Hey. Dunno if this is supposed to be in Reinvent yourself or what. But here goes. Move as neccessary.

Anyways my question is why is it that the pill is only like.. what is it? 98% effective? I mean.. I don't understand why it's not 100%. I guess I would first have to understand exactly how the pill works, but if you have any links that might aid me, please post them. I'm going to go back on google and look. With any luck I'll get the search words right this time and find something useful. Thanks again if I first don't get flamed to death.

They say that it is 98% effective because nothing is perfect and the government is going to make you label your products as such.

Theoretically the pill is nearly 100% (99.7%?) effective. It's "user error" that brings the figure down to 92%(!)-98%. "User error" usually means failing to take the pill at the same time each day, starting the new pack a day late, skipping a day and taking two the following day, and such. Depo Provera, the injection, has a much lower failure rate, at an estimated 3 pregnancies per 1000 users.

According to Planned Parenthood, "Only 28 percent of women always take the Pill correctly." Grim statistic! http://www.plannedparenthood.org/bc/pill_schedule.html

[This message has been edited by deadlycindy (edited 03-08-2004).]

Grim indeed...

As usual, cindy's right. The pill is effective when it's taken correctly. But even on the pill a condom wouldn't hurt just to be safe, if you are looking to prevent a kiddy.

The pill makes women fat. Just do your girl up the arse.

What about the patch? My girlfriend is considering getting onto it. Anybody with experience care to share?

quote:

The Sunday Star, 27 July 2003

Canadian scientists have found that a few women ovulate twice a month; others have the biological potential to do so.

The discovery could explain why some women who rely on natural family planning methods and others who conscientiously take oral contraceptives still become pregnant.

Reproductive biology researchers at the University of Saskatchewan, who tracked the daily activity inside the ovaries with daily ultrasound testing, found that two or three times a month groups of follicles enlarge and one follicle sometimes matures until it is on the verge of releasing an egg. Most of the 63 women studied released an egg just once a month but, in six cases, eggs were released twice. The waves of follicle development occur in healthy women who have a single menstrual period each month, the scientists said.



And this is arguably what contributes to the failure rate of oral contraceptives -- those kinds which have a placebo pill (or no pill at all) for seven days per cycle are not delivering the contraceptive effect for a time when ovulation isn't 'supposed to' occur.

As Cindy was saying, the pill is near enough 100% effective.

The companies only say it's less than 100% so they can't get sued or have a scandal against them because some yahoo fucked up, hence the "user error".

The doctor's explanation was that I'm just "extra fertile" Hmmph. I've done a bit of reading, trying to figure out why the pill failed for me.

I wish I could chalk it up to human error, because then I could go back to taking it more carefully and rest assured it would work, but I doubt I'll ever figure out what went wrong. I even went to the lengths of carrying around a spare watch with an alarm reminding me to take it at precisely the same time, never missed a day. It's been 6 months since I stopped taking the pill and I still remember every day at the same time.

Some types of the pill can be effected by grapefruit/grapefruit juice... sounds wierd but something, maybe the citric acid, renders the pill ineffective.

/\ i think you may be right, i had to take orange juice and iron (it helps the iron get absorbed) and the doc told me not to take all of them (oj, iron, pill) at the same time.

Thank you for the help everyone. Umm.. Sarcophagus.. Since it failed, I'm assuming you got pregnant. Did you get an abortion? If you don't mind me asking. I'm doing a project, and peoples opinions on whether or not the abortion is ok. So if you don't mind, you opinion would be greatly appreciated. But I'm going to start this up in another post.. I'm not sure where though. A little help? I don't need any flames for my research =\

G, did you begin another thread re: abortion? If so I'll go reply in there.

I'm against abortion. Even though the pregnancy was unplanned I did not terminate because I had already accepted the consequences of sex, prior to the pill failing.

Sex = babies. Fact of life. If you haven't accepted the possibility of babies then you shouldn't be having sex. Simple as that.

It would be grossly irresponsible of me to say "Ooops, whadaya know, nature worked! I'll just kill 'it' since I didn't plan on this."

quote:Originally posted by Irrylath:

What about the patch? My girlfriend is considering getting onto it. Anybody with experience care to share?

ive been on the patch for two months it works great and you wear it for 7 days at a time so you can't forget it unless you have an A.B.I

quote:Originally posted by Sarcophagus:

G, did you begin another thread re: abortion? If so I'll go reply in there.

I'm against abortion. Even though the pregnancy was unplanned I did not terminate because I had already accepted the consequences of sex, prior to the pill failing.

Sex = babies. Fact of life. If you haven't accepted the possibility of babies then you shouldn't be having sex. Simple as that.

It would be grossly irresponsible of me to say "Ooops, whadaya know, nature worked! I'll just kill 'it' since I didn't plan on this."

But isn't that the whole idea behind an abortion?

You can plan for a accidental pregnancy by planning to abort it, thus not only having planned for it, you have removed the problem completely (and hopefully are scared enough from the experience to use better protection).

Exactly. I don't condone abortions for ages 18 and over, but under, I beleive that some people deserve another chance, if not for them, then at least to give a child a proper place to grow up in, and not some shitty 18 year old drop out parent.

quote:Originally posted by [G-Prime]:

Exactly. I don't condone abortions for ages 18 and over, but under, I beleive that some people deserve another chance, if not for them, then at least to give a child a proper place to grow up in, and not some shitty 18 year old drop out parent.

I think we've got too many children as it is, why add to the pile with the ones that aren't going to have a half-decent childhood with loving parents that definitely want a kid?

And sex isn't just a reproductive act anymore, it is much more commonly used for pleasure now-a-days. Why risk a having a child when you could use protection? Because you aren't always thinking, but the nine months after that day, you'll be thinking a lot about what is growing in your belly.

Er...

I guess what I mean is: if you have moral qualms with killing children, and you don't want children, and you wouldn't be willing to give up your child for adoption, then you shouldn't risk it by having sex... 'protected' or not as nothing is 100%.

Abortion is pretty insignificant, statistically, as far as how children are killed around the world. Folks allow themselves to be pretty hypocritical in their causes and beliefs on that subject.

[This message has been edited by deadlycindy (edited 03-17-2004).]

quote:Originally posted by Sarcophagus:

G, did you begin another thread re: abortion? If so I'll go reply in there.

I'm against abortion. Even though the pregnancy was unplanned I did not terminate because I had already accepted the consequences of sex, prior to the pill failing.

Sex = babies. Fact of life. If you haven't accepted the possibility of babies then you shouldn't be having sex. Simple as that.

It would be grossly irresponsible of me to say "Ooops, whadaya know, nature worked! I'll just kill 'it' since I didn't plan on this."

It's refreshing to see a woman who doesn't fall in line with that "Our bodies Our choice" shit.

quote:Originally posted by Sarcophagus:

Er...

I guess what I mean is: if you have moral qualms with killing children, and you don't want children, and you wouldn't be willing to give up your child for adoption, then you shouldn't risk it by having sex... 'protected' or not as nothing is 100%.



That makes sense.

~~~

quote:Originally posted by deadlycindy:

Abortion is pretty insignificant, statistically, as far as how children are killed around the world. Folks allow themselves to be pretty hypocritical in their causes and beliefs on that subject.

[This message has been edited by deadlycindy (edited 03-17-2004).]

I say kill them all as well! Stupid kids are eatin' by puddin' and my sammitch!!

fuckit there are too many people. waay too many kids. get em aborted. call it murder i dont care its my taxes that will be fuckingpaying for the wellfare of the bitch that fucked up. *pun intended* And little kids are annoying there nothing but a parisite.

Wow so many replies. Thank you all for your input. This has been most helpful