Taking birth control mid cycle to skip a period?

May 10, 2018 9:04 PM

I‘m having a very important date in 3 days, which is the same day my period starts. Is there any way to delay it?

I had been taking the same birth control pill for several years and had very regular cycles. I stopped with the pills about 2 months ago for personal reasons and still have pretty regular cycles.
Problem is, on Sunday I‘m having a very important date and getting my period on this day (and yes, my calculations say exactly that) would be a little disaster.
Can I start taking a new pack of birth control a couple of days before my period? Will I be able to skip it or make it come later this way?
Thank you for any answer!

posted by Tiffy119 to Health & Fitness (7 answers total)

Most likely yes, though given how close you are there might still be breakthrough bleeding. Women have done this to skip periods for a long time; it is no different than taking one pack right after the other to delay. Just make sure you use condoms as two days isn’t enough time for the pill to be effective.
posted by OneSmartMonkey at 9:10 PM on May 10, 2018 [4 favorites]

There’s no harm in trying, but the couple times I’ve tried this it hasn’t been successful, just FYI.
posted by greta simone at 9:27 PM on May 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

I have a good friend who is an OB GYN who swears to me this is totally ok. It's always worked for me (with maybe a little spotting) but of course YMMV.
posted by lunasol at 9:48 PM on May 10, 2018 [3 favorites]

I have had repeated success completely delaying my period (no spotting) by a couple days by taking high doses of ibuprofen (800mg, three times per day). Of course, this is not something you want to do forever as it would irritate your stomach, but the dosage is within acceptable usage. If the period is due Sunday I would start taking it now and continue through Sunday. No idea how this might interact with starting birth control pills.
posted by unannihilated at 3:50 AM on May 11, 2018

Works really well if you are taking BC continuously. You've stopped for 2 months, so it's out of your system and I don't know whether 3 days is enough to build it back up enough to postpone your period... but worth trying.
posted by serelliya at 9:29 AM on May 11, 2018

Adding on that it's obviously body dependent, but I've had some luck with this. Sometimes with some mild spotting.

On top of this, this may be a good time to try out the SoftCup which can be found at any big box drug store. One of it's main selling points is that it allows you to have mess-free sex while you're on your period. It was a game-changer for me, and my partners who I've tried this with have claimed they don't feel anything, or that it doesn't bother them. It took me a couple days to get used to it (very mild cramping, and I usually use a Diva cup) but now I don't notice it at all. Rougher... er... handling resulted in some minimal spotting, but I still count that as a win.
posted by blueberrypuffin at 9:49 AM on May 11, 2018

It won't harm you, but as a data point when I tried this it didn't work for me and I also ended up having a lot of spotting throughout the following month. If it were me, I would do it as I think it's worth a try.
posted by assenav at 11:48 AM on May 11, 2018