Thank you for your enquiry re the effectiveness of low dose birth control pills. be confident that if you follow the instructions on the pack you will be protected. A low dose birth control pill has a practical success rate of between 95 – 99.5%. Most failures are due to incorrect usage, the most dangerous time to miss a pill is at the end or the beginning of a pack. To be extra sure, use a condom (or one of the new female ones) Anxiety over pregnancy can reduce the joy of sex.

In general, “low dose” birth control pills are those that have 35 micrograms (mcg) or less of an estrogen (usually ethinyl estradiol). “Ultra low dose” or “very low dose” pills are those that have the lowest amount of estrogen in a birth control pill or 20 mcg (0.02 milligrams or mg). The 20 mcg estrogen dose is sufficient for contraception but pills with this so-called ultra low estrogen dose of 20 mcg are associated with more spotting and breakthrough bleeding than pills containing 30 or 35 mcg of estrogen
IF you are taking low dose birth control pills and medication for an STI that contains doxycycline AND you continue to be sexually active, you may become pregnant due to the interaction between the two medications- go see your doctor soon.
BOTTOM LINE

YOU are responsible for that birth control pill doing its job in your body – regardless of brand name, generic alternative, combination or ‘progestin only’ birth control pill, monophasic or multiphasic, if you don’t follow the instructions and take your birth control pill as directed, it will not deliver the amount of estrogen you need each month to protect you from getting pregnant ….. so you and your partner will end up playing ‘nursery roulette’!

Good Luck.

My sincere apologies for the delayed reply. I have been unable to attend to my blog for a while and do hope that in the meantime you have found a solution for your daughter’s dysmenorrhea (period pains). I feel so sorry for her as trialling various pills can take months but it really is the only way to find one that suits her metabolism. The ‘ideal’ pill should produce insignificant side effects.

Taking Vit B complex for a couple of months is also worth trying as it helps lots of women with this condition- you do need to persevere with it though to notice an effect. Metaphoric acid is also prescribed for some women and using a tens machine is a favourite with many women too. Most pharmacies stock them, they send little electrical stimuli to the affected area to ‘block’ pain. I use one for my low back pain and it works.

Back to the pill…..

Please ask your Doctor about higher dose combination pills if the low dose ones do not reduce your daughter’s pain. I am not an advocate of higher dose contraceptive pills but they do work for some severe cases of period pain. .

If your daughter wishes to remain on low dose hormones, Alesse is one of the ‘ultra low dose’ contraceptive pills you could mention to the doctor (the active synthetic hormones in Alesse are 0.02 mg of ethinyl estradiol and 0.1 mg levonorgestrel which are combinations of synthetic estrogen and progesterone ). Ultra low dose birth control pills have 20 micrograms of estrogen, compared with 30-50 micrograms of estrogen in regular birth control pills and reduce side effects but may not be strong enough to reduce your daughter’s pain.

If your daughter will consider having only 4 periods a year there are pills on the market including SEASONIQUE, Seasonale and Lybrel that may be worth exploring. LYBREL is a birth control pill that delivers the same low dose of hormones every day but when you take LYBREL, the lining of your uterus does not go through the changes needed for menstruation and therefore, you do not have regular menstrual periods or a pill period. For more information, visit http://www.lybrel.com/faq/ and http://www.seasonale.com/

I wish you all the best Lily and sincerely hope that your daughter can return to the doctor’s to discuss a few of these options in the hope that one of them will eventually lead to a positive solution.

Kind regards Carole