my girlfriend went off birth control about a month ago and is now experiencing pains in her lower abdomen?

Congrats to your girlfriend for taking charge of her health! These symptoms are just another reason why hormonal birth control methods should be stopped.

Here are a few of links if you'd like to learn more about the big announcement about Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) causing breast cancer. Note that breast cancer rates originally started increasing rapidly when birth control pills and now other forms of hormonal birth control also began to be widely used. Hormonal birth control methods contain estrogen and progestin, hormones that are the most widely used in HRT. This is true for The Pill, The mini-pill, The Patch, some types of IUDs, and Nuva Ring, Shots, and Rods under the skin. Levels in HRT, which have already been shown to cause breast cancer, are actually lower than that in hormonal birth control methods, on top of the fact that hormonal birth control methods are used by young healthy women with naturally occurring hormones in already normal levels. How long will we have to wait before the medical community admits to women that hormonal birth control methods are just as dangerous as HRT? I have a feeling that it will be much longer, as hormonal birth control is considered to be the "holy grail" of "women's reproductive freedom". Never mind that women are dying of breast cancer at alarmingly increasing rates since 1974 when BC pills began to be more widely used. Thirty years later, we are reaping the "benefits" of artificial hormones that are used to suppress the natural processes of the female body.

Just like menopause, the female bodily functions of ovulation and pregnancy ARE NOT ILLNESSES. Medications should only be taken when it's absolutely necessary to prevent or cure ILLNESS, and then ONLY if the benefit outweighs the risks.

If you must practice birth control, abstinence or a condom, diaphragm, cervical cap, with plenty of spermicide, when used correctly is STATISTICALLY JUST AS EFFECTIVE as hormonal birth control. Condoms also decrease your chances of contracting an STD and they don't work by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg, like hormonal birth control does. If you are pro-life and believe that life begins at conception, this last point should be of particular interest to you. Abortifacient types of birth control also include non-hormonal types of IUDs, which work exclusively by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg. Even if you DON’T have any moral objection to this, at least stop using hormonal birth control for the sake of your health!

A + B = C

How many more "news flash: drug causes bad side effects" announcements before we realize that the body does NOT need drugs, except in dire circumstances. Let's leave our bodies alone and live healthy lifestyles, and our bodies will take care of the rest!

HOW HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY AND HORMONAL BIRTH CONTROL METHODS HAVE NOW DEFINITELY BEEN SHOWN TO CAUSE CANCER

http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/1025191125.html

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/12/15/gupta.breast....

HOW SOME TYPES OF BIRTH CONTROL CAN CAUSE ABORTION WITHOUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE

http://abort73.com/HTML/II-D-2-types.html

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BIRTH CONTROL AND HOW IT IS ANTI-WOMAN

http://www.the-edith-stein-foundation.com/articles...

This is a tough one. There are 2 possible answers. One, yes you could be pregnant. Two, since you went off the pill your hormones might be trying to get back to normal. You might just have to take a pregnancy test to find out the truth.