Scarleteen

I take my combination birth control pill every day between 9-9:30AM. Yesterday, I ate something for dinner that upset my stomach, and I had one large bout of diarrhea. This was about 8 hours after taking my pill. Has my pill become less effective because of this? (I checked the pamphlet and it just said “diarrhea may make the pill less effective”.) Thanks for your help!

Hi lexie,

It takes the pill 2-3 hours to be fully absorbed into your body. So, since this happened about eight hours after you took it, you can assume that the pill was fully absorbed and therefore its effectiveness wasn't compromised because of the diarrhea.