Many women turn to birth control pills because they’re proven to be safe for most women who want to prevent contraception and pregnancy. They’re amazing for allowing couples to enjoy their sex life worry-free and for managing a woman’s hormones.
However, there are some lifestyle habits that can put you at risk of serious health conditions when used in conjunction with oral contraceptives. One of these habits is smoking.
Everyone knows that tobacco and traditional cigarettes can be bad for your health. But is smoking electronic cigarettes any better? What happens if you vape while on birth control?
Today, we’ll talk you through what happens when you vape while taking hormonal birth control. We’ll also tell you other forms of contraceptives you can explore if you don’t want to combine your smoking habit with your current birth control method.
What Happens If You Vape While On Birth Control?
1. You’ll be more susceptible to strokes and heart attacks
Although vaping doesn’t technically weaken the effectiveness of birth control pills, the effect on your health can be much worse. By combining your pills with the nicotine in your vape, you could be at higher risk for serious cardiovascular events like strokes and heart attacks.
Vapes contain nicotine, the same addictive chemical in cigarettes that is known to constrict your arteries and vessels. The delivery of blood to your brain, heart, and other vital organs is slowed down. This can lead to serious side effects, like an increase in your blood pressure and heart rate.
On the other hand, birth control pills increase your estrogen levels to thicken your blood. This puts you at risk of developing blood clots, which can also slow down the regular flow of blood in your body.
When you combine nicotine and the rise of estrogen in your body thanks to birth control pills, you’ll have ridiculously high blood pressure while being susceptible to developing blood clots. This is a very bad combination because it greatly puts you at risk of getting a stroke or a heart attack.
By being an avid smoker, you’re already at high risk for these cardiovascular events. Being on the pill while you smoke nicotine only makes that risk higher.
2. Your stress response will be heightened
Aside from putting you at risk of strokes and heart attacks, being a smoker while taking oral contraceptive pills also emits a stronger stress response from your body.
A 2017 study showed that when smoking nicotine, oral contraception users had a more heightened physiological stress response than those that weren’t on birth control.
Low production at work
This second side effect is less extreme than the first, but it can still affect your day-to-day life negatively. See, stress can show up in many ways in our bodies. But the more extreme the manifestations, the more likely they are to disrupt your day and make you less productive.
For example, some of the tell-tale signs of chronic stress are muscle pains and migraines. Coupled with other symptoms such as fatigue, nausea, irritable bowel syndrome, and trouble with concentrating, these are more than enough to make someone miss work or feel sick.
A higher heart rate and respiration rate
An increase in stress levels can also lead to a dilation of your blood vessels, which leads to a higher heart rate and respiration rate. Together with the other symptoms above, this can be extremely uncomfortable for anyone.
In a nutshell, if you vape while on birth control, you can also expect a wide range of side effects that are similar to being extremely stressed out. It can interfere with your daily activities and lower your quality of life overall.
What’s scary is that you won’t be able to tell if these side effects are caused by the combination of nicotine and estrogen or because your contraceptive pills are entirely wrong for you. If you feel any of these stress-related symptoms, talk to your OB-GYN to see if you need a change in your pills.
How to vape while still practicing safe sex
Even though the effects of vaping while being on birth control sound frightening, don’t worry—not all hope is lost.
You can still practice safe sex and enjoy vaping by considering other birth control options that won’t increase your estrogen levels and lead to cardiovascular attacks or stress responses.
How, you ask? Set up an appointment with your OB-GYN and tell them about your predicament. Be as honest and transparent as possible with your doctor about your smoking habit.
Don’t be afraid of them judging you. They are there for informational purposes and to give you their professional medical advice, not to form opinions about you and your vaping.
Their main goal is to help you find the best contraceptive option that will fit your lifestyle. And they can’t do that if you withhold information about your vaping habit.
If you still want to continue taking birth control pills, you might want to bring up the idea of switching over to progestin-only pills. That way, your oral contraceptives won’t get in the way of your vaping.
Some other methods your doctor might suggest for you include male and female condoms, a diaphragm, intrauterine devices (like the copper IUD), and spermicide. Your doctor should explain what each can do for you, and whichever you end up taking is your decision.
Conclusion
There are two main consequences that can occur when you vape while taking birth control pills.
The first is that you can be more exposed to cardiovascular events such as strokes and heart attacks.
The second is that your body’s physiological stress response will be switched on, making you more vulnerable to headaches, muscle pains, foggy concentration, and even uncomfortable bowel movements.
The only surefire way to avoid these risks is to look for a substitute birth control method for you. Luckily, you can do so by contacting your healthcare provider to explore your options. That way, you can vape and still practice safe sex without worrying about the consequences.
