Friday, December 1, 2000
KU women are altering birth control regimens to eliminate menstruation
By Amanda Beglin Special to the Kansan
Women may have no use for tampons if they change the way they take birth control pills. Menstruation — and its symptoms — can be put off indefinitely by skipping the placebo pills, those taken during the fourth week in many birth control pill prescriptions. Some scientists say taking pills this way could increase the risk of breast cancer. Photo illustration by Christina Neff/KANSAN
By altering the way they take their birth control pills, women can bypass menstruation altogether. "There really is no medical reason."
"There really is no medical reason why a woman has to have a period every month," said physician Henry Buck of Watkins Health Center. "Women go for nine months without one when they're pregnant."
The average monthly birth control regimen includes 28 pills, seven of which are placebos. These "place keepers" maintain the pill-taking cycle once menstruation is finished. When the pills are used as directed, a period occurs after the third week of the month-long prescription. Women typically take the placebos during the week of menstruation.
'I was curious'
But now women are bypassing the placebo pills and opening a new pack after the third week. This results in an absence of menstruation and sometimes the cramps, bloating and symptoms that accompany it.
Danielle Clock, Chicago junior, has been using birth control pills since she was a freshman, but hadn't tried skipping the placebo pills until two months ago.
"You're taking the pill to suppress ovulation," he said. "The only reason you're having a period is because hormone levels drop at the end of the cycle and there's a bleed."
skipping it because I was curious," she said. "I can't believe I didn't think about it before. It makes sense, but I was just afraid skipping pills would hurt me."
Buck said that the act of skipping the placebo pills is not a big deal.
This bleeding, Buck said, is not medically necessary every month because the pill alters the basic function of menstruation: The pill tricks a woman's body into thinking it's pregnant.
Birth control pills stop an egg from ovulating and depletes the uterus lining tissue that a fertilized egg
would attach to — the same lining that is shed during menstruation.
She recommended the females go no longer than three months (tri-cycling) without having a period, or women may experience breakthrough bleeding, when the uterine lining has accumulated and must be shed.
mensuration.
So while women can stave off their period indefinitely, Watkins' chief pharmacist Cathy Thrasher had a few suggestions.
Most pharmacy-issued birth control pills are triphasic, meaning a different level of estrogen hormones is released during each week. The brand Ortho Tri-Cyclen is a tri-phasic regimen, indicated by the white, light blue and blue pills.
Thrasher also suggested the females use a monophasic pill during the tri-cycling. The pills release the same amount of hormones every day during the monthly cycle and are less likely to physically and emotionally effect a woman, she said.
Thrasher and Buck said Watkins already had patients who were using the tri-cycling method.
who were using the device. Overland Park junior, was told by her doctor that she could continually take her birth control pills to reduce the side-effects of her period.
"I think we're going to see pill packages come out this way," he said. "I think women are less attuned to the idea that they need to have a period all the time. There's really nothing wrong with the idea at all."
Possible changes in birth control
"This is so much better," she said. "I wouldn't do it every month, but it's really nice to know that I could."
Buck said he suspected that more women would follow this trend.
But some scientists disagree. They say birth control pills increase the risk of breast cancer, and that continuous use of the pill increases that risk even more.
"There really is no medical reason why a woman has to have a period every month."
Henry Bucl Walkins Health Center physicia
Sisters and daughters of women with breast cancer who use the pill are three times more likely to get the disease, according to a study released last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Though doctors say altering the pill dosage is considered safe, the Food & Drug Administration has not approved birth control pills for the specific use of stopping menstruation.
The FDA may approve Seasonale, a pill developed by a physician at Eastern Virginia Medical School. It consists of estrogen and other hormones that have been used for years in other birth control pills.
years in other on or off court play. The Seasonale regimen is a 91-day cycle — 84 active pills and seven placebos. Seasonale would decrease a woman's number of yearly periods from 13 to four.
number of yearly periods a car will be in the market by 2003
If approved, it is expected to be on the market by 2003
"There are other kinds of birth control that have been used on a continual basis such as Depo-Provera and Norplant," Buck said. Both are injected into the arm, halt menstruation and last for months.
Clock considered Norplant but opted to regulate her pill intake herself.
"I'd just feel better knowing I was in control of my own pills," she said. "I'm afraid that little capsule in my arm would fail."
But Buck said women didn't have to alter their pill intake at all.
"Women attach significance to their period," he said. "I think it's just a personal preference."
— Edited by Kathryn Moore
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