Diane 35 - pregnant or paranoid?

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-06-2004
Diane 35 - pregnant or paranoid?
1
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 9:00pm
I started on birth control 4 months ago. The first 3 months were on Alesse but then last month I switched to Diane 35. I'm on my pill-free week right now and still haven't had a period. What I'm wondering, is if it is normal to be late after switching pills or if I should be worrying. Last month I was travelling and because of the time change I usually ended up taking my pill about 2-4 hours later than normal. Also, I've had sex and forgot to take my pill on time afterwards; it ended up being about 12 hours later before I remembered. Based on this information, is it likely that I should take a pregnancy test or could it be because of switching brands?
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 10:07pm
Most likely, your period is probably rescheduling itself because you switched to a different pill. But you do need to be careful about taking your pill on time. It's not automatically _in_effective because you were late with a few and missed one, but each deviation from "perfect" use lowers the statistical effectiveness from 99% to something else.

I'm not sure how your patient information is written, but the FDA in the US is requiring the patient information for oral contraceptives to indicate use of backup protection for seven days after one missed pill, which has changed--it used to be that you didn't need backup until you missed two pills.

I'd bet it's nothing to worry about! Hopefully you'll feel more comfortable in a day or two... Good luck!

Judie
Co-cl for Birth Control
Judie Cl for Birth Control