this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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If you're on hormonal birth control, you don't need to have monthly bleeding cycles. The sugar pill part of most hormonal birth control pills, was added so as to not scare people when their bleeding disappeared.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/birth-control/in-depth/womens-health/art-20044044
I learned this so late....
The primary purpose of the sugar pill is to maintain the habit of taking a pill daily.
The Team that Invented the Birth Control Pill - The Atlantic
https://archive.ph/enn5j
He told Rock to have his patients stop taking the pills for five days each month. Their hormone levels would return to normal, their symptoms would ease, and they would have their periods. Rock liked the idea. It would make the pill seem more natural, like a scientific version of the rhythm method.
So yes, your right, the sugar pill was added to help people count the 5 days of no hormones correctly.
But the only reason for the 5 day hormone gap in the initial recommendations was to make users feel more natural, and not think they were pregnant.
Though the history is fascinating, always worth a read!
My gf does this, but eventually starts bleeding despite the continued (non-sugar) pills. Usually takes several months of skipping the sugar pills.
She then stops taking them, has a normal cycle or two to reset things as it were and starts over.
We're also still young enough that no doc agrees on sterilization, but old enough to know we're never changing our minds.
The pill works by tricking the body into thinking you're pregnant. There is no reason why you could not take the pill (with hormones in it) for nine months straight.
Also, the pill does sometimes fail. Rarely if you do things perfectly (99% succes), but since we're all human, things rarely go perfectly (91% succes rate in real life). If you normally have a cycle of bleeding once a month, you have a nice solid clue to go take a pregnancy test when you don't bleed once a month.
But yeah, you don't really HAVE to. My next period is planned for early 2026.
According to my schedule Estrus we are going to have to push you back. We'll call you when times available.
Yeah, as i posted above, im a medical interpreter and yeah, birth control methods, not only hormonal, will stop menstruation, and that is normal. They actually prescribe birth control pills to women that bleed too much and have iron deficiencies because of it.
Edit: As an anecdote, i went out for a time with a girl that told me that she took birth control pills because her period was too heavy, and that once she forgot to take them and that she was bleeding for 20 minutes in the shower, and that she was very scared. Femininity goes hard sometimes I guess lol.
Sometimes they recommend you go three months without a period. Apparently it can be healthier. And the body doesn't really know any better after you've got used to it.
Well .... TIL.
yup! I have endometriosis and was on the pill continuously ages 15-18. It doesn't work out for everybody, but it was a lifesaver for me. Debilitating symptoms went bye bye, and pretty soon I was back in school (after a few months' absence).