the pill two months ago. She took it for 21 days and reported that two weeks after she started it, she stopped sleeping. So I knew we had the cause of the problem. The pill is well known for headaches and sleep issues, which makes perfect sense if we think about our hormones and what they do.

So I had a few options. I knew from my training that the remedy folliculinum is a remedy for health issues arising from starting the hormonal birth control pill. I could prescribe the pill in the homeopathic form and a detox that way. You take it in an ascending potency. Week one 30c potency, week two 200c, week three 1m, week four 10m. Alternatively, I could give her a constitutional remedy which fits the whole person.

I thought keep it simple, and started with folliculinum 12c daily for a week.

After two tablets, she had a period. It was painful the first day and heavy for a couple of days. Her sleep improved for a bit and then she got a cold. She slowly got better from her cold and she asked me for more of the tablets because her sleep was still not quite resolved but still better than it was. She continued to take a few more in the next few weeks and now after about nine months she is all better – sleeping well, and in general good health, once again enjoying her busy life on the farm.