Weight Gain caused by depo provera

HI. Im a high school senior who has recently taken depo provera and i am soon taking the 2nd shot. I have gained about 25 pounds. I have gone to steady diets to extreme diets and extreme workouts. I have only gained more weight!!!! Im only about 5'3 amd i now weigh close to 150 pounds. i was 120-125 when senior year started about 8 months ago. please tell me what i should do or where i should go to get help. How so i get rid of  this weight? I don't know where else to turn because my parents want me to keep using it. If i even ask to get off of it they assume that i am trying to get pregnant. Is there anyway to lose the weight without getting off of the shot?

[Shayne Plosker, MD]

Dear KrystaB - this is probably the wrong forum, but as an REI we are also gynecologists. I would recommend that you stop taking the depoprovera. If your first injection was three months ago, it will still potentially take another 2-5 months to leave your system. There are plenty of other choices for birth control - the oral contraceptive is one example. The nuvaring is a great choice - if remembering to take the pill is a problem for you the nuvaring, inserted intravaginally, only needs to be replaced every three week. Also, the mirena IUD is a good choice - we used to be concerned about IUDs in young women who had never had babies before because old IUDs carried with them the risk of infection. This is not true with the mirena, as long as it is inserted under sterile conditions and we now know it is safe to use for young women. As a senior, decisions about your health and body are yours - I would strongly encourage you to visit a family planning clinic, midwife, nurse practitioner, or ObGyn to discuss your choices.

It will be easier to lose the weight off the shot, since it is obvious that the shot and your weight gain are related.

Good luck!