The Contraceptive Implant: My Experience.

I've been on the pill for as long as I can remember. I went on it at an early age because my periods were so horrendously heavy and painful that the doctor recommended going on it to help. I suffered really badly with it, I remember going along with my mum to do the weekly food shopping and having to ring my dad to come pick me up because I was doubled over in so much period pain that I could hardly walk. I'd be in so much pain I'd feel intensely sick and tired and I'm my mood swings were pretty intense, but that could be all those teenage hormones!



As I headed further into my teens, I developed the normal teenager skin problems and the pill always helped with my spots, the pill was something I really did appreciate growing up because it worked so many wonders for me! Of course as I became sexually active it helped with that too. Taking a pill every single day didn't seem to bother me, I'd take it every morning before school/college/work and it never was a problem. I'm not quite sure when it was but at some point during my early twenties I just got really slack with taking my pill. When I was at university my timetable and schedule was so all over the place, especially with working at weekends too. A proper routine went out the window and so taking the pill at a set time everyday never really happened.

About 2 years ago I decided to stop taking the pill all together. This was a decision I didn't take lightly, firstly, I didn't want to get pregnant and secondly, it's quite inconvenient isn't it and condom are expensive. But I decided I wanted to give my body some time off from pumping it with hormones and see how I got on au natural.

It turns out being off the pill sucks. All those problems I had in my teens re-suffered pretty quickly. My periods were regular, but began getting really heavy and painful again, my mood swings were awful, I was covered in spots and I just generally felt awful. In between my periods I'd forget how bad they were but come the end of the month I was back feeling sick and grumpy like never before.

So, I decided to take a trip to the doctors and discuss the options. I'd heard good things about the contraceptive implant but for some reason it always felt like a big deal getting something put in my arm and I toyed with the idea for quite awhile. But after weighing up the different option I decided I needed something effective for birth control that I didn't have to worry about and 3 years is a long time to not worry about getting pregnant, so it felt like the best option for me.

I made an appointment to talk to my doctor and told her that I was 100% ready and before I knew it I was booked in for an appointment the next day. They went over the side effects thoroughly with me, making sure I wasn't just having the implant because I'd heard that I wouldn't have periods anymore, which did sound like a pro point for me but it was really about having a contraceptive that I didn't have to worry about missing one morning because I was busy. So I gave everything the thumbs up and was seen the next day.

The procedure was quite quick. They inject your arm to numb it, if I said this didn't hurt I'd be lying, needles of course almost always hurt in some way, it wasn't awful but it was okay. I didn't watch as she inserted the implant but she made me feel it once it was in place so that I could tell where it was, what it felt like and I can only assume to prove she had actually done it. Then before I knew it I was all bandaged up, leaflet in hand and sent on my way. Personally, my arm swelled up quite a lot and took a few days to calm down and become less painful. I had quite a big bruise but after it healed the incision scar is almost invisible and I barely even notice it's there. If I have a proper feel around I can find it and feel it but I have no real need to do that, except when I want to check it's still there occasionally ha ha!

As for my periods, I have to say they've been all over the place. Some months I have a full period, which for me is usually 4-5 days of bleeding. I've had a lot of spotting bleeding, sometimes it's just once on a day, sometimes it's a few days at a time but I certainly still have my monthly visitor. I'm sad to say I'm not one of those lucky people that haven't had a period since but I've also only had my implant for about 6 months and it can take quite awhile for it to settle. I haven't noticed any particular side effects, my mood swings were a little crazy to begin with but I'd also been off the pill for about a year before this, so having the extra hormones flying around was always going to be different at first.

My whole experience so far has been really positive, I'm really happy I've had the implant, I don't have to worry about getting pregnant for at least 3 years, which is helping with all the post-wedding baby questions! The only thing I'm not looking forward to it when it needs to be removed, although that's a long way away, I can imagine it's not as pleasant as having it put it! I think currently I'd be happy to have another put it after this one, I haven't had any negative reasons to not go ahead with it all again!

I know this post has been super long and rambley, but I hope in some way this post has helped some of you understand the contraceptive implant a bit more! If you have any questions or want to share your experience please let me know in the comments, I'd love to hear from you!

10 Thoughts I've Had Since Getting Married.

Getting married was one of the happiest days of my life, I married my best friend in the entire world, the one person I want to spend the rest of my life with, go on adventures with and who I want by my side when life gets hard. Although we've only been married for 2 weeks now, there have been plenty of new and strange thoughts to process and I thought I'd share some of them with you, like the true blogger I am!

Ways In Which I Want To Improve Sweet Allure.

This post is something I've had in the pipeline for a little while but I felt with my last post, My Blogging Journey, it was only fitting that I followed on with this post about the things I'd like to improve on my blog.



First of all I'd like to go over a couple of things I'm really proud of around here and that is my content. I try really really hard to come up with original content for my blog, I like to stand out from the crowd and offer something a little bit different from the 'norm'. If I write a beauty review I always try to take a different twist on it, like with my 'to highlight or not to highlight' post and it's something I'm really proud of. Although this does mean from time to time content is delayed, as I'd rather wait and put out something I'm happy with, rather than churning it out for the sake of it, I do think when you come here you can find something a little different.

However the main downfall and probably my big weakness around here is my photography. I love photography but I just don't have the best equipment available to me at the moment to really give my blog that extra oomph. I am actively working on this behind the scenes, I'm squirrelling away money so that come the black Friday sales, I can buy myself a proper camera, some lenses and some blogging lights. This means I'll have everything I need to experiment and hopefully take my blog up a notch, plus it also means I'll have to go shopping for loads of blogging accessories, and this makes me very excited! A prime example is the photo on this blog post, why is it so blue!? Ugh.

The next concern I have with my blog at the minute is my schedule, I've blabbed on about it constantly but since starting my Etsy Shop I've been so crazy busy that I've had no real spare time to work on my blog, but this is something I'm really working on and I'm determined to get back to a 3 posts a week schedule. I didn't realise how much I missed writing until I made a return this past week or two and I'm excited to really get back into it. I've got plenty of things to talk about over the next few weeks, although do be warned, the week or two coming up to my wedding will be pretty sporadic on my blog, but that's pretty understandable!

Then lastly, I want to make much more of an effort to interact with people. I do try to reply to everything I get on twitter but I've been pretty useless at replying to blog comments. I ran a poll recently and a lot of people said they check back or expect a reply to blog comments, which I was quite surprised by, but it is something I've thought about since and will try to improve on. I find it hard to know when a blog comment needs a response? I'm sure I don't feel alone in this and I'd rather be honest with you guys, so this is me saying I will make more of an effort on that front!

I guess now I've told you guys about all of this I kind of have to stick to it? Balls.

My Blogging Journey.

When I read my friend Holly's post about why she started blogging, it really inspired me to talk about the reasons I started blogging, as I'm not really sure I've shared that here on my blog before.

About 2 years ago, I'd been in my job just over a year. Although the premise of video-game testing sounds like the best job in the world, but like with any job, it gets pretty repetitive and mundane after awhile and I started to feel really sad and uninspired.

I started trying to find ways to fulfil that need outside of work and I landed on going to the gym. I enjoyed the gym and it kicked started me losing the weight I wanted to lose, which was awesome. However I had started a little fitness blog along side my gym sessions, talking about how I felt, what work outs I was doing, how much weight I'd lost etc etc to help keep track of everything and I just found myself really enjoying writing it and reading other peoples journeys.

After the gym sessions fizzled out, not because I got bored as such but because I'd lost the weight I actually wanted to lose and felt quite happy with myself, but obviously my fitness blog kind of fizzle out with it and I started to slip back into being really bored and sad outside of work.

I ummed and ahhhed for quite awhile about starting a proper blog, I had no idea what to talk about, what to name it, how to go about being a 'blogger', until one day I took the plunge and SweetAllure happened. It started out for awhile being a beauty blog for people who was just getting into makeup AKA, me. I hadn't been into skincare or beauty for long and thought it'd be an interesting place to learn and grow, but after awhile I realised writing about one thing forever wasn't for me, I had so many other interests in life so why would I limit myself to one topic?

I slowly started introducing lifestyle and fashion posts and I just felt so much happier. It was keeping me occupied outside of work, thinking about topics and content, trying to take a none blurry photo and discovering the magical world of Twitter. I think becoming obsessed with Twitter and finding this HUGE community of bloggers was the turning point for me, before it was just a hobby but something changed and it became this huge drive and passion.

Talking to random people all over the world about everything to do with blogging was amazing and that was before I discovered 'Twitter Chats'. I remember just sitting on my sofa all weekend joining in chat after chat and talking to so many people about so many different things, it was just so new and interesting! I still do this when I get time and still love talking to new people about random stuff, it's the main reason I'm obsessed with Twitter.

After a few months I managed to somehow end up being invited along to a blogger meet up, where I met some people I still talk to now! It was so terrifying and bizarre but it was also pretty fucking awesome too. Before I knew it I was popping along to events and meets up all the time, meeting new people and making some amazing friends along the way.

I honestly could never have imagined the world that has been opened up to me from blogging. I've met so many amazing people in a city that I was so lonely in, I had no friends, no social life and writing about stuff on the internet changed that, how mental is that?!

I get invited to so many awesome places in Sheffield to try new menus or drink menus, check out awesome new venues that have opened up or try new products, it still blows my mind.

Even more recently, it's opened up another avenue for me with my artwork. I've always been creative, for as long as I can remember. Art was always my best subject in school, I'd sketch and paint or knit and cross stitch in my spare time. When I decided to share that artwork with you lovely lot, it just exploded. I really cannot explain how insane this last month or two has been on that front (and still is!). But I just don't know where I would be without all of this, writing, painting, events, meeting and talking to people, I'd still be sat being so sad and lonely crying to Nick that I just wanted some friends to talk to. But hey, guess what? those people are you. Every single last person that has spoken to me in real life, on twitter, in a blog post comment, it was every single one of you that lifted me out of a really sad hole that I thought I would never get out of.

So I want to say thank you. Thank you for being so fucking awesome, every single day. I hope I can always continue to carry on this wonderful journey with all of you as I change and grow as a blog and as a person! The support of the community has always been so amazing and I honestly wouldn't change it for the world.

I would genuinely love to hear your blogging story/journey, so please feel free comment below or tweet me a link to your blog post! (@sweet_allure)!