How long is the pill ineffective for after taking antibiotic?

Question

I took 3 days of Cipro. How long is birth control ineffective for?

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

Myth: Antibiotics reduce the pill's effectiveness.
Fact: While there have been individual case reports of women for whom this is true, doctors say overall studies have failed to prove it. The only antibiotic known to impact the pill is rifampin, used to treat tuberculosis. That said, if you are using antibiotics on a regular basis -- to treat acne, for example -- you might experience higher than normal rates of breakthrough bleeding. To solve the problem, switch to a higher-dose pill. (http://www.webmd.com/content/Article/105…

It wouldn't hurt to use another form of birth control for a couple of days. An information packet should have came with your medication. Refer to them.

Answer 2

The birth control pill is never ineffective - use a safe!

Answer 3

Once you've been on an antibiotic during your "active" pills, you may have lowered the levels of hormones that prevent ovulation. Therefore, you may have ovulated which may make you likely to get pregnant. You need to use alternate forms of birthcontrol until you start a new pack.

Source(s):

My physician

Answer 4

Its does not actually become unsafe, just a little less safe. Use extra protection for a couple of weeks...;

Answer 5

To be completely safe you are supposed to wait until the first day of your new cycle. But it depends when in your cycle you started taking the cipro. If it was in the first 7 days dont worry, because you would not be taking active pills then anyway. If you are worried about it or are unsure just wait until you start your next pack or use a condom until then.

Answer 6

Yes, taking abx's do lower the effectiveness of birth control...you need to use a second method of birth control when taking an abx.

Answer 7

ciprofloxacin is not contraindicated for women taking birth control pills. There is no documentation for this widely used antibiotic that it will interfere with any birth control effectiveness. Here is some data off the internet

Do antibiotics make birth control pills less effective?

Early data about 20 years ago seemed to indicate that when antibiotics were taken along with birth control pills, more women got pregnant than you would normally expect. Drugs like ampicillin and tetracycline were suspected to interfere with OCPs (3). However, all of the recent studies that have looked at this, have shown that antibiotics do not increase the pregnancy rate at all (4) and they point out that the old data was not reliable enough to draw conclusions about pregnancy rates on any of the antibiotics (5).

Some antibiotics have been studied and shown not to affect the metabolism of OCPs. Ciprofloxcin (Cipro ®) is one that does not seem to alter metabolism (6). Fluconazole (Diflucan ®) does not decrease estrogen levels in pill users; if anything, it raises estrogen levels (7).

Source(s):

I used to sell ciprofloxcin