One Nuvaring for 2 months?

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-18-2003
One Nuvaring for 2 months?
2
Mon, 05-10-2004 - 4:24am
This is a rather silly question and I would probably not take the chances of doing this, but I couldn't help question something as I was reading the packaging of my new Nuvaring. It says:

"Each ring delivers 0.120 mg/day of etohogestrel and 0.015 mg/day of ethinyl estradiol over a 3 week period of use. Each Ring contains 11.7 mg etohogestrel and 2.7 mg ethinyl estradiol"

Now you do the math. If you divide the mg/day released by the total mg in the package, it would take 97 days for all of the drug to be released, assuming constant release time per day.



Hmm... I wonder if using one ring for 60 days would work? I thought about contacting the Nuvaring manufacturers but of course they are going to say use one per month because they want people to spend money. But at $42/month it would be awesome to double up. What do you think?

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-30-2003
Mon, 05-10-2004 - 10:20am
Hi longhornsara, welcome!

NOOOOOOO!!!!! Don’t even THINK about doing that, unless you wouldn’t mind becoming pregnant! You're joking, right?

I believe you will find (by reading the full prescribing information on the NuvaRing website http://www.nuvaring.com/Consumer/index.asp? ) that after being inserted for 4 weeks the amount of hormones released per day begins to decrease to the extent that protection from pregnancy can no longer be assured at 98-99% effectiveness. It is the rate of release of the hormones that determines the effective life of the ring, not the total amount of hormones contained in it. Does that make sense?

Good luck

      Jill

    

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Mon, 05-10-2004 - 2:32pm
The longest studies have been able to get a Nuvaring to "go" and be effective is about 35 days, but after 21 days, the amount of hormones secreted per day decreases with each passing day. The --average-- doesn't really tell you as much information as you need to know, it's derived from statistics. If you could get a ring to go for two months, I'd wager it'd cost twice as much as it does! ;)

Sorry, no dice....

Judie

Judie Cl for Birth Control