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What Happens To My Birth Control When I Take... I have been asked this question in one form or another several times. Women need to know that the birth control form they have chosen will be effective, but depending on the other medications and herbs that you use, this may not the case. Learn what drugs and herbs you should avoid while taking hormonal contraception, and why it is important to tell your doctor about your birth control choice. Usually I am asked about diet pills and breast enhancement pills and if they will decrease the effectiveness of the pill. Unfortunately my answer is usually "I don’t know, what are the ingredients?" Depending on what is in them, that will decide if it will affect hormonal forms of birth control. Hormonal forms of birth control include the pill, mini-pill, Norplant, Depo-Provera, Ortho Evra (the patch), Lunelle, the progesterone IUD, and NuvaRing. There are many different medications and herbs that can lower the effectiveness of these forms of contraception. HERBS Herbs to avoid while using hormonal birth control include St. John’s Wort, Vitex (chasteberry), Red Clover, Black and Blue Cohosh, Fennel, Hops, Dong Quai, Wild Yam, and Licorice. There could be many other herbs that interfere with the effectiveness of birth control, but because few studies have been done, it is not known which ones do this. Most of the herbs listed interfere because of their properties. All of them, except for the Licorice and St. John’s Wort, contain hormones (mostly estrogen) and can interfere with hormonal birth control by providing too much, or by causing the body to try to ‘correct’ any hormonal imbalance present.
St. John’s Wort can cause irregular bleeding (bleeding between periods). Because of this it is thought to reduce the effectiveness of hormonal forms of birth control. How it might do this is not known. Licorice can increase blood pressure and lower potassium levels when taken by women that are using hormonal forms of birth control. Because of the seriousness of these, licorice should be avoided while using hormonal contraceptives. Any herbs that are known for their fertility enhancing properties should be avoided while taking hormonal forms of birth control. ANTIBIOTICS Some antibiotics will cause a decrease in the effectiveness of hormonal birth control, so when using these drugs to treat infections, a non-hormonal back up method must be used. Most of the antibiotics are in the Penicillin and Tetracycline families. These include, but are in no way limited to; Amoxicillin, Ampicillin, Penicillin, Demeclocycline, Doxycycline, and Tetracycline. The antiviral drug Griseofulvin and the antituberculosis drug Rifampin can also cause hormonal forms of birth control to become less effective. OTHER MEDICATIONS Some of the other medications that can decrease the effectiveness of hormonal forms of birth control are barbiturates, HIV drugs, and epilepsy controlling medications. There are several types of all of these, and either taking one that will not affect your birth control method, or changing your method if there is no other option would be the best thing to do. Some of the barbiturates include Secobarbital, Phenobarbital, Amobarbital and some others. The two HIV drugs that I found that can interfere with birth control are Nelfinavir and Ritonavir; there could easily be others. The epilepsy drugs that decrease the effectiveness of birth control include Tegretol, Dilantin, Luminal, Mysoline, and Topamax. The epilepsy drugs that increase the hormone levels when taken with birth control are Depakote, and Felbato. There are two epilepsy drugs that do not affect hormonal birth control, Neurontin and Lamictal.
WHAT YOU CAN DO One of the first things you should do is to tell your doctor or health care provider about all medications that you are taking (including birth control). This is the first thing you can do to help guard against birth control failure. The next thing you should do is to ask both your doctor and your pharmacist about any drug interactions. Before you get a prescription filled, double check that it will not interfere with your birth control method. RESOURCES http://www.drkoop.com Published
at Suite101.com's Birth Control Topic
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