fusaichipegasus
1:46 pm - 02/08/2013

Lost a pill question.
Hey, I currently take Alesse 28, I take it as perfectly as possible everyday at 7pm, lol. I have like two alarms going off. Anyway, a few days ago I went to take my pill and it fell somewhere and I could not for the life of me find it! So I just took the next one (for the next day) and continued on. So I'll start my placebo pills one day earlier. Was that the correct thing to do? I know its a little late now to ask but was I and am I still fully protected for this month? I'm so damn paranoid about being pregnant and of course reading all those "I got pregnant on the pill" stories don't help. Thanks!
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archangelbeth 8th-Feb-2013 06:55 pm (UTC)
You're protected till the end of the active pills, but once you go on the placebos, you are not perfect-use protected, because you're going to be breaking the 21/7 rule.

(The 21/7 rule: 21 or more days of active pills, 7 or fewer days without them, and you're protected continuously.)

So, what to do?
• You could shorten the number of days you're off, thus making it less likely that your ovaries will wake up. (Would they wake up after 7 days just because you took 20 days instead of 21? ...probably not, but it hasn't been studied, and some people have perky ovaries, so this goes into Typical Use, not Perfect Use.) This has not been studied, so you may not like that idea. (If you do... probably want only 4-5 days off; the fewer days off, the less time the ovaries have to wake up.)
• You could stack, going straight to the next pack without taking any placebos.
• You could partially stack, going a week-and-a-half into the next pack, having a break, then taking the rest of that pack's active pills, and going straight to the next pack. (So that you have over 21 days of active pills each time.)
• You could throw away your placebos, put the remaining active pills of this pack somewhere safe (in case you lose pills in the future), and stack on a new pack immediately.
• You could start using backup contraception around the last few days of this pack, through your placebo week, and for a week into the next pack. If you do this, then you could just accept that your protection is potentially compromised once you go off the active pills and take 8 days to get back on your regular pill-taking schedule. After 7 days on the next pack's active pills, you'll be protected again.

I hope that's useful to you!
fusaichipegasus 8th-Feb-2013 07:02 pm (UTC)
Thanks for your reply. So its tomorrow I start the placebo pills (we haven't had sex for the last couple days). If I use back up protection for the next couple weeks and maybe start the next active pills a day or two early, that should be okay right?
archangelbeth 8th-Feb-2013 07:12 pm (UTC)
That sounds like it would stack the odds in your favor, yes. (I am not a doctor, it hasn't been extensively studied, your biology may be uniquely in favor of perky ovaries, disclaimer disclaimer yadda yadda... But from what I know of how the pill works, that plan sounds like it would put you, at the least, on the better side of "typical use" stats.)
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