What to do?

[aj2234]

Hi there. I just wanted to know how to proceed in my situation to make sure I'm going about it the right away. Yesterday (Sunday) I took my pill within 20 minutes of my usual time of 8pm. Around 11:30, I felt as though I could have gone to the bathroom (i.e. pooing), but ignored it because I don't always 'empty' properly because I have IBS. (Just as an aside - I know IBS CAN cause problems with the pill, but I'm confident that it's more the diarrhea resulting from IBS, rather than the condition itself that may be a problem here, if that makes sense). This morning (Monday), I had a loose bowel movement. I later had a coffee, which upset my stomach and resulted in two more loose movements and, finally, had a fourth movement not long ago. Including this evening's pill, I have 5 more active pills remaining in my pack. To err on the side of caution, I was going to skip the placebo pills, start the active pills of the next packet immediately, and use barrier protection until next Monday. Is that the proper course of action for my situation?

Thanks very much.

[Johanna]

Loose bowel movements do not have an effect on the protection of your birth control. You only need to be concerned with diarrhea - basically situations where things go right through you - and then only if it happens right around the time that you took the pill. So, I'd not not advise that you do anything special here, just keep taking your pill as directed. If you're worried about effectiveness, you can still back up with condoms, but skipping the withdrawal week won't do anything for you.

You are right, by the way, that it is the symptom of IBS that can compromise the protection, not the IBS itself. However, if you frequently struggle with severe diarrhea, it might be a good idea to look into a method of protection that does not invovle your gastrointestinal tract. There are still plenty of options: the shot, the implant, the patch or nuva ring. We'd be happy to give you more info on either of those!

[aj2234]

Thank you for your response. Considering that I felt quite ill around a couple of those bowel movements, I'll likely still use the barrier method just as a backup. I'm surprised that I should be okay, though, because from looking through various other posts on the older and newer message boards, I got the impression that a series of bowel movements like the ones I had could compromise my effectiveness,especially given the fact that I could have gone to the toilet only a few hours of taking the pill, but it's nice to know otherwise.

I've been thinking about switching to another form of birth control, but I've had success with side effects with my pill (yasmin) aside from a few here and there, and am worried that switching would do more harm than good in that respect. I don't really struggle with regular diarrhea, though. I mainly seem to have stomach upsets just before the placebo week, and otherwise just here and there.

[Sam W]

Hi aj,

If you're not happy with your current birth control, I would definitely bring it up with a healthcare provider and figure out some other options for you. You may also want to play around with birth control bingo to get some ideas:
Birth Control Bingo!