[SashaPeters]

Hi, so I missed a bunch of pills this month including three in the first week. (Took four then missed three). I started to bleed a little after that but it stopped once I got back on track. Then I missed more like two in a row. (This was all do to emotional stress and constant fighting with my bf.) I got my withdrawal bleed on my placebos but it was really short, less then a day and a half of bleeding. On the last day of bleeding my breasts began to start getting tender, they usually get tender before my period. They continue to get more tender every day. Do breasts BEGIN to get tender during the placebos? Could I be pregnant? I'm scared to test but am also scared to start taking active pills again.

[ItsASecret]

The thing with pills is you must take them exactly as stated on the box, by the words of the doctor, and by all of the fine print in the "manual" that comes in the box. The day you miss more than 3 pills you have to throw out a package and restart a new one (also said in the instructions). Otherwise everything will not work properly, the hormones will be out of whack, and there will be no 98-99% pregnancy avoidance rate. All the things you are experiencing is what happens when you flip flop between taking the hormones and not taking them. The tenderness is another side effect. You can take a pregnancy test for piece of mind though. Try not to worry though, that will mess up your hormones even more.

[kira]

When did you have sex during this? You should take a pregnancy test just in case but if you've been on pills for several packs usually missing a bunch or even off and on will only result in symptoms of your period and possibly enough withdrawal of the hormones to see what would happen if you stopped it all together. Stopping birth control can cause more symptoms than what you'd normally get during your period including tenderness or cramps that last even after you aren't bleeding. If you miss lots of pills it can be a good idea to skip the inactive ones since adding that big of gap on top of missing them off and on could cause your body to take over again and allow pregnancy. That would be why many pills say to let your period happen and start again with another 28day cycle of pills if you miss a certain number. Personally I find the pills to cost way too much and it far too difficult to get extras from the doctor to just throw them out. Unless you are on one that has a different amount of hormones in each week of pills (they should be different colors) you can still use all the ones left in that pack.