Period question

**Hreverett** · 05-28-2010 06:22 PM

Ok, so I messed up on my birth control and started spotting that turned into a period a week and a half before my normal period is about to start....so will I have two this month? and why does this happen?

**Iseulda** · 05-29-2010 02:31 AM

Sorry, you haven't really given enough info for me to be able to answer with anything other than a wild guess. May I ask a few questions:

What birth control are you on? Same dose pill, graduated dose pill? (If you don't know about those last 2 just give me the brand name - I can search it

)

How long have you been on this particular pill?

When you say 'messed up' what exactly do you mean? Missed a pill? Two? More?

**Faerunner** · 05-29-2010 11:39 AM

The pill is a sustained dose of hormones that usually work by smoothing out your estrogen cycle so you don't release an egg (you can search "How do birth control pills work" to find out the whole story). When you stop those hormones, your body experiences withdrawl and the uterus starts to shed its lining (your period). If you miss multiple pills, you can bring on breakthrough bleeding before the scheduled 'period'. It's normal, it's a big annoyance, and yes, if you take the rest of the pack as usual you will probably have two periods this month, although the second will probably be lighter than usual depending how much bleeding you're doing now.

If you find that missing only one pill causes heavy breakthrough bleeding, or that you're getting breakthrough bleeding without missing pills, talk to your doctor!

Oh, and depending on how many pills you've missed, you will probably want to use a backup contraceptive method like condoms until the next pack of pills. Missing 2 or more will cause a gap in protection.

**Hreverett** · 05-29-2010 09:00 PM

Thank you. Im on Tri Sprintec. I lost my pill on saturday, so I missed that day. Then I took it like normal on Sunday, then forgot to take it on Monday (im NEVER like this) so I took two on Tuesday, then started spotting that turned into a light period on wednesday, now its Saturday, and Im still bleeding.

**Iseulda** · 05-30-2010 01:43 AM

Tri Sprintec is a combined pill (estrogen / progesterone) - the spotting you are getting now is completely normal. The information I see shows these come in colour coded graduated dose pills. Grey, light blue, blue and white. From what you say in your first post I'm guessing the pills you missed were at the end of the light blue ones, is that right? And now you are continuing through the darker blue ones.

If you take the 7 white (inactive) pills you will have your period as normal (as you normally do while taking Tri Sprintec, I mean). You must take 7 active pills in a row to be sure that the pill is working properly to prevent pregnancy again.

If you skip the white pills and go straight to the grey pills on the next packet you may have more light spotting, or a lighter than normal period, or no period at all.

Faerunner's description of why the spotting happens is also accurate for the combined pill. If you do a Google search on 'combined pill missed 2' you will find the first two links very informative.

Note on contraception: Having missed 2 pills you are still probably OK for contraception. But you may not be. If you are having sex it just isn't worth the risk of not using condoms until you have taken at least 7 active pills in a row.