Re: I'm through with pills, patches: What now?!?

Hi hon. :) I would not recommend going to the doctor for this just yet, but as a last resort. There are many wonderful things for your body and health you can do before then--and chances are you'll be cured and will not need to go to the doctor should you do a few things for yourself. :)
I would take a pretty safe bet your hormones need balancing, naturally, safely, and healthfully. There are a couple good products I would recommend for this. Dr. Schultz's Female Balance formula is FANTASTIC. Taste is not so great, works great though. It will help with the mood, help make your female organs more healthy and produce the correct amount of hormones, and help balance your entire endocrine system. The weight gain is caused from a thyroid not performing at peak most likely, and it is part of the endocrine system. Your liver may also be loaded down a bit from those chemicals for such a long time, and the liver is also a key part of your metabolism.
At the very least I would recommend a colon cleanse, Dr. Schultz's is a great one and the one I personally use, and I have also heard wonderful results from the oxygen Colon Cleanses such as Homozone(sp?) and others.
A liver cleanse would be a wonderful thing to do, I would highly recommend it. You can read about Dr. Schultz's liver cleanse, it is very effective but also very involved and takes a serious mindset to follow through with it for five days. If his does not appeal to you, I have heard Cherie Cherbom(sp?), or the Juice Lady as she is called, has a good liver cleanse as well. As you can tell I use Dr. Schultz's products a great deal, they are the one's I am the most familiar with, and have had great results with therefore the one's I recommend on a regular basis. But there are also many other great ways to accomplish the same things, so there are other choices out there as well. :)
Your body is probably in quite a bit of shock from stopping so many things at once. :) Hang in there though, you are doing the right thing and I highly commend you for it! :) Your body just needs a little help getting back to the point it needs to be. A little cleansing and balancing and I feel confident you'll be doing great. :) Oh, the other products I wanted to mention that you could use in the place of Dr. Schultz's Female Formula should that not appeal to you. Pure Essence Labs have some of the most amazing and holistic products I have come across, you can read about them on www.pureessencelabs.com They have a Femcream that has lots of herbs in it (many of the same that Dr. Schultz's formula has) that is a topical hormone balancing cream that you rub on your body each day. I've actually read that female creams are 70% more effective than capsules, and I feel this would be a great route if you think that would be easier. Dr. S's Female formula is a liquid extract (hence the not so great taste) and I really think it is just as, possibly slightly more, effective than a cream, but a cream is easier for many to both rememeber and tolerate since they do not have to taste it. :) PEL's Femcream is actually brown, so you know it actually has herbs in it, instead of just fairy dust quality of the listed ingredients.
I would imagine with the symtomes you mention that you are also low on energy? You might like to read about PEL's two other products, Life Essence Multi or the FemEssence Multi (unlike any other multi I have ever seen, you can read the pdf file on it--awesome!) and their Energy Plus. They have 20 some supertonic herbs to balance your entire body, they are very holistic. I have no affiliation with either of these companies, but love them both.
As far as the contraception, depending on much money you have, I have read about the Ladycomp and really want to get one myself. You can read about it at www.ladycomp.com I believe (been a bit since I read about it) and I think that one is in the UK but there is another distrubitor in Canada I believe, might have to do a search on google or something for it should you decide you want one. It is 99.9% effective just like a condom. What I liked about it is it takes your temperature, does all the figuring for you, eliminates human error, and you never have to buy anything for it ever again. I looked at one of those Clear Blue and another brand that takes your temperature and everything, but you have to buy strips for them constantly and it costs $30 a month for the strips--not counting the $120 cost for the machine in the first place. At that price it would pay for the Ladycomp pretty quickly and it has a lifetime guartenee I believe.
If you cannot afford one at this time or are not interested you can learn more about your cycle at a sight like Natural Family Planning so that you only have to use a barrier method (condom, diapram, ect.) 6-9 days of the month. We use a condom because I do not want any chemicals--a diaphram requires a chemical spermicidal to temporarily "glue" it to the cervix and keep it in place. If you are very regular like I am this system works well, but I would still love to get the Ladycomp someday. :)
Best to you hon, and I hope I have been somewhat helpful. :) Caitlin Lorraine Tweet