I’ve been seeing an ad for a birth-control pill that “allows you to have up to four periods a year.” Now, as a male I don’t know a lot about this stuff. If birth-control pills stop women from menstruating, wouldn’t most women consider that a good thing? Periods are messy and sometimes there’s cramping and you have to buy tampons and stuff. Right? Why is it a selling point that this new pill lets you menstruate occasionally?
IANAVO, but If I understand correctly, normal birth control pills don’t prevent menstruation, just regulate it.
If this new pill makes the uterine lining shed less frequently, lots of women would think this would be a good thing, I think.
Not a female, but as I understand it, BC pills don’t stop you from menstrating. It merely makes it more regular. It normally goes like this: The woman takes horomone pills for for three weeks, then placebo pills for one week, which is when she has her period. Then back to horomone. I’d imagine this pill makes it easier to do that with only a few placebos per year. I’m sure someone more knowledgable will be along shortly with facts.
Nice simulpost by a couple of guys unafraid to talk about menstrual blood.
Unless we’re just trying to Pad the post count. A practice the mods should 'tamp on.
IANAG, but here’s my take.
- Some women want to stop menstruating entirely. See http://www.noperiod.com/
- There are two pharmacological ways to do that. One is to take hormonal birth control pills, skipping the green ones. The green ones are inert anyway. Birth control pills stop periods. When the pill was first marketed, the developers believed that women needed periods to assure them that they were healthy and not pregnant. It is the cessation of the hormones that causes periods in women on the pill. In other words, they don’t have a true menstrual period–they have an iatrogenic menstrual period. The other way is to take depo provera shots.
- At any rate, there are concerns about the safety of stopping periods entirely.
- Therefore, in order to minimize those concerns, this pill reduces the frequency of periods without stopping them entirely.
It lets you go from 12 a year to four. Apparently that’s quite an improvement, or so my female friends tell me. This has been an off-label use of birth control pills for years - you just take real pills rather than placebos during your time off - and I’ve read that a lot of doctors think there’s no harm in having even fewer. I think the reason the regimen still allows four a year is mostly that people may be nervous about having fewer, and the long-term effects of skipping them aren’t known for certain.
Women have probably been doing this since the pill was invented, but it’s an off-label sort of thing. I can’t go more than six weeks anyway (I start to feel real crappy), so I don’t usually bother, but the pill cycle annoys me because my natural cycle is about a week longer than the one it puts me on. And I don’t have the money to be buying a few extra packs a year, which I’d have to do if I started extending things a week or so.
Oh well. I do rather like the reassurance of knowing I’m not pregnant, but I wish they’d come out with a five-week cycle pill for some of us!
Hey, now, you don’t have to be a member of Mense to know about periods!
I know, I just didn’t want to interrupt the flow, or have some one come tell us to ‘Clot it out, youse guys’. I guess we should ab’stain for a while.
Move to Illinois - where birth control is now covered by insurance by law.
Gfactor, Depo Provera won’t stop menstruation entirely for a significant proportion of users. In fact, for many women, Depo Provera can cause irregular, unpredictable spotting. Many women would prefer a regular 5 day period every month to light spotting every day. Unfortunately, if you do have unpleasant side effects from Depo, you have to wait for the injection to wear off (3 months), unlike oral contraceptives which can be discontinued immediately.
An option which may lead to amenorrhea or lighter periods, with a lesser incidence of spotting is the Mirena IUD. It contains progestogens, has fewer systemic side effects than either Depo or the OCP, and will last for 5 years from insertion. It’s not suitable for everyone (especially women who have never had children) but it’s a very effective contraceptive and a good treatment for heavy periods.
For a woman who has one period that is due at an inconvenient time (eg during her holiday, on her wedding day, or during Hajj) and who isn’t on the pill, she could either start it, or take progestogen tablets for a few days before it’s due, until she wants it to start.
I stand corrected. I know of a few women who do use Depo for its period stopping effects, though.
The following post contains TMI. Just warning ya.
I think four times a year is probably a good idea–though I’m certain that most women would be happy with zero times a year. I stopped having my periods for two years for various medical reasons, and I never missed them. It was nice not having to deal with it; however, the first period have a two year hiatus? That was one ugly, painful bitch. I still look back on that week and shudder. I thought I was going to die, literally.
So in conclusion, not having a period at all is probably ideal, but four times a year is probably a good compromise.
It cuts down on the number of times women menstruate a year (from 12 to 4).
However, stopping menstruation indefinitely is generally considered a bad thing, because the uterine lining builds up and can become (pre)cancerous after awhile.
So the new pill allows a happy medium.
I wouldn’t take it. The uterus, if all is going well, empties itself out once a month. It’s a good system, been working for a really long time, I don’t see why we should mess with it unless we’ve got a really good reason.
I don’t have bad periods, though. But I can’t imagine having 4 months worth of blood and cramping and PMS all at once. I’m bitchy enough once a month.
I’ve experienced this, and it’s a bitch. Utter misery. I would prefer more frequent periods to the awful SuperPeriod you get when you menstruate only every three months.
My mom and I have both done the every 3 month thing for various health reasons. The periods were so heavy that we would wear an overnight pad and a super plus tampon together, and still often have “accidents.”
(TMI to follow)
Notably, one time I changed my tampon and pad and immediately left home to walk to the corner store. I was out for 20 minutes only. As I was re-entering my building, all of a sudden, a humungous stain appeared on my jeans. I’m talking all over the crotch, thighs, and front of the jeans.
When I got those periods, I called in sick to work. My mom insisted on going in, and always, always ended up with a giant stain on her skirt. All we could do was stay home and bleed. Very unpleasant.
My insurance pays $9 out of my $39/month cost. I guess I should be glad for that, at least, but still. (A couple years ago, I paid $10 per month. The next year, it went up to $25. Now it’s $30. 
)
I’ve read, frequently, though that we have messed with it already. We’re getting our periods earlier, we’re hitting menopause later, and in between we’re spending a lot less time pregnant. Uteruses (uterii?) today are emptying themselves out a whole lot more often than they used to.
For me, it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t 4 months worth of blood, pms, etc. at once. It was like a normal period.
That’d be great, if I could move, and would have insurance at that end. I’m honestly glad to hear that at least one state will cover it, but pigs will fly before Louisiana does that, I’m pretty sure. And I’ll be here for probably a couple of more years – after that, who knows.
I work for 5 ObGyns AND I take Seasonale (the 4 times a year pill) . Per my docs, the pill keeps your uterine lining from building up- it’s going off the pill that does that. You aren’t shedding 4 months of lining all at once!. Actually, my periods are way lighter than they’ve ever been. Also per my docs, this pill is good for me since I am 40 and childless.
A lot of women go for 9 months without a period and it doesn’t seem to do them any harm 