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Skipping your Period

With combination pills, if you wish to skip your period, you can simply skip the seven days of placebo pills, and begin your next package.  If you have a twenty-one pill system with seven days off, simply begin your new package of pills the day after you finish your other package, without waiting in between.

It is not advised that you skip your period too frequently. 

If you are on monophasic pills and you skip the placebos so that you can skip your period, you will probably not have any breakthrough bleeding.  If you are on multiphasic pills, you can still skip the placebo, but you have a higher chance of having some breakthrough bleeding.  With both monophasic and multiphasic pills, your birth control will still prevent pregnancy if you skip your placebo week.

One birth control, Seasonale, uses both estrogen and progestin.  It does not function on a 28-day cycle, but rather on a longer cycle that does not use placebo pills.  This means that you only get your period 4 times a year.  This has been FDA approved, though it has been a source of some controversy.

When you see your doctor to get your prescription, get an extra two or three months’ prescription instead of simply twelve months.  This way, if you skip your period, you will still be able to have your annual pap smear at roughly the same time.  This is also helpful for places such as Ontario, where you don’t have to pay for your pap exam if you wait 365 days between each.