quote: If a new brand of birth control gets approved early next year, that time of the month could become the time of, like, the decade. Lybrel, a birth-control pill made by Wyeth, would be the first oral contraceptive to deliver an uninterrupted supply of hormones. Seventy percent of women who took it for six months were period-free, according to a preliminary study by the company.
Wyeth isn't the first pharmaceutical company to reimagine the menstrual cycle. In 1992, the FDA approved Depo-Provera, an injection that is repeated every three months. In 2003, Seasonale rescheduled the monthly period to four times a year. And in July, the government gave the go-ahead for Implanon, an implant that delivers a steady hormone stream for up to three years. But the pill is the favorite means of birth control of the nearly quarter of American women of childbearing age who take hormonal contraceptives. That means Lybrel—and the other brands that will surely follow—could change the menstrual cycle as we know it. The appeal is obvious: No more bloating, cramping, food cravings, and PMS jokes, not to mention the savings in unpurchased tampons and such. But in the end, for reasons both medical and cultural, it's not clear that putting the kibosh on the curse is a good idea.
Traditional pill packs contain a week of placebos for each monthly cycle, and, as a result, women who take them appear to menstruate. But it turns out that the bleeding serves no reproductive purpose. Since there's no egg to flush out, the bleeding is a symptom of withdrawal from progestin and estrogen, the hormones in the pill—in essence, it's a fake period. The inventors of the pill, which debuted in 1960, supposedly decided to mimic the menstrual cycle because they thought that would make women more psychologically comfortable with the product.
Western women today are estimated to average about 400 menstrual cycles over the course of their lifetimes. Pregnancy and nursing halt periods for a time, of course. And for years physicians have informally advised women with painful periods to practice "menstrual suppression" by taking hormonal contraceptives continuously. Birth-control medications tend to lessen menstrual and premenstrual symptoms to begin with, and some studies show that fewer periods may mean even more relief.
Now Lybrel is explicitly selling all of this, by prescription, at a drug store near you. Women can shut off their systems for law school, a trip around the world—even their entire 20s. Random spotting is common while using Lybrel, especially at the start. But in a study of another brand called Alesse, 90 percent of participants did not bleed at all after a year of use, according to Leslie Miller, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington. "We can manipulate menstruation," she says.
posted
If this is safe and doesn't cause any longterm damage (which I don't know if it could, maybe one of our medical experts will chime in) then my goodness it's awesome.
I was one of those women the doctor put on continuous pills, but he would have me take the placebos every third pack, essentially having a period every 12 weeks. It was great, until I started breaking through the pills, but then I had a host of problems eventually leading to a hysterectomy. For women without my problems, it would most likely have worked better.
I wonder if it's going to be for women with problems only, or something that's available to anybody. Imagine - if you can afford the monthly fee, you can effectively shut down your reproductive system for years at a time, perhaps even a decade. Changes how we look at things, no? What if unwanted pregnancy were a thing of the past? (of course, no medication is perfect - especially one that depends on someone remembering to take a pill every day, but still....)
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yeah -- I'm suspicious since it doesn't mention ANY negatives at all.
Like 1) what about if a couple decides they want to conceive? How long would it take to get this Lybrel out of their system and allow their bodies to go back to regular cycles again? 2) what does it do to sex drive? (the Depo-Provera shot my sex drive to absolutely zero when I tried it) That could be a problem for some couples. 3) Is there weight gain as a side effect? That is common among most types of birth control.
posted
If it doesn't mess up my system so I can't get pregnant later, I would LOVE this. It isn't just the period - I've had raging hormones since I was 13 and it really affects my life. This would be great.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm not a woman, but we may want to think about the end of this article before jumping up and down about this new pill:
quote:But if modern menstruation isn't completely natural, by prehistoric standards, suppressing one's period by taking hormones is even less so. No one knows the health effects for menstruating women of long-term continuous exposure, especially the risks of blood clots and breast cancer and the effect on later fertility. The uncertainties are especially troubling for adolescents whose reproductive systems continue to develop after they start menstruating, explains Jerilynn Prior, director of the Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research in British Columbia. Nearly one in five teens uses a form of hormonal birth control. Given the unknowns, perhaps doctors should consider setting a minimum age requirement for Lybrel, or limiting how long women can stay on it.
Nor is the pharmaceutical industry's track record on birth control exactly reassuring in weighing the risks and benefits. In 2002, the implant Norplant was pulled from the market after questions about its effectiveness and lawsuits by women claiming they were not adequately warned of side effects. In 2004, the FDA required that Depo-Provera include a label warning of risk to bone density. And last year, the FDA warned that the high levels of estrogen found in the Ortho-Evra patch increased the risk of blood clots after about a dozen young women died from clotting believed to be related to it. Maybe Lybrel will prove to be a dream drug with none of these problems; at the moment, we don't have the data to know. Periods, on the other hand, are time-tested. They tell you that you're not pregnant, and they're a sign that your body is working as it should. That's worth some fuss.
These studies appear to have been going on for no more than a year. If I were a woman, I don't think I'd take this pill unless my periods were so crippling that getting rid of them would be worth nasty side effects years down the road.
(Would you take a relatively untested pill that somehow kept you from having to go to the bathroom just so you could be rid of the hassle? Would you get one of those brain computers that always seem to be around the corner just so you could get on the Internet whenever you wanted?)
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm in the camp that says messing with fertility and the normal function of our bodies is dangerous. I'm one of the ones that wonder if long term birth control has been a contributing factor to the rise in infertility. Only time will tell I guess if this is safe. I just hope the long term effects aren't dangerous.
Posts: 1132 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
posted
Omega, I don't think you understand how much worse periods can be than "just having to go to the bathroom."
That said, the only thing that would make me nervous about a continuous pill (and it isn't really a new concept, I don't think; I've heard of it before) is that how would you know if, in spite of everything, you got pregnant? That's the only reason I wouldn't be interested in getting rid of the darn thing entirely.
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I am not an early adopter. I just got a cell phone a few years ago, and I still use a paper planner. I don't think I would use this until it had been tested out to Fiji. It would be nice, though, if I knew it was safe. I'm glad they are working on it. Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I have a friend who has to be on Depo because she has a deformity in her fallopian tubes that makes the likelihood of her having a tubal pregnancy (which is, of course, life-threatening) very, very high. So she can't get pregnant, anyway, and if she did, she'd have to abort, which she doesn't want to go through. She'd probably love this pill, since she's been getting some allergic reactions to the shot site lately with her Depo. Interesting! I'll have to forward this to her.
She told me she quized her doctor about the whole "no period" thing, and her doctor assured her that it's okay for a woman to not menstruate. Her doctor said that in a woman who COULD conceive, it might possibly make it more difficult to conceive for a couple of years, but that was just her doctor, not a whole bunch of medical trials, so who knows?
Posts: 1006 | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Belle: What if unwanted pregnancy were a thing of the past? (of course, no medication is perfect - especially one that depends on someone remembering to take a pill every day, but still....)
Well, that's just the thing. The pill we have NOW is supposed to be 99.9% effective, so unwanted pregnancy SHOULD be a thing of the past. The problem is that few women, especiall young women, take the pill every day *and* at the same time every day, and in some women, being off by just a few hours could cause ovulation. That's why they came up with Depo and the patch and the ring - continuous hormones that you only have to renew every 30 - 90 days, depending on the type.
Of course, a lot of women will say they're on the pill and that it failed, when in fact they wanted to have an "unwanted pregnancy." I think the statistics on unwanted pregnancies or surprise pregnancies are all messy due to that factor. Posts: 1006 | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Megan: Omega, I don't think you understand how much worse periods can be than "just having to go to the bathroom."
That's why I said, "unless my periods were so crippling that getting rid of them would be worth nasty side effects years down the road." If a lot of women have periods like that, then a lot of women would want to take this pill and I wouldn't be worried. I said that because the article said things like, "Now you can turn off your period when you go on vacation to Europe, or go to law school!"; which by themselves seem like frivolous reasons to take a pill that could have bad side effects years later. I know that periods are much more than just "going to the bathroom"; I was making a reductio ad absurdum.
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Without more information/testing on the long term consequences of this, I can't imagine it to be a smart choice no matter the discomfort/inconvience and overall ugliness of menstrating. (edit, I agree with Omega)
quote: Traditional pill packs contain a week of placebos for each monthly cycle, and, as a result, women who take them appear to menstruate. But it turns out that the bleeding serves no reproductive purpose. Since there's no egg to flush out, the bleeding is a symptom of withdrawal from progestin and estrogen, the hormones in the pill—in essence, it's a fake period. The inventors of the pill, which debuted in 1960, supposedly decided to mimic the menstrual cycle because they thought that would make women more psychologically comfortable with the product.
I didn't know about this though...and found it to be disturbing. What do we really know about any of these things we're putting in our bodies?
Posts: 697 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think eliminating some periods a year would be fine. Traditionally, that happened anyway - the sustained hormones came from getting pregnant every 18 months. If anything, have 12 periods a year for a decade is not what our bodies were designed to do.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by katharina: I think eliminating some periods a year would be fine. Traditionally, that happened anyway - the sustained hormones came from getting pregnant every 18 months. If anything, have 12 periods a year for a decade is not what our bodies were designed to do.
posted
Doesn't having a week of fake pills suggest that drug companies think (or at least thought long ago) that women are too stupid to remember "take this pill for 21 days, then wait 7 days"?
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Stupid is the wrong word. It takes a while to establish a habit. The entire point is to not have to think about it. The placebo pills allow a pattern to be established.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Since pills have to be taken at the EXACT same time every day, which I can't stress enough. I don't think I could handle this pill simply because of that. Being even an hour off can make a huge difference for some women. That's why they have the placebo (or sometimes iron) pills.
posted
I never take the placebos. It just seems to silly to me. It's nice to not have to jump for my purse when my alarm goes off for a week.
Posts: 4655 | Registered: Jan 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yeah, I don't take the placebo week either. Why bother? I'm never anemic, so I don't need the iron, and otherwise they're just uneeded (if in miniscule doses) sugar.
Actually, doctors have been encouraging some women to take hormone pills straight through pretty much since the pill was invented, because it's effective in managing things like endometrios (sp?), some mood disorders, pain from periods, etc. So we're actually looking at 30 plus years of data.
I say, listen to your body. If anything causes you to gain weight, lose your sex drive, get migraines, etc. then it is not a hormone cocktail that your body personally likes. But there are a LOT of BC combos out there. I know my old pill essentially gave me morning sickness, which my current one does not. I'm never putting up with THAT again!
Down with bleeding for a week every month! Up with more cute underwear and getting more action!
Posts: 471 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:This would certainly be a boon for competitive athletes.
Depending on how competitive they are, they might miss periods anyway due to body composition (mainly in track&field iirc). But, yeah.
Aside: I can't remember my login for your forum, mack. I was gonna post there this morning demanding that you and your skinny gamer husband come to New Orleans to hang out. Just think -- great photos to be had all around the city and surrounding swampland. I know now isn't a great time with your various maladies and all, but it's never to early to start planning. Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Uh, if these new pills deliver the same hormone combination as Depo, doesn't that mean they'll deliver the same increased risk of osteoporosis? Or is it safer for bones if it's taken in smaller daily doses instead of 3 month doses?
Posts: 1681 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
I say, listen to your body. If anything causes you to gain weight, lose your sex drive, get migraines, etc. then it is not a hormone cocktail that your body personally likes. But there are a LOT of BC combos out there. I know my old pill essentially gave me morning sickness, which my current one does not. I'm never putting up with THAT again!
Down with bleeding for a week every month! Up with more cute underwear and getting more action!
quote:I think eliminating some periods a year would be fine. Traditionally, that happened anyway - the sustained hormones came from getting pregnant every 18 months. If anything, have 12 periods a year for a decade is not what our bodies were designed to do.
*nods* I would agree with this, just because I've felt so much healthier in the reproductive system since I started having babies-- even though pregnancy sucks. I can imagine if I was not advised never to take hormonal bc, it might have the same effect. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Oh! That story is the one I was trying to remember when someone asked about stories about women and reproduction! I read two lines and remembered!
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yeah, even when I didn't stay on hormones for more than a few months, it still kept things really great for a long time after I stopped. I think each time, there were about 2.5 years between when I stopped and when I had problems that made me need hormones again. Our bodies are weird.
quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: I've felt so much healthier in the reproductive system since I started having babies-- even though pregnancy sucks.
Me too.
OTOH, I know someone who had the (extremely rare) complication of blood clots developing from taking oral BC, and now the stuff terrifies me.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm suspicious that their aren't any draw backs. But oh how wonderful it would be if it were true.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:OTOH, I know someone who had the (extremely rare) complication of blood clots developing from taking oral BC, and now the stuff terrifies me.
That would be my mom AND sister.
To the extent that they required anti-coagulants, had to have blood levels checked a few weeks before any transatlantic flight, and it caused complications with fertility and maintaining pregnancy? (I had never even known such severe complications were even possible before this!)
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Anti-coagulants and fertility/pregnancy problems for my mom; my sister had a mini-stroke and I don't know what else. Probably not as bad as that, but pretty bad at the time. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
Ok, so now I know (of) three people with this complication. None of whom are blood relatives, but I think I will stay away from hormonal BC anyway!
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Although depending on when they were on hormonal BC, they might've been on much higher doses.
Not sayin' you should play Russian roulette if you've got a family history, but if you don't, hormonal birth control is a lot safer nowadays. In some forms.
posted
I loved being on hormonal birth control. As soon as I stop being so dang lazy I want to go back on, just to avoid the raging hormonal seesaws and seven-day periods every month.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
pH, my sister was on low-dose hormones because of my mom's history; she knew the risks and decided to try it but then went off the deep end and started smoking, and had a mini-stroke (after which she stopped smoking as well as the pill, thankfully.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
(I agree that for many women it's safe and effective, though. But with my family history I agree with my doctors-- I'm never, ever taking it.)
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I am fairly stable while pregnant and also while on the pill, but without them, I am crazy. I also did the whole Seasonale thing and loved it (though I had been doing the same thing on my regular pills for a couple years before seasonale came out). I think that the no periods thing would be great but would like to know about fertility afterwards. I know my sister was on regular pills and she went off to have kids and a year later, she still isn't ovulating. The dr thinks that this may be because she was on the pill for about a decade. I was only on the pill for like 8 years, but doing continuous cycling for most of it and I got pregnant very very quickly after I got off. Which was good because I was very close to deciding that I just couldn't handle being off. And I have already told my dr that I want to breastfeed, but I will not endure migraine and killer cramps to do so. He says he can probably find a solution that'll work, so we'll see.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
PMS is horrible. I'd want to wait a decade or so before asking my girlfriend to start this, but if it has no negative side effects... lord, I won't miss hormones.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I break up with people when the hormones are going crazy. I also pick fights on Hatrack. Fun for me, but the consequences aren't so much and it's not really fair to other people.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Fertility after going off the pill must vary widely. I took OCs for fifteen years straight because of difficult periods. Stopped in mid-January. Baby due to be induced on Thursday (if labor doesn't start on its own before then). Do the math. Posts: 1512 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
posted
scholar, you'll probably have at least a few months without periods when you're breastfeeding. Not all women do, but most do. I personally get 5 to 6 months. And then your periods may be very light for a few months after that, even. So don't worry too much about it until you see what is going to happen. I had awful periods before I got pregnant, but when I'm nursing they're not quite so bad (once they come back.) I do get about 3 months of "pseudo PMS" before I start my actual period again, but it's a little cramping and a lot of irritability, nothing like the debilitating periods I had before. I only had one real actual as-before period before I got pregnant again.
In any case, there are also several hormonal bc options that don't diminish your milk supply.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
Changes how we look at things, no? What if unwanted pregnancy were a thing of the past? (of course, no medication is perfect - especially one that depends on someone remembering to take a pill every day, but still....)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
