Aa
Anti Biotics and the pill
Ugh.
I just finished my first 3 weeks of Yasmin today. So far, so good. A bit of moodiness, a bit of spotting, but nothing to complain about. I should be starting the 1 week of sugar pills tomorrow. Perfect timing too, 'cuz my long-distance boyfriend is coming into town next week and... yay.
Except. I went to the doctor yesterday for acne, and he gave me some oral antibiotics (AFTER I told him I am on the pill). I took the first anti biotic pill today and then about 20 minutes later, it hit me that antibiotics interfere with birth control. Ugh. I don't know why I didn't think of it soonerm but I also wish the doctor had put 2 and 2 together.
Right away I went to the washroom and tried to throw up the stupid antibiotic (maybe 30 min - 1h after. It took a while. I'd make a lousy bulimic).
I called the clinic that I got the pill from. Initially they said to use a backup method for the rest of the month. When I said I was on my last pill, they hemmed and hawed and finally said to use backup methods for a month, but to call the pharmacy just to be sure.
I called the pharmacy and they said to wait 2 days and I'd be fine. The woman didn't speak the best English, however.
I called another clinic, and they said the antibiotic should be out of my system because it takes a few days for them to be effective anyway, but just in case I should use a backup method for 2 weeks.
Here are my options:
-Condoms. Using condoms would suck, because I haven't seen the boyfriend in ages, and won't see him again for ages. I went on the pill specifically for these 2 weeks (and all the visits that come after, obviously). Pregnancy would suck worse, though. I don't wanna mess around with that.
- Do the sugar pills as usual, start the new pack and don't use condoms, assuming that the 1 antibiotic pill won't do much, especially because I tried to throw it up.
- Skip the sugar pills, and start the new pack straight away which will get more hormones into my system ASAP and use the same logic as above.
I don't know who's advice to trust here. Obviously I wanna believe the pharmacy, but not enough to blindly risk making a baby.
Thoughts?
I just finished my first 3 weeks of Yasmin today. So far, so good. A bit of moodiness, a bit of spotting, but nothing to complain about. I should be starting the 1 week of sugar pills tomorrow. Perfect timing too, 'cuz my long-distance boyfriend is coming into town next week and... yay.
Except. I went to the doctor yesterday for acne, and he gave me some oral antibiotics (AFTER I told him I am on the pill). I took the first anti biotic pill today and then about 20 minutes later, it hit me that antibiotics interfere with birth control. Ugh. I don't know why I didn't think of it soonerm but I also wish the doctor had put 2 and 2 together.
Right away I went to the washroom and tried to throw up the stupid antibiotic (maybe 30 min - 1h after. It took a while. I'd make a lousy bulimic).
I called the clinic that I got the pill from. Initially they said to use a backup method for the rest of the month. When I said I was on my last pill, they hemmed and hawed and finally said to use backup methods for a month, but to call the pharmacy just to be sure.
I called the pharmacy and they said to wait 2 days and I'd be fine. The woman didn't speak the best English, however.
I called another clinic, and they said the antibiotic should be out of my system because it takes a few days for them to be effective anyway, but just in case I should use a backup method for 2 weeks.
Here are my options:
-Condoms. Using condoms would suck, because I haven't seen the boyfriend in ages, and won't see him again for ages. I went on the pill specifically for these 2 weeks (and all the visits that come after, obviously). Pregnancy would suck worse, though. I don't wanna mess around with that.
- Do the sugar pills as usual, start the new pack and don't use condoms, assuming that the 1 antibiotic pill won't do much, especially because I tried to throw it up.
- Skip the sugar pills, and start the new pack straight away which will get more hormones into my system ASAP and use the same logic as above.
I don't know who's advice to trust here. Obviously I wanna believe the pharmacy, but not enough to blindly risk making a baby.
Thoughts?
I found this:
Do antibiotics make birth control pills less effective?
Early data about 20 years ago seemed to indicate that when antibiotics were taken along with birth control pills, more women got pregnant than you would normally expect. Drugs like ampicillin and tetracycline were suspected to interfere with OCPs (3). However, all of the recent studies that have looked at this, have shown that antibiotics do not increase the pregnancy rate at all (4) and they point out that the old data was not reliable enough to draw conclusions about pregnancy rates on any of the antibiotics (5).
It was one antibiotic pill, I wouldn't worry about it. Have you missed any pills at all? Did you get your period today, yet? (assuming you took your first sugar pill 2 days ago?)
But really...I wouldn't worry about it. The pill is not 100% effective, in any case, even if taken perfectly. Every birth control method has a failure rate. I don't think that any possible teensy tiny effect one single antibiotic pill, taken near the end of the pack would have, would increase the failure rate measurably, if at all.
Do antibiotics make birth control pills less effective?
Early data about 20 years ago seemed to indicate that when antibiotics were taken along with birth control pills, more women got pregnant than you would normally expect. Drugs like ampicillin and tetracycline were suspected to interfere with OCPs (3). However, all of the recent studies that have looked at this, have shown that antibiotics do not increase the pregnancy rate at all (4) and they point out that the old data was not reliable enough to draw conclusions about pregnancy rates on any of the antibiotics (5).
It was one antibiotic pill, I wouldn't worry about it. Have you missed any pills at all? Did you get your period today, yet? (assuming you took your first sugar pill 2 days ago?)
But really...I wouldn't worry about it. The pill is not 100% effective, in any case, even if taken perfectly. Every birth control method has a failure rate. I don't think that any possible teensy tiny effect one single antibiotic pill, taken near the end of the pack would have, would increase the failure rate measurably, if at all.
Nope!
It went like this:
Last BC pill at 10 am, antibiotics at 6 pm, am now on sugar pills until Tuesday, starting new pack on Wednesday.
The pill I took is a tetracycline, one of the pills that makes the pill (slightly) less effective, though...
It went like this:
Last BC pill at 10 am, antibiotics at 6 pm, am now on sugar pills until Tuesday, starting new pack on Wednesday.
The pill I took is a tetracycline, one of the pills that makes the pill (slightly) less effective, though...
There is no concern if you only took one. There probably isn't much concern, anyway, even if you took more.
Its only certain antibiotics that make pill use SLIGHTLY less effective, anyway. They tell you to use a back up method, only to be as safe as possible, just in case.
Youre on the sugar pills now? Where were you in the pack when you took the antibiotic?
Its only certain antibiotics that make pill use SLIGHTLY less effective, anyway. They tell you to use a back up method, only to be as safe as possible, just in case.
Youre on the sugar pills now? Where were you in the pack when you took the antibiotic?
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