A question

[kari.livejournal.com]

For those of you taking birth control pills, do you take them at a specific time - like at 5:30 PM, on the dot, every day, or do you just take them at a general time? I just take them when I get up... I keep them next to my contact case so I remember.

I'm just kinda curious... I don't know if it's going to throw me off some not to take it at an exact time every day, but it's hard to control what time I wake up during summer.

Comments

[nysidra.livejournal.com]

Well...what I did was set a sports watch to go off at 8 or 9am to remind to take them then - since that was around the time I was getting dressed for class. On the weekend, I slept with the pill, watch, & bottle of water by my bed to roll over, take it, and go back to sleep. I'm a morning person anyway - so that wasn't too hard to do.

As far as summer when there wasn't a regimene to follow...my boyfriend wasn't around either - so I just took it some time in the morning.

If you go with time, try to pick one where you are almost doing the same thing every day at that time, and try to tie the "taking of the pill" into that routine.

[hissyfit.livejournal.com]

i always used to just take them before i went to bed, no matter waht time that ended up being. anywhere between 10pm and 3am, and i had no trouble with it. however, i went to germany for a few weeks and they're 7 hours ahead of the u.s. so when i'd take them at night in germany, it would be like taking them in the middle of the day here, and i got really bad morning sickness. in fact, we thought there was a flu bug going aroung with the people on my trip, but it turns out that almost all the girls were getting morning sickness from the pill.

i'm not sure if that answered your question at all, but it was an interesting story at least.

where does the time go

[ashleedawl.livejournal.com]

timing of pill

[scarlett75.livejournal.com]

It's important to take the pill "around" the same time every day to keep a steady dose of the hormones in your blood stream. Therefore, you should really try to take the pill within the same 2 hour period every day. I used to set aside a time block...like between 8am and 10am. The important thing to try and do is NOT change the time block, but take the pill within that two hours.

[granolaah.livejournal.com]

With most combination pills (synthetic estrogen and progesterone)like Ortho TriCyclen or Loestrin, you can safely do a three hour window, but after that, effectiveness goes down. With the minipill (progestin only), its just a one hour window! To be on the safe side however, it IS important that you take your pills at the same time every day...

[kari.livejournal.com]

Thank you everyone for the info... I don't think they say anything about the 3 hour time window on my instructions, but oh well. I try to take it when I get up... Anywhere from 8 to 11, sometimes later. When school starts, I'll have to switch gears and take it before 7, when I leave the house. But since I'm not taking it for birth control reasons (just for my skin) I guess I don't have to worry QUITE so much.