taking pills in wrong order in europe

[pvalov-rings.livejournal.com]

I'm an American living in Denmark. On Thursday I just started on the pill which in Denmark is called Harmonet; it contains ethinylestradiol and gestoden. I was pretty sure it was a monophasic pill--they're all the same color, I was on a monophasic pill before and my doctor said she'd put me on one again--but I've basically confused myself so much I'm not sure what to do and my doctor is on an extended Christmas vacation.

The problem is that on Saturday at 6 p.m., I accidentally took the pill labelled "Wednesday" that was supposed to have been the 21st pill in the pack--the last pill. It was right next to the empty "Thursday" and I just got confused about the direction they were going in. But then at midnight, I looked at my pack again, realized the "Saturday" pill hadn't been taken and assumed I had just thought I had taken the pill but hadn't. So at that time I took the pill I should have taken six hours earlier. Then I realized I'm incredibly stupid and careless and had taken two pills in one day.

It's now Monday at 6:30 and I've taken two pills correctly since then. The pill pack says what to do if you forget a pill but not what to do if you take them in the wrong order and too many. But since they're monophasic, the order shouldn't matter, right? And the day labels are just to help you keep track? What should I do?

Comments

[sparkle-lite.livejournal.com]

you haven't messed up anything, because all 21 pills in a mono-phasic pack have exactly the same dosage. As long as it was one of the 21 active pills and not a placebo, all's well!

[queensugar.livejournal.com]

Since you are on a monophasic pill, it doesn't matter at all what order you take your pills in (your pack formulation doesn't have placebos, so you don't need to worry about that). The day labels are just there to help you keep track and make sure you know when you've missed a pill. But they're all exactly the same! So no worries. :)

[frolicnaked.livejournal.com]

But since they're monophasic, the order shouldn't matter, right?

Right. Harmonet is monophasic, and the order thing doesn't matter at all here.

he pill pack says what to do if you forget a pill but not what to do if you take them in the wrong order and too many.

While this might bump you down from "perfect use" stats toward those for typical use, it's probably not a big deal. Has there been a day where you haven't taken any pill at all? If so, you might want to check to see whether your brand recommends back-up protection after a single missed pill (even though you haven't actually missed any pills) as an extra precautionary measure.

Another "extra safe" option you have would be to skip your hormone-free week and continue directly to your next pack of pills. This way, you won't have a pill free week until you've taken at least 21 pills on the "one pill per day" routine. Of course, this one assumes you can get another pack of your pills in time to skip your hormone free week.

I'm going to reiterate that these are things you can do to be "extra safe," but you've really probably not measurably compromised the effectiveness of your pill with what's already happened. If you'd rather, you can just continue taking your pills as usual. :)