Skipping a pill day

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Skipping a pill day
3
Wed, 03-03-2004 - 12:44pm
Please help me deal with a difficult situation regarding my teenage daughter. She is 18 and on Ortho Tri-Cyclene Lo. She decided she wanted to skip her period this month through the usual method - skip the placebo pills and go straight to the new package. Only she didn't decide this until Day Two of her placebo week. Sunday was Day One and she took no pill, placebo or otherwise. On Monday she started her new pack, but I don't know yet if she took only ONE pill, or if she took TWO (one for Sunday and one for Monday). If she took two, I know she will pretty much be okay. Not 100% okay of course, but close enough. But if she essentially skipped Sunday altogether and only took one pill on Monday, how will that affect her? Are we talking "screw up her cycle for eternity" affected, or "minor bump in the road" affected? Thanks in advance for your help.

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 Go Cub

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-03-2003
Wed, 03-03-2004 - 1:23pm
i am also on tricyclen and i was told that you can't skip your period because fo the different hormones each week that this pill has. as for the other part i am not sure if it will screw up her cycle or not.
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-30-2003
Wed, 03-03-2004 - 1:27pm
Hi Mere, welcome!

Not all women can skip their periods, but, assuming your daughter can, then as I see it she may have two problems depending how sensitive she is to fluctuations in her hormonal levels. The first is the possibility of break-through-bleeding due to the ‘missed pill day’ on Sunday. The other problem is that back-to-backing on a triphasic pill doesn’t work for a lot of women. In a triphasic pill such as OTC-lo (the doses of hormones increase in each of the 3 weeks of active pills) there is less progestin in the first week than in the third. Her body may interpret the drop in progestin from week three of her pills to week one as a signal to begin her period. If that happens, what I suggest is for her to continue taking the pills in her pack as she normally would. It will be inconvenient but certainly not the end of the world.

She might just be able to take all three weeks back-to-back with out a problem. If she can’t do that but wants to delay her period in the future she could take the third week from a new pack after the third week of her regular pack. That would keep the dosage level constant during the third and fourth weeks and allow moving her period one week. Another way would be to switch to a monophasic pill (one with all 21 days of active pills having the same dosage of hormones) which would allow an even level of hormones between packs when skipping her period. Does this help? Post and let us know how she does, ok?

Good luck

      Jill

    

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Thu, 03-04-2004 - 11:22am
Thank you Jill. This does help out a lot. My main concern is with the possibility of ovulation from that weird fluxuation in hormones from the one missed day. The problem is that I don't know for sure if she is sexually active or not. She started taking the pill to regulate her periods because they were all over the map. She does have a boyfriend, but I do not know if they are having sex. She is actually my STEP-daughter, so I hesitate asking her outright because I don't want to step on anyone's toes. Stepparents always walk a fine line between what is acceptable and what is invading the bio parent's territory. But I digress...

Judging by evidence in the bathroom garbage (tampon wrappers), it looks like she got her period anyway. I didn't realize that women on triphasic pills can't really skip their periods. Good to know. I will be sure to pass that info along to my stepdaughter so she understands why she still got her period anyway.

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 Go Cub