The pill and the morning after pill

**stepherella** · 08-06-2009 11:09 PM

I normally wouldn't be too concerned about the unprotected sex because I was on the pill, but the previous week I was on antibiotics that "alter the effectiveness of birth control pills". If I hadn't taken those antibiotics I wouldn't have cared much, but I was half-concerned that the antibiotics would make the pills less effective.
My best friend told me that her one friend got pregnant (twice!) while being on the birth control pill and while taking antibiotics... So I was just trying to make sure it was all good.

**LanaBear** · 08-07-2009 08:38 AM

Ah - yes - I've had a couple of friends get pregnant while on the pill and antibiotics as well. Makes sense now!

**WildChild** · 08-07-2009 08:52 AM

Do some checking on this. I recently read something that only a certain limited class of antibiotics cause a problem with the effectiveness of the pill. No sense in take the extra chemicals of the morning after pill if it isn't really needed.

**stepherella** · 08-07-2009 12:54 PM

I did look into it. I checked with a pharmacist and I looked at about a million different scholarly sites. The I was on did alter the effectiveness of the birth control pill so I thought I'd rather be safe then sorry.

**kira** · 08-09-2009 01:29 AM

Many instructions for the pill do say to take all pills missed at the same time when you realized you missed them. I've taken more than one pill on many occasions for various reasons including missing them or feeling sick and possibly having thrown the first one up that day. It will do you no harm so long as you don't do it frequently. It may just cause some minor side effects like feeling nauseous, skipping part or all of your period, or having breakthrough bleeding or spotting outside of your period. You could swallow a whole pack of bcp and probably the worst that will happen is you throw up.

There is also no real harm to taking the emergency contraceptive with your regular birth control pill except that again you risk increasing the minor short term side effects that can come with birth control pills. I think the planned parenthood paper I had said majority of women have upset stomachs after taking emergency contraceptives. They also gave me a paper that listed how many to take of each brand of birth control pills to equal emergency contraceptive pills. They are just high doses of the hormones in your regular pills. The numbers ranged from 5-11 depending on brand so I highly doubt adding 1 more on top of that is going to do much extra.

**crr526** · 09-07-2010 06:13 PM

I did the very same thing. I freaked out for missing one pill and took next choice. Its been two months since and my periods came normal and on time....but for some reason I have been feeling dizzy/nauseas for about a day in between periods and I'll have a slight pink discharge that will come and go in like an hour. Can taking both really have made my body have this side effect months after taking it even if I have totally normal periods?