To be utterly outraged by this a month later?

[MaryBoBary]

Sorry if this has already been discussed - I did do a quick search but couldn’t find anything relevant.

I think it was around the end of January that it was announced that NICE guidelines were changing to inform women that the contraceptive pill can be taken every day, and the advised weekly break in week 4 was not actually necessary. The break was only advised in a failed attempt for the pill to be approved by the Pope for catholic’s to use.

I am still absolutely fuming and utterly disgusted that the advice I have been given for the last 12 years I have been on the pill was not based on medical fact or reason, but religion. Is it unreasonable to expect that medical advice is not influenced by religion?

I can not understand why there has not been an uproar about this. I think it is utterly outrageous and is there any other medical advice that isn’t based on scientific facts? Maybe it is just me feeling so angry about this, but I really hope not.

God, I'd love to be on the pill again.

I was taken off it at about 39 - just because of m age, no medical changes.

My contraceptive life has been in the doldrems since. a mix-match of the mirena coil,condoms and withdrawal method. Lckily I don't get pregnant easily! But I've had my 3 dc, and I don't want anymore.

Jeez, how different would it be if men had the babies? Answer - not a lot - if men had the babies, and the baby-making bodies, society would be very different, but the baby makers would probably still be oppressed.

I did read about this several years ago but never found I could run them together anyway - when I tried I just got breakthrough bleeding, it never stopped them properly.

It is ludicrous that this wasn't made clearer to everyone, though. I read about the decision to leave gaps for periods in an article about the history of the pill, I think.

8 never knew either

Fake news. It was nothing to do with religion at all The monthly bleed was to help normalise the idea of the pill to women.

The Pope is partially involved in controlling the design of contraception pills, which turn controls your menstrual cycle? Seriously?

I'm in my 60's now , and I always knew about it, ever since it came on the market in the mid 60s. I took the Pill continuously from my 30's until the menopause , so I don't know why this is news.

I was taken off the combined pill at 40, I'm not fat but apparently at my age it can lead to a greater risk of strokes.
You can still have the mini-pill, I tried it for a while but felt awful on it with sore breasts constantly, so now I have mirena coil instead which I have no issues with so all good in the end!

I don't remember being told you can take it without a break (you have to with the mini-pill anyway) but was aware it was OK for holidays etc. I liked the break as it was a mental break from remembering to take it every day and my "period" only lasted about 3 days.

I wish I could run packs together to stop my period. I could on a pill when I was early 20s. Then the one I got put on after having dd I started bleeding before the end of the pack and was told that it was just my body. He never bothered trying other pills.

I used to run mine together until one day I started to have bad cramps and bleed so badly the doctor thought I might be having a miscarriage. I always took the break after that.

The Papal connection seems a bit fake ! Ever since the Pill came onto the market in the 60's, the Catholic Church has been against it. So why would the manufacturers "try to make it more acceptable to the Pope" when it was never going to be acceptable , because it's a contraceptive ? Fake news , surely.

I was around when it first came out, and they used to say that you could have a monthly bleed if you wanted to, so you'd be sure that you were not pregnant.

Exactly Birdie.

Fake news. It was nothing to do with religion at all hmm The monthly bleed was to help normalise the idea of the pill to women.
BlueJeansNiceTop
This is what actually happened.

I took the pill way back in the 70s and 80s and always took it without a break. All my friends did the same. We certainly knew about it all those years ago.

I've been off the pill for years now, but when I first started it I was told by my GP only to run two packs together occasionally, e.g. to avoid having a period on holiday.
Recently it came up randomly in a (social) conversation with some obs and gynae doctors that I'd generally ignored that advice and only had about one gap a year. They just tutted and said "you're lucky you never got a DVT then" - so I assumed that was the reason for recommending the gap

I've known about this since I first took the pill 15 years ago, but no doctor has ever mentioned it. I just did my own research and it was in the media anyway.

I would say that is the best idea when you are taking any medication or have a medical problem. You must do your own research as doctors don't have the time or knowledge to tell you everything (I don't mean that as a slight at doctors - it's just simply impossible for any one doctor to know everything about any one medication or condition, and convey that to you in a 10 minute appointment).

Doctors also can have their own biases and ideas of what is right, which may not be up to date with current science.

She just told me that her mum also said you couldn't wash your hair during a period! Goodness knows what the reason for that could have been?!

I believe the reasoning was that washing your hair would curdle your blood. (Seriously.) A bit like not swimming after eating.

I took the pill from age 15 and used to run packs together. I didn't ask anyone but I googled it and decided it was fine based on what I read. I have horrid periods that land me in hospital from the pain so anything to avoid them is great

It does annoy me when people give incorrect info.

I've only just found out about this and I'm late forties. Blood clotting disorder so it could really have benefited me.

The dinosaurs are still very much around. I suggested my DD would benefit from the type of pill which has "dummy" ones for the seven day break. Just being practical so she wouldn't forget to restart.

Young male G.P said if she couldn't cope with that she shouldn't be having sex. I asked him what the requirements for teenage boys having sex were and then made a formal complaint. Practice manager was horrified because the area had a huge rate of unwanted / underage pregnancy.

Now I'm raging at this cunt in particular two years later. Aaarghh!!!

I was never told about this from any doctor. I have to take a pill break anyway otherwise my stupid period just forces it's way through later, just with prolonged back pain and no knowing when it's going to shove it's way through. But yeah, that really, really pissed me off when I read that.

I didn’t know until I read online that you could take pills back to back even once. I had a female gp prescribing the pill as well - I put myself on the pill for pain at 18 when I went to university as I’d heard it helped. I had horrendous pains, heavy bleeds and fainting. The gp in my home town was beyond useless and up until that point I had very poor pain relief. So I survived on the pills my mother had taken as a teen (thanks mother for pursuing that one).

By the stage I learnt it could be taken uninterrupted I’d long since come off the pill. I’m really outraged we weren’t given the correct information to make an informed choice. I went onto depa pro in my 20’s and it gave me issues as I didn’t bleed - abnormal skin cells requiring a colposcopy. I ended up being told never to use it again. However to use the pill back to back and have a bleed every 3 months would have been fantastic!

I also like to see my period come so I know for sure I'm not pregnant

I'm afraid it doesn't work like that. Normal periods show you're not pregnant because you're shedding the lining of the uterus which has built up and thickened during the month. When you're on the pill, the lining of the uterus doesn't thicken so there's nothing to shed; all that happens if you stop taking it is that the drop in hormone levels causes the lining to weaken a little to allow some bleeding.

I think the papal connection is really over exaggerated by the media, and a bit of an urban myth- I can't imagine any pope in the sixties or seventies endorsing ANY kind of contraceptive.

Probably it was just a clumsy way of referring to the fact that the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession thought that women would want the illusion of periods to reassure them their body was still functioning 'normally' when taking this 'new-fangled' drug.

It is common knowledge that the bleed is not a period- because the pill prevents ovulation, no egg has been produced.

Maybe there's a plus side of taking a break for a bleed- you only consume three quarters of the amount of synthetic hormones??

I've been happily period free for 10 years, and though it is infuriating that this was the original reason, whenever o speak to my friends about being period free they say they wouldn't like it. It usually comes up because someone is having bad pains though...