patmandu57

My girlfriend just went on the pill after we have had sex about ten times over the course of a month or so. We used condoms properly every time before now. Her gyno told her to take the pill the sunday after her period, and then wait a week to have sex.

1. Should we wait longer before not using condoms?

2. Should we still use condoms? what do you all do?

3. Statistically, the pill is 99% accurate, does that mean that if we have sex 100 times without a condom, we will get a pregnancy?

4. After a week she discovered that insurance would not cover her brand of pill. What needs to be done to switch brands? If insurance does cover it, she might switch to the patch, any reccomendations or comments?


We are both trying to do things on the side of safety, at this point in our lives, a pregnancy is not really an option. Thanks for the honest answers!

snowy

1) To be on the safest side possible, you should use condoms through the entire first cycle of pills and keep using them afterwards.
2) See above. Next to abstinence, combining a hormonal method of birth control with a barrier method (like pills and condoms) is your safest bet.
3) No. Haven't you ever taken a statistics class and learned about the Law of Independent Events?
4) Go to your county health department or your local Planned Parenthood. County health departments frequently have programs in place to help those with low income or those whose insurance will not cover birth control, and Planned Parenthood, of course, deals with this kind of stuff every day.

If her insurance does not cover that brand of pills, she needs to find out whether or not they cover birth control AT ALL. Some insurers don't. If they do cover SOME kind of BC, then she should look into switching. Some women are particularly sensitive to a switch in birth control, especially hormonal birth control. Others are not. There are options beyond the pill, of course, and you mentioned one: the patch, the ring, Depo-Provera, IUDs, etc.

Good luck.

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scott_p_1

My mother was on the pill when she got pregnant with me apparently. Because of this, I prefer to use a condom too.

This is wrong for a couple of reasons. First of all, like onesnowyowl said, they're independant events. It's the same reason you can buy 5 lottery tickets with a 1 in 5 chance of winning and lose.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, the statistics are based on couples who have sex many times over the course of a time period getting pregnant during said time period. It's meant to represent the fact that 1 out of 100 people who take the pill properly will get pregnant.

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Redlemon

In addition to the "waiting a full cycle" as stated above, if she switches to a different BC, I'd recommend waiting a full cycle after the switch.

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Martel

Aren't birth control effectiveness statistics calculated like this?:

99% effectiveness means that in one year of having sex, only one out of one hundred women will be pregnant.

So basically, it ain't gonna happen. Unless it does.

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william

The pill is 99% effective. The condom is rated between 97-99%. Combined, both still rate 99% effective. It's all statistics, and the one time out of 100 may not happen to you. Or it might - after 1000.
She should talk to her insurance co and doc about switching methods. Not everything works for everyone.
I can understand the desire to switch from condoms to the pill. But here's the bottom line - it doesn't matter what form you use, there's always a chance she may become pregnant. Nothing is 100%.

patmandu57

Thanks for all the input, i think we are going to use condoms and the pill regardless to be extra safe. This is a really cool forum, it's interesting to read about other people's questions and problems! and thanks for all the input!

Sage

Preliminary warning: if her libido takes a nose dive, IT'S THE FREAKIN BIRTH CONTROL!

Alright, also, you have to realize that the 1% failure rate for the pill is the failure rate for those people not using it properly (so my OBGYN says). It's that little extra "+/-1%" for those people who thought they were using it properly and actually weren't. According to my OBGYN, IF you use the pill EXACTALY like you're supposed to, take it EVERY day at the SAME time, AND don't take St. John's Wort or anything else (like antibiotics) that will interfere with the hormones, AND you make sure that you're not too heavy for the dose of hormones you're getting, then there's no way you can get pregnant.

What's the point of being on the pill if you're still using condoms? Use spermicide instead, it'll save you lots of money.

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Lyncher

I trust the pill with my g/f but I still use the pull and pray

abaya

Ktspktsp and I use both BC (patch) and condoms, just to be safe. I understand that it's GREAT to not use the condom (we did it for a while, ahhhh that was so nice), but for us right now, even a 1% chance is too much. But I think that if/when we were to get married, we would then stop using condoms because having a child would be something we could deal with a little better then. As it is, it just makes us feel better (psychologically... and the physical difference is just a minor thing) having that extra backup for the time being, until we're set enough to deal with the consequences.

Note: I am pro-choice but do not see myself being able to have an abortion if we had an accidental pregnancy, so that figures into our double-protection, too.

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kutulu

Be sure she really understands how the dosage is supposed to be issued. Some types of pills require you to take them at almost exactly the same time of day for maximum effectiveness.

fluster

I know this is really bad advice but one of the benefits of the pill is so you don't have to use condoms. Condoms = erection killers, imo.

If you don't want her to get pregnant, don't have sex. That's the only 100% safe way.

Otherwise, I honestly think the pill is enough. Enjoy the extra sensation!

bubonico

Effectiveness of contraception is based on the chance that a sexually active couple will get pregnant within a one year time frame.

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