The Pill

[TownHall]

Hey Scarleteen,
So I started birth control again in April and they started me on one called Nikki and so I took it and I got my withdrawal bleeding the last week of pills and then I stopped taking it in May because I planned on not being sexually active. Well I got two regular period but they hurt so much that I started birth control again(because it didn't hurt as much when I was on it and got the withdrawal bleeding). When I went to go pick up my prescription from the pharmacy they gave me one called Loryna. Well I started taking it the first day of my period on June 22nd and my bleeding lasted 18 days!!! It was lighter after the 8th day but i still couldn't walk around without any kind of pad or tampon on. Well the bleeding has stopped but I still have this nasty brown stuff coming out and it's not consistent and when I think it stops i won't wear anything and then I'll ruin one of my underwear! Should I continue to take them or should I stop taking them? I'm not really sure what to do
Thank you!!

[Sam W]

Hi Jess,

It sounds like it's time to contact your healthcare provider and let them know what's going on. It could be this is a side effect of going on, then off, then on the pill, but it's still something they should be aware of.

Are you feeling like the pill is the best match for your needs, or are you thinking you'd like to explore other options?

[TownHall]

Hey Sam thnaks for replying. I continued to take the pill and when I got my refill I got Nikki instead of Loryna and when i started taking it i stopped getting nasty brown stuff and stopped bleeding! But i have another question. I started on June 22nd the pack of Loryna and during the 1st week of July(1-6) was away at camp and i started taking it an hour later than usual and then one day I took it 9 hours after and then took the pill that night at my regular time.(this was also week two of my pill packet. I came back and I started taking my pills at the same time every night and when I got my refill of Nikki I started taking those. I know they are the same thing of each other but I was wondering if that would mess with the protection/ efficiency of them. And also I had sex on July 23 and we didn't use a condom at first and then my bf put one on before finishing. We went twice and used a condom both times. My question is would I need to take a plan b still as a back up just in case because idk if the pills were effective yet and we fooled around before the condom or am I good??
Also I got my period July 17th-22nd

[TownHall]

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[Chloé]

Hi Jess,

It looks like you've got three related questions which I'll write out and answer below:

1) Are the times I took my pill considered late, or are they within the time window?

From our Combined Oral Contraceptives (The Pill) page:

With combined pills, you have a 12-hour grace period before a pill is late, and a 24-hour period before you are considered to have missed a pill.

So that means that, since you never took a pill that far past your normal time, you are not considered to have taken a pill late.

2) Does switching to a different pill brand have an effect on efficacy?

I'm not as confident on my answer to this question (I am still a Volunteer-in-Training), so I'm going ask someone else to double check what I say. If your pharmacist changed brands without getting a new prescription from your prescribing doctor, in most jurisdictions this is only allowed if the medications are interchangeable and switching from one to the other therefore is unlikely to change the way that the medication works. This makes it likely to provide the same level of protection as if you had not switched between brands. This is also certainly something that you could ask your pharmacist, or your doctor if you contact them as Sam has suggested.

3) Since I didn't use a condom during all of sex, and considering the questions above, should I use emergency contraception (plan b)?

That really depends on your comfort level. Since you didn't use the condom the entire time during sex, you are looking at the effectiveness rate of the pill alone, which is 91% effective in one year of typical use (statistic also from that article). You get to decide if this is something you are comfortable with. If you decide that Emergency Contraception is something you'd like to access, we are here to help if you need help getting access to it.

If you look at Emergency Contraception you can get some more information about how it works, and take a look at the effectiveness rate of Emergency Contraception combined the combined pill (birth control pill).

May I ask why you didn't use condoms the entire time? Is that a decision you were comfortable with?

[Chloé]

Hi Jess,

I did check with someone about that second part and they said it looks good.

[TownHall]

Hi Chloe thanks for the response!
I'm still a little confused about the time frame. So I took it the night before at 11pm on Tuesday and then Wednesday night I didn't take it until Thursday morning at like 8am. Is that just considered late or entirely missed? Sorry just a bit confused.
Also yeah they didn't get a new prescription when i first got prescribed in March I got Nikki then the times after that it was Loryna and then now is Nikki again and I asked why and the pharmacy technician said that it depended what they had in stocked that they were the exact same just different manufacturers but if I wanted Nikki all the time to call and specifically ask for it. So I didn't know if I had to treat it like a new pill and wait another 7 days since I wasn't given instructions about it.
I ended up taking a Plan B one step pill at 7:33 this morning which is 44 hours from when I had sex and that's okay right? Because it falls in the time frame of 72 hours it' just drops the effectiveness of it as opposed to if I take it within the first 24 hours. I read that it drops from 95% to 89%?
Honestly, we were messing around. And in the moment i thought "it's okay the last time he finished was two days ago and he has peed so there's no sperm in his precum and I'm on the pill," Then I started to get nervous so I told him to put a condom on and he did and we used them onboth times. The second time it was from start to finish. I know my chances are better with double protection but I honestly just got caught up in the moment which was my fault.

[Heather]

I'm still a little confused about the time frame. So I took it the night before at 11pm on Tuesday and then Wednesday night I didn't take it until Thursday morning at like 8am. Is that just considered late or entirely missed? Sorry just a bit confused.

Neither. That's still within 12 hours, so it's not even considered late. If you had taken it after 11 AM, it would have been.

Honestly, we were messing around. And in the moment i thought "it's okay the last time he finished was two days ago and he has peed so there's no sperm in his precum and I'm on the pill," Then I started to get nervous so I told him to put a condom on and he did and we used them on both times. The second time it was from start to finish. I know my chances are better with double protection but I honestly just got caught up in the moment which was my fault.

One thing you can do to be as sure as you can to avoid this moving forward is to talk to your boyfriend and tell him you need him to always put a condom on. Between this and a previous post, sounds like it might be that he only wears a condom when you remind him to: if that's the case, that's a problem (if not, you can obviously ignore the rest of what I'm about to say here). If he's mature enough to be having sex, he's mature enough to take part in taking some of the responsibility without you, know what I mean? Ideally, all partners involved in sex where condoms are part of the deal are taking responsibility: each having condoms and each remembering to use them. And since you already take all the responsibility for your pill alone, the very least your guy can do is take half the responsibility with condoms.

If you both already do each take responsibility with condoms, then it might just be time for a reminder conversation that when his pants come off, he needs to know you expect a condom to be put on, and that you will remember, too, but he needs to, as well.