How long (approximately) does the average hormonal birth control pill stay in your body for, after you cease taking it?
IOW, if you stopped taking the Pill on Jan 1st, when could you expect the last of it to be gone from your body?
I think synthetic hormones have a fairly short half-life, but it can vary from woman to woman. Some women revert to pre-pill state almost immediately, while others can have some after effects for a few months. With Depo, I’ve heard of some women having effects 8 months or more after their last shot. (Or maybe it just seems that long when you’re bleeding constantly and having horrendous mood swings. Either way, the plural of anecdote isn’t data.)
Are you talking about how the drug is actually in your system, or how long it’s in high enough levels to have an effect on your physical or emotional state?
I’m mostly interested in how long it could be having an effect on my menstrual cycle.
And to clarify, I’m talking about the pill, ingested in tablet form on a daily basis.
Also, would it matter how long you’d been taking it previously?
i.e,
Taken pill for 10 years, stop on Jan 1st, periods back to normal by May?
or
Taken pill for 1 month, stop on Jan 1st, periods back to normal by Feb?
Near as I can tell, it varies wildly by your own individual chemistry. I have a friend (or used to; long story) who was on combined hormone pills for…roughly five years straight. Went off 'em, got pregnant very next month, periods were perfectly normal immediately after the baby. I took the pill for eleven months, and my periods weren’t completely back to their normal state for almost a year. Of course, their normal state was abnormal, which was why I was taking the pills in the first place.
Most of the people I’ve talked to have gotten back to whatever’s normal for them within three months or so, regardless of how long they took the pill. But everybody’s mileage varies on that one, just like it does with side effects.
Oh, and it can vary for the same woman and same pills, too. The friend I mentioned earlier, she took the pills for three more years, and when she stopped her periods were never normal the whole 7 months it took her to get pregnant, and afaik they weren’t really normal after the baby either. Of course, she had a lot of bad emotional stuff going on that second time, so I don’t know how much was after-effects of the pill and how much was stress and emotional upset.
I took the pill (Ortho-TriCyclen) for five years. Went off them in March, had normal periods in April and May. Got pregnant in June 
.
Thanks for the info, CCL. I guess I just have to wait and see. 