Which do you prefer ladies? Guys, what about you?
The ring. www.nuvaring.com
I found the pill too hard to take on a regular basis (I’d forget) and the patch would always slide just a little (like and 1/8th of an inch) and fibers from my clothes would stick to the adhesive. Very unattractive and very un sexy.
I hate the nuva ring with a passion. I tried and it irritated me, dried me up, gave me yeast infections, and my boyfriend could feel the ring during sex.
Thanks for the heads up about the patch though. You think it’s less reliable than the pill?
I’m on the pill and can manage remembering to take it but I wanted to explore other options.
I love, love, LOVE my patch!!! I never remembered to take my pill at the same time (if at all), and I already take enough pills as it is. I’ve been on the patch for almost a year now. Besides only having to remember to change it once a week, my periods are so much shorter and lighter, something the pill didn’t do. Yes, it slides a little and I get the fuzzy thing too, but I just put it on my hip where it doesn’t show too much. Never going to use anything else!!
IUD, baby. I will never use anything else until I finally find someone to spay me. I check it once a month, and change it once every five years. In the meantime, no periods and a 99.7% typical use effectiveness. Yaaaayyyy!!! Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like you’d be a good candidate.
In perfect-use trials, the pill and the patch are pretty much identical, but I think in typical usage the patch is somewhat more effective because there’s less room for user error. Some patch users complain of skin irritation from the adhesive, and others have difficulty removing the adhesive after removing the patch. I know one woman who quit using it because she was skeeved out by the idea of wearing four-day-old underwear lint.
If you’re looking for other options, there are also a couple of different shots. Lunelle is a combined-hormone shot that you get once a month. It’s typical use success rate is higher than the pill or the patch, because the only way you can screw it up is to not get your shot on time. The literature I saw on it gave it a very slightly higher success rate than tubal ligation. (It was something like 99.7% vs. 99.5%.) There’s also the progesterone-only shot, Depo-Provera. You get it every 3 months, and IIRC it’s got a 99.7 or so effectiveness rate, too. For a fairly large percentage of women, it stops menstruation altogether. (And I must say, the whole no-period thing is wonderful.)
Just keep in mind that every woman responds to different hormone combinations differently, so what works wonderfully for us may be abysmally shitty for you.
Well, I’m a guy so I think if it were up to me I’d prefer my gal to wear the patch. That way I don’t have to get all paranoid that she’s forgeting to take her pills. I can at least SEE the patch.
IUD is the only way to go as far as I’m concerned.
I’m on the Pill and I never understand people who say they keep forgetting to take it. I take it when I wake up in the morning - alarm goes off, wake up, take pill, slug of water, shower etc etc etc.
How difficult can that be? (Sorry if I’m offending anyone but I still can’t see how hard it is to do…).
It is not difficult. Just never having to remember to take anything is so much better.
What I have noticed watching people is that some people are just not routine people: they don’t do everyhing in the morning (or at any other time) in the same order eveytime–every minute of every day is a series of choices about what to do next, there really isn’t an auto-pilot.
I suspect that there are benefits and pleasures to both lifestyles, though I am a creature of habit myself.
My wife referred to it as the crabby patch.
I’ve tried both, but neither one worked very well for me. The pill did nothing for my cravings, and while the patch was pretty effective when I was wearing it, as soon as I stopped using them I was smoking again.
What?
I’m 16 so my doctor didn’t recommend shots to me as it could interfere with bone health at my age. And I forgot why she also didn’t want me using an IUD.
Nuvaring fan here. I could never remember to take my pill. It’s as Manda Jo said–I don’t do the same thing every day, especially on weekends. I’d never be able to take it at the same time each day if I did it when I woke up, because I try to sleep in a bit on weekends. So I aimed for lunch as pill-time, but I frequently forgot because I’d be thinking of other things at work, or because we’d be out and about on the weekends.
Patch doesn’t work for, ahem, bigger girls. Not effective enough above certain weights.
Really? How much bigger? I hadn’t heard that about the patch (I’ll have to check with my Dr. now). I have been using the patch for about 6 months now and I LOVE it. It stays stuck through swimming and sweating at the gym, I don’t have to remember to take a pill every day, and my periods are a lot lighter.
I have used Depo and pills in the past; I had some problems with both. When using Depo my period kept creeping up earlier and earlier. After the shot cycle with the 3 week long period at the end I had to switch (yeah, I should have done something earlier, but the women’s services clinic on campus was always swamped and I couldn’t get an appt.). I was also pretty grumpy all the time. When using the pill I had problems with taking it correctly and getting the right hormone balance for me.
Yeah, the patch can shift a bit and get fuzzy, but I have started putting it on my back, just below my bra-line, off to one side. I don’t have many problems with it there; I don’t see it, feel it, or generally think about it until I see my sticker on the calender to change it.
My wife has some kind of implant in her arm. It good. We no make baby for longtime. Now great shadow of change on horizon. Soon implant be cast into abyss. New baby come. Remember why got implant, too late.
My girlfriend uses the patch. I don’t trust her to remember to take the pill (nor does she trust herself.) It’s much better than condoms, and with no serious drawbacks.
Has the pill gotten so finicky that is absolutely has to be taken at the same time each day? I haven’t been on the Pill for 12 years, but I remember that you were just supposed to take around the same time each day: morning or evening, not 8:15 am sharp. So I kept it by my toothbrush and took it when I brushed my teeth in the morning, no matter what time that was, and never had any problems.
What weights?
Wait just a sec I’ll look real close at these itty bitty writings included (I did read it, yes but I didn’t recall seeing that)
Well well…
Great, cuz I don’t know what I weigh though I usually hover around 200lbs because of my height. Well my gyno said it was fine, I’ll talk with her about it when I next see her again.
I like the Pill; it’s right there by my toothbrush and I have no problem remembering to take it. Remembering to do something once a week would be harder for me–I’m supposed to change my contacts once a week and I’m terrible at it. Much easier to do it every day.