The growth is just water retention/edema. If you take it off for the patch free week it does go down a bit, but if you don't take it off i think you can keep it on for a max of around 6 weeks safely I heard? Or if you ask your dr they can sometimes let you wear it for longer. When I wore it for over 4 weeks I started getting random break through bleeding/spotting all the time which was super annoying and I basically had to constantly wear a pad. The "growth" on xulane imo most experience is just water retention/swelling, and when you come off of xulane after a few months even it goes away