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Doubling up
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I thought Doubling up on the pill was supposed to stop you having a period, i've been on the pill for 3 years and almost everytime apart from 1 and now i haven't bled but now i've been light bleeding since friday and it's really annoying even if i had a period it only be 4 days not 7!
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Some makes of pill also have dummy pills in the pack, and so you will have a period every month because a certain number of the pills don't have the hormone in.
You have no idea how pills work or what they even do, do you.
For the original question, I've tried a couple times to run them together with no success. I asked, they gave me the "everybody is different" spcheal. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does't. Just feel lucky its worked before!
Not really, its can be better as you don't have to remember when you're supposed to start and stop taking the pill.
Instead of having 21 hormone pills, you'll have 21 hormone pills and 7 placebos.
Pills are more reliable than condoms as its much harder to take a pill incorrectly. Both are pretty reliable, but its often best to use both.
The "7 day break" The 7 pills that aren't like the other 21 pills.
I'm shocked here that Kermits comment has raised so many questions! Even my boyfriend knows what they are
Heres a lesson: (dont mind the spelling)
The birth control pill contains hormones that surpresses ovulation. Ovulation is where an egg is released from the overies, it travles down the falopean tubes into the uterous. No egg means nothing for the sperm to fertalize. THe pill also thickens the mucus membrain of the cervis, helping in preventing sperm from reaching the uterous.
Pills come in both 21 and 28 day packets. In both, 21 pills are "active" pills. Containing the hormones. The other 7 pills, as Kermit has said, are "inactive pills." Some of them do contain iron though. The 7 inactive pills are used to help a woman keep track of her daily pills. Some people would rather take on ever day instead of remembering when it has been 7 days from the last day she took her pill.
Birth control pills, if taken correctly every day, are 99.7% effective. On average though, pills are around 95% effective. This takes into consideration the .3% and also the people who forget to take them or take them late.
There are also other pills, such as seasonale for example, pills which advertise mainly for the fact that they reduce your period from average of 12 times a year to 4. which take the 7 day break and get rid of it. It has active pills for 3 months straight.
Running the packs together or doubling up gets rid of the 7 day break, therefore hopefully riding yourself of a period for that month. It does not effect the effectivness of the pill. Though, it doesn't always work.
For green eyes:
I just found these articles, I havn't read completly thru them, but I think they relate to breakthru bleeding.
http://www.contraceptiononline.org/contrareport/article01.cfm?art=260
http://www.metrokc.gov/health/famplan/clinicguide/menstrual_suppression.doc
Its quite deep somewhat confusing stuff but biology has taught me this-
The pill has dummy pills in so that they can have their period - instead of just not taking it for 7 days so they take it every morning and dont have a break after which they may forget to start to take it again. This is perfectly normal and doesnt stop the pill from working. The combined pill contains a synthetic form of oestrogen and progesterone. Ovulation does not occur until you stop taking the hormaonal pills. It works by stopping the production of FSH and LH (FSH stimulates development of egg and LH stimulates it to ovulate). this means that there are no eggs around to be fertilised and thereofore to get pregnent
hope this helps
But what I do not know much about is, the actual harm, or harmlessness (for that matter?) of supressing your periods. It's here for a purpose, and doubling up 2 kind of packages of the pill to cancel them out completely sounds like...
I dunno... "doing something to prevent something how nature wanted it."
I might sound like a puristic caveman, but.... well.
/edit: actually I just read that they tried this complete period stop already several years ago, and the outcome was devastating. Let me read more about it...
Yeah, i'd agree with that, my girlfriend is pretty good at taking her pill (don't think she's ever forgotten) but i'm so crap with condoms it's untrue and things often end with them breaking.
... but of course, the pill doesn't help protect against STDs which is why for those who have numerous sexual partners, still using a condom is paramount.
:yes:
I'm lucky (?) that I only have one partner and we've bith been checked.
A friend of mine said tho, that his g/f wanted to postpone it, for holiday and her doctor (gyn) said it was really harmfully, i.e. infection and ovarycancer.
So I asked another girl, if she can ask her gynaecologist next time she visits him, and she said, "it is harmfully, I did it myself already."
I wouldn't toy with it.
People on the pill still have periods. The 7 day break between pill packs 'wakes up' your ovaries and you have your normal period.
As for running them together - is strongly unadvised to run too many packs together. Running two together is relatively unharmful - I've done this many times. I will not get cancer because of this and I've never got an infection due to it. It is harmful probably to repeatedly do it though - I personally get break through bleeding if I try to run 3 packs together but 2 is pretty harmless. Different docs will say different to different girls because funnily enough, we're all different. Because the pill works fine with me and I've never had any problems, don't smoke either - I'm safe to run together. The girls you asked, their docs may have had good reason to recommend they don't - it might be the type of pill they use or something else more personal to those girls.
Thats a load of crap. It is fine to run packs together. The reccomended max is three, however for medical reasons, lots of women run more than that together, with the consent and reccomendation from their gyno. I've also discussed the option with mine before. There are a couple different brands of pills that take the concept of running packs together to supress periods for several months and use it. Search seasonale.
:no: Actually it's a withdrawal bleed your body creates because it's not getting the hormones it's been used to for the past 3 weeks.
If you are on the pill, you will not get a "normal" non contraceptive using period until you stop taking it (at least this is what two nurses, a doctor and all the contraceptive help books have told me
There is no medical need for this, it has been done simply to make women feel "normal" by continuing to have a regular bleed.
The wife used to run 4 or 5 packs together, and it did her no harm.
Yeah I have done this a few times too, I spoke to my doctor about it at the time (as I needed new packs earlier than I should have) and she was fine about it.
Same here and it pisses me off. I"m on the triphaysic ones or whichever and its just pointless. I guess my body thinks with the hormones dropping after the 3rd week it can just start to bleed.
The second time I tried it I bleed for a month straight
Ok, maybe I misunderstand the term "runnig packs together".
I was talking about not making the 7 days break and already starting another pack after the first one is empty. And of course, if you skip the 7 days break there won't be KACHING, instant infection and end-time cancer states.
If two different doctors told me - actually WARNED insistently - it's unhealthy to completely block out the period, I tend to believe them. Sue me, if they told crap.
The first period back was a little more painful than usual, but no heavier, no spotting inbetween or anything.
I hate periods
Agreed completely. And I'm on my implant now, and I haven't had a proper period since having it in in April. I've had the occasional spotting, and there was a while I bled for a couple of weeks, but it was all first few months side effects.
I will probably not be having proper periods now til April 2009. And since this option is avalible, don't you think they'd of withdrawn it when women stopped having periods?!
it was ace
Damn you. Even on the pill I'm still 6 days
Haha, yeah, me. I just can't handle it, that's why they shoved the tube in my arm. I prefer it so much