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Switching birth control
Kate of Lokys
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I started taking oral contraceptives a year ago - TriCyclen Lo, to be exact. It worked just fine for me, no side effects or anything, but at my last checkup I asked my family doctor about the possibility of switching to a monophasic pill, so I could have more control over when I get my period. She thought that was a splendid idea, and gave me three months' worth of samples of Alesse 28, plus a prescription to use once I ran out of samples.
Last week was the placebo week for the TriCyclen. I got my period early in the week, as usual, and I kept taking the placebos (as usual). Then tonight, I took the first pill of Alesse. My question is, is there any lag time I need to worry about? My doctor didn't mention needing any additional contraception during the switch, but a couple of sites I skimmed online talked about the "rule of seven" when changing birth control (ie, it takes seven days for the new hormones to permeate your body, therefore use condoms or whatever until then).
Since I'm not 100% sure, I'm probably just going to hold off on conventional sex for a day or two until I can talk to an actual doctor, but if anyone else has had any experience with this, I'd love to hear it.
Last week was the placebo week for the TriCyclen. I got my period early in the week, as usual, and I kept taking the placebos (as usual). Then tonight, I took the first pill of Alesse. My question is, is there any lag time I need to worry about? My doctor didn't mention needing any additional contraception during the switch, but a couple of sites I skimmed online talked about the "rule of seven" when changing birth control (ie, it takes seven days for the new hormones to permeate your body, therefore use condoms or whatever until then).
Since I'm not 100% sure, I'm probably just going to hold off on conventional sex for a day or two until I can talk to an actual doctor, but if anyone else has had any experience with this, I'd love to hear it.
Kate of Lokys on
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But yeah for safety's sake give it a week.
Shogun Streams Vidya
Thanks for the input. All things considered, we'll hold off on tripping the light fantastic for a few days, at least. Look for a followup thread in the near future: "Buttsex? In my colon? It's more likely than you think!"
If you're really worried, well, it's a good excuse to devote a few days to oral-only fun, n'est pas?
Monophasics also have more overall hormone than cyclics, but sometimes slightly less then the first week of a normal cyclic. With TryCyclin Lo, you were at a pretty low dosage anyways, so it should be fine.
There's that 'should' again. We're talking about a 3-5% increase over that week, due to the change over, taking you from 99.9%, down to 96% with the typical 10% chance of regular fertilization during ovulation (if that was occuring, but again, you just had your period so, that ones pretty much nil)
So .0076% or so, reduced by the odds of you actually having an egg ready, which I don't know. Lets be extremely generous and say 4%. At that, its .0003%, getting it on every day during that week.
Seems tiny, because it is, but anecdotes are going to come up, because if ten thousand people did the same changeup at the same time, 3 of them would become pregnant. User error (which is a similar calculation for similar reasons) accounts for nearly all pregnancies on the pill.