Ortho Tri-Cyclen and breakthru bleeding

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-14-2003
Ortho Tri-Cyclen and breakthru bleeding
2
Thu, 02-12-2004 - 11:23am
I have been on OTC for a month now and I still have break thru bleeding. (usually in my third week of pills) this month I saw that my third week of pills falls on the week leading up to VDAT so I through the pack out and restarted a new one of white pills. Well low an behold,,,I got break thru bleeding again. I know everyone raves about this pill but its horrible for me. I bleed for pratically 10days straight.

Does anyone know how I can stop the breakthru bleeding this time around? I'm going to the doctors on Monday to see if I can take seasonal....

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-30-2003
Thu, 02-12-2004 - 1:38pm
Hi caps, welcome!

New users of a pill will often take 3 cycles or so for their bodies to get used to the hormones in their pills. During that time it’s not unusual to experience break-thorough-bleeding. A triphasic pill, which is what OTC is, is more difficult to use to delay your period. I think you actually hastened your pill period by not taking the 3rd weeks pills but taking the first week of a different pack instead. OTC has the same amount of estrogen in all 21 active pills but has increasing amounts of progestin each week: 1st week .180 mg, 2nd week .215 mg and the 3rd week .250 mg. Progestin is what supports the endometrium and lessening the amount can trigger the sloughing off of the endometrium which is your period. What you inadvertently did when you began the first week pills was to reduce the amount of progestin from that in the light blue 2nd weeks pills that you had taken. That progestin reduction just made your situation worse. After you have gone 3 cycles taking OTC correctly and you still have btb, then you have given it a good try and need to look for a pill that’s better for you.

If I were you and wanted to switch now I wouldn’t go directly to Seasonale. I would try Nordette which is the same formulation of hormones but is packaged in a 21/7 regimen rather than the 84/7 of Seasonale. See if Nordette will work for you w/o btb on the 21/7 regimen and if it does then try taking packs back-to-back to see if it still works well for you. If it does, then try Seasonale. In the clinical trials of Seasonale at first a higher percentage of users experienced btb than users of other OCs. After 4 packs of Seasonale the number of users with btb dropped to the equivalent of those on other OCs.

Good luck

      Jill

    

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-04-2004
Fri, 02-13-2004 - 5:09pm
I had the same experience with OTC, the BTB was awful! It turns out that I needed more progestin in a pill. I am now on Yasmin and so far so good!