this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
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Asklemmy
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I learned in college (from my nurse girlfriend) that if a girl is taking antibiotics that it invalidates her birth control pills for the month and you need to use condoms until after her period.
Spread the word, brothers.
That's not really true.
Sure it's true for rifampicin and rifabutin (and maybe one more similar one). But those are used to treat TB.
All the standard ones you'd take are fine for birth control.
Edit: Thanks to some people who are more knowledgeable than me on the topic, there are some others, or secondary effects you should consider.
Moral of the story: if in doubt ALWAYS use more contraception. Best to be safe out there.
According to Mayo Clinic, penicillin and amoxicillin also can make birth control less effective. But most other sources agree with you. I wonder if it's relatively new information that those antibiotics don't affect it or what.
It's easier to tell people to just use a rubber when on antibiotics rathern than explain to them that it's only for some unpronounceable substances for most of the population and have them memorize a list of substances for which it's safe to go on as usual - azithromycin is safe, amoxicillin is not. They may sound fairly similar to a layman.
It's because some substances (in this case, antibiotics) mess with the units in your body that process them and prepare them for excretion. They may inhibit or induce them, but these units process a whole load of other stuff. Including birth control, which can lead to less activity from the birth control pills because they're inactivated quicker (in case of induction) or the biotransformation to the active form is slower (in case of inhibition, for prodrugs that are inactive as is, but have active metabolites, no idea if this is the case for birth control though).
A similar thing happens with alcohol, for example, which is why you should always be honest with exactly how much alcohol you drink or what other drugs you take when talking to an anaesthesiologist, or any doctor prescribing you any sort of medicine, lest you risk ineffective anaesthesia or treatment (the first one is worse imo).
100 % agreed. I was just being pedantic I guess. Sorry for that.
I really should have said ALWAYS use more contraception if you're unsure about anything. Best to be safe.
Good thing about this is now I have some interesting things to read up on.
It may be? I found a few references from like 2019, but as someone else posted above, there's a lot more to consider than just the antibiotic interfering with the birth control. Digestive tract things. Definitely take a look at the post I'm referring to.
But as I SHOULD have said in my original post, ALWAYS use more methods of contraception if you're unsure. Best to be safe.
It has two components. While Rifampicin and Rifabutin (and Penicillin,Amoxi and a few others) are directly showing effects on the contraceptives drugs effects, there is another factor that shouldn't be underestimated: ABs can and will cause digestive symptoms, fastening gastric passage and that alone is known to reduce the effectiveness of hormonal contraceptives countless times.
That is true. I didn't think of it from that angle. I haven't read too much into that. But now I will. Thanks for the info.
For the record, always use secondary contraception if you're in doubt. I should have said that in my first post.
Holy shit didn't know this. Thanks
Oh wow, this really should be common knowledge. Thanks for enlightening me.
That's how my parents got pregnant with me! Thanks, antibiotics.
We talk a lot about lives saved by antibiotics but not about lives made by them lol
Hey, this explains my daughter's birth, 13 years after the fact!