Morning After Pill

Has anyone ever taken the morning after pill??

Or any other emergency contraception?

 

I used the morning after pill once years ago. I went to Planned Parenthood and got it. It just makes your period start. It was a while ago so I don't remember for sure but I think you only have 72 hours after unprotected sex to use it. Their are possible side effects like nausa but I didn't experience any.

Good Luck!
-lilia

 

i've also taken the morning after pill. i was just being meticulously careful, really. i hadn't even had sex, i'd just been fooling around with a guy and started worrying that all it takes to get pregnant is one errant sperm, and i was near ovulation and didn't want to take any chances. i went on the pill right after.

the treatment itself was actually four pills. you take two and then you take the other two 12 hours later. they also didn't trigger my period to start immediately, they just derailed my cycle somehow and made a pregnancy impossible. my period came three weeks after i'd taken the treatment. it made me SO sick. but i'm not pregnant, so i guess they did their job.
i got mine for free at a local youth clinic. i could also have got the one-pill treatment, but that costs a few bucks and i didn't have anything.

 

yes, many years ago....
No side effects.
I reccomend it if you do not want the worry and do not want a child just yet.

 

i took it once. i just got my period right the day after. no side effects but a slight feeling of regret for the weekend events

 

Hello ~ I got "PLAn B" pills Yesterday .


Took one last night & then another this morning ,,, thats it,,all done.

They said I would be sick & to take drememmeene ( sp) before to stop nausea,,which I did take. I feel exhusted right now & I am having lots of cramps!

I guess this is better then the alternative right?

I almost feel like MEGA PMS! With lots of cramps!

 

JFTR, the "one pill treatment" is most likely NOT a morning after pill. It is RU487, affectionately known as "the abortion pill."

Plan B does NOT cause abortion. It is for preventing ovulation, or preventing implantation of a fertilized egg. RU487 can only be used in a diagnosed pregnancy, before the 10th week or so. Is it NOT a "Morning After Pill." It will not work BEFORE implantation.

Just wanted to straighten everything up.

 

RU486 hasn't been approved in the US yet, has it?
I run into the misconception all of the time that Plan B causes abortion, even from health proffesionals. I am always educating and advocating for Plan B. I think a properly trained pharmacist should be able to dispense it to a patient, without an Rx. That didn't get approved, so now the FDA is probably going to make it OTC. Go figure...
By the way, OB/GYN's have prescribed an "abortion pill" for years. It is a drug called Cytotec (misoprostol) 200mcg. They prescribe it off label, and have you moisten 4 tablets & insert them vaginally, or occasionally take them by mouth. They also use it to evacuate the uterus prior to some procedure.

 

RU486 hasn't been approved in the US yet, has it?
I run into the misconception all of the time that Plan B causes abortion, even from health proffesionals. I am always educating and advocating for Plan B. I think a properly trained pharmacist should be able to dispense it to a patient, without an Rx. That didn't get approved, so now the FDA is probably going to make it OTC. Go figure...
By the way, OB/GYN's have prescribed an "abortion pill" for years. It is a drug called Cytotec (misoprostol) 200mcg, indicated for NSAID induced ulcers. They prescribe it off label, and have you moisten 4 tablets & insert them vaginally, or occasionally take them by mouth. They also use it to evacuate the uterus prior to some procedure.

 

Yes, it was quitely FDA approved a few years ago. However, even though it has more uses than chemical abortion, (like expulsion of retained placental fragments after a birth, as well as a possible cancer treatment) most pharmacies will not carry it. Most womyn who need it get it directly from their HCP. Also, rarely times the use of this drug (RU487, not Plan B) may need to be followed by a surgical procedure, so it should be administered in a controlled enviroment.

Plan B has no such restrictions, and other forms of higher dose BC pills can be administered for the same effect. The problem is that some pharmacies refuse to fill these prescriptions. I beleive it should be OTC also.

 

Wow, must have been VERY quiet. I work in a pharmacy 40+ hours each week & had no idea. I just looked it up. It is only available to physicians for "proffessional use," and not to be dispensed directly to patients, understandably. It is very similar, however, to the ulcer drug I mentioned earlier, Cytotec (misoprostol), which I thought was interesting. Thanks Maggie, for the info, again!

 

I took it once on New Years this year, my boyfriend at the time had no condoms with him and we were SO horny we just went right ahead which was a STUPID thing to do, and I know I would have no sympathy for anyone else if this was their reason. Anyway, I took it, felt a bit sick, but didn't get pregnant, but was still disgusted at myself for being so irresponsible.

 

i'm on the pill and i've been using condoms, but condoms kinda suck and last week we had one slip off in the middle of sex and the boy ended up coming inside me. i went to the clinic that night and got a morning after pill, took it with no problems, and started on my birth control pills like normal a day or two later.
well, about a day and a half ago, we had the condom fall off AGAIN (i'm never letting him put it on by himself again...jesus christ). i don't know what to do. not only is my regular clinic closed for another two days, but i just took the morning after pill a week ago! i don't like the idea of ODing on estrogen twice in one week, but i can't risk pregnancy.
i really don't know what to do. what are the odds that i'd get pregnant from this? what would happen if i got the morning after pill again?

 

Wait a minute, back up.

You're on the pill AND you're using condoms, and you're worried because the condom broke. But you took your pill, right? If you've been taking it on time every day this cycle, there should be no reason you would get pregnant.

 

i know...it's such a small chance. but it's still too much. i know that many women have gotten pregnant while on the pill. i'm really good about it and take it at the exact same time every day, never throw up or anything...but i just need to have that peace of mind, knowing that there's absolutely no chance i could have somehow ovulated and an errant sperm could have somehow got up there and impregnated me. i tend to treat the pill as an untrustworthy method of birth control, while in reality it's served me really well. in my previous relationship we never used condoms.

ugh..today i learned that a girl i know who's younger than me is pregnant. my mom was meeting with her parents to calm them down. that just made me more paranoid.

so the last time i took the morning after pill was two days before i started my next pack of pills. is there any way the morning after pill could affect the regular birth control pills? am i overloading my body with a harmful amount of hormones by doing this?
help!

 

If it prevents implantation of a developing human embryo, it's an abortifacient.

 

Hmmm, all birth control pills prevent implantation. In fact, Plan B is made of the same stuff as regular birth control pills. While being on regular BC's does inhibit ovulation, it does not prevent it. Women still ovulate. Both fertilized and unfertilized eggs are washed out with the next menstral cycle. At this stage it is not even an embryo, but a zygote. I have never heard of an "abortion" referring to a zygote.

An abortifacient, such as misoprostol, produces a miscarraige of an embryo or fetus, or induces early delivery of a fetus.

I guess this all goes back to the fundamental abortion arguments, of how do you define life. Is the potential for life the same as life itself? A lot of semantics is also involved.

That being said, with my pharmacuetical knowledge and experience, I have to disagree. Plan B and other oral contraceptives are not abortifacients, they are CONTRACEPTIVES. The development into embryo cannot occur in a free floating zygot. It has to implant somewhere for their to be any potential for life. Without implantation, their is no nutrition, only a small mass of DNA.

 

Not by doing it twice, though I would give you boyfriend a lesson in using condoms. BC's now have incredibly low levels of hormones. What pill are you on, if you don't mind me asking?

 

If I were you I would just concentrate on taking the pill VERY regularly instead of panicking and taking the MAP every single time a condom slips or breaks. You could really fuck yourself up that way.

 

First, the acute hormonal dosage of the "morning-after" pill makes it much more likely to prevent implantation than regular use of hormonal contraception, which functions primarily by suppressing ovulation:

http://www.physiciansforlife.ca/Postfertilization%20Effect%20of%20Hormonal%20Emergency%20Contraception.pdf


Second, "zygote" refers to the single-cell life formed within 24 hours of fertilzation. By the time of implantation, this life has grown hundredfold into an embryo:

http://www.ortl.org/life_in_oregon/01_08/fertilized_eggs.html


(This embryonic growth can occur either in the fallopian tubes or fertility clinic test tubes.)

Third, conception has historically been synonymous with fertilization, not implantation:

"It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoa and the resulting mingling of the chromosomal material each brings to the union that culminates the process of fertilization and initiates the life of a new individual. Every one of the higher animals starts life as a single cell the fertilized ovum. The union of two such sex cells to form a zygote constitutes the process of fertilization and initiates the life of a new individual." Bradley M. Patten, M.D. (3rd Edition, 1968), New York City: McGraw-Hill.

"The formation, maturation and meeting of a male and female sex cell are all preliminary to their actual union into a combined cell, or zygote, which definitely marks the beginning of a new individual." Leslie Arey. (7th Edition, 1974). Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Publishers.

"Zygote. This cell results from fertilization of an oocyte by a sperm and is the beginning of a human being ... Development begins at fertilization, when a sperm unites with an oocyte to form a zygote. Each of us started life as a cell called a zygote." K.L. Moore. (2nd Ed., 1977). Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Publishers. Pages 1 and 12.

"The term conception refers to the union of the male and female pronuclear elements of procreation from which a new living being develops. It is synonymous with the terms fecundation, impregnation, and fertilization ... The zygote thus formed represents the beginning of a new life." J.P. Greenhill and E.A. Freidman. . Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Publishers. Pages 17 and 23.

"A human being develops from a mass of living material no larger than a pinhead, material contributed by both parents and capable of living and growing for a lifetime ... This genetic makeup was established at the beginning of your life, when a haploid egg and a haploid sperm combined to produce a diploid zygote, your first somatic cell." J.H. Otto and A. Towle. . New York City: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. 1969.

"The zygote is the starting cell of the new individual." Salvadore E. Luria, M.D. <36 Lectures in Biology>. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Press, 1975, page 146.

"It is widely accepted and widely taught that human beings as well as other organisms reproducing by sexual reproduction …this is nothing unique to humans; this is a general biological principle ..start their existence at the time of conception or fertilization, as a single cell, the zygote." Micheline M. Mathews-Roth, M.D., HarvardMedicalSchool, quoted in the , 97th Congress, 1st Session, April 23, 1981.

"Every time a sperm cell and ovum unite, a new being is created which is alive and will continue to live unless its death is brought about by some specific condition." E.L. Potter, M.D., and J.M. Craig, M.D. ., 3rd Edition. Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, 1975, page vii.

"Based on my education and background, therefore, I believe that from the moment of the union of the sperm and the egg in the human species, there is present a new living human being. The human life is there from the moment of fertilization, and its very essence starts early but is not completed until the second decade of life. I submit that human life is present throughout this entire sequence from conception to adulthood, and that interruption at any point constitutes termination of human life." Alfred M. Bongiovanni, M.D., University of Pennsylvania Medical Professor, before the Senate Judiciary Committee, April 24, 1981.

"Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced, it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous, whether intra- or extra- uterine, until death. The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as anything but taking a human life would be ludicrous if they were not often put forth under socially impeccable auspices." "A New Ethic for Medicine and Society," 113 67, 68 (1970).

"Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being, a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings ... Those witnesses who testified that science cannot say whether unborn children are human beings were speaking in every instance to the value question rather than the scientific question. No witness raised any evidence to refute the biological fact that from the moment of human conception there exists a distinct individual being who is alive and is of the human species." Report of the Senate Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to the Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 97th Congress, 1st Session, 1981, page 7.

(I believe I already provided you with these references on the "Abortion" thread in the "Politics" forum.)