Melatonin and BCP

[annabanana]

Hi!

I've been taking Aranelle BCP for about 6 months now. I've been house-sitting for someone for the last few weeks and have been having difficulty sleeping just from being in a different place, so I've been taking melatonin to help with that since I've used it in the past and it worked well for me w/ no side effects. Because it's an OTC supplement and I've used it in the past, it never occurred to me until now that it might interfere with my BCP, so I decided to do some looking and found that melatonin and Aranelle have a "minor interaction" but I wasn't able to find any more details. I did read that BCP can increase natural melatonin in the body, and that supplementing with melatonin could cause there to be too much melatonin, but I couldn't find any info about whether it could decrease the effectiveness of BCP.

I plan to stop taking the melatonin right away and I have not had any side effects from taking it while on BCP, but I'm wondering if you all happen to have any more information about this (from experience or otherwise). I haven't had sex at all this cycle and I'm on my last week of active pills, so we're not looking at any pregnancy risks now, I'm wondering if I should worry about the effectiveness of my BCP being compromised and if/how long I should wait to have sex again.

Thanks!

[Eddie C]

For any questions about interactions between ANY drugs, the best person to ask is your healthcare provider or your pharmacist. You can always just give them a call if you don't have the time to stop by.

[Heather]

We just did a big review of what is and is not known to interact, and this is not in that list.

But as Edith said, and we also made clear in that piece, making sure your prescribing physician knows about all medications and supplements you are taking is always essential.

[annabanana]

Thanks! I guess I'll have to call my doctor then since I'm out of town. Would you mind linking me to that list? Its frustrating because looking up the list of drug interactions with my prescription, the list is literally 500 medications long. Its not always easy or convenient to remember to call my doctor every time I take something, especially if its a supplement or an OTC medication. I was under the impression that if it isn't a prescription med, and isn't an antibiotic or one of the really well known ones like St. John's wort, that it's probably fine. In other words, how paranoid about this do I need to be, or is there an easier way to keep track?

[Sam W]

Hi annabanana,

Here is the list of things that interfere with BC. It might be helpful to use that as a basic reference when wondering how much you need to be concerned about a certain substance:
http://www.scarleteen.com/article/bodie ... th_control

[annabanana]

I asked a pharmacist at my pharmacy about it and she said she couldn't find any interactions between the two, so it's probably fine, but I think I'll stop using it anyway just to be safe. Thanks so much for the advice and for sending the link to the article, it was really helpful!