Birth Control and 12 Hour Shifts

Nurses General Nursing

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I'm currently on the pill and start my new grad residency in about a month. I've been on the pill for almost 6 years and I love it, but I want to switch to something that I don't have to take every day because I will be doing day/night rotations every 6 weeks and I'm not sure I can continue to stay on the pill and take it at the same time consistently. I am wondering what other birth control methods work for other nurses. I would like to stay on my current cycle of only having a period every 3 months. My doctor recommended nuvaring, IUD, or implanon. I asked her if I could try the patch, but she said I would need to lose about 60 pounds first. I'm working on the weight loss.

What birth control methods do you currently use or what would you recommended for a busy nurse.

11 minutes ago, sillymu said:

@Jory what is your opinion of the patch?

I think it is a great option, unfortunately, efficacy decreases for those over 175 lbs. I prescribe it quite a bit to teens that know they can't remember a pill and don't want to stick anything in their lady parts.

I think Nuvaring, works better when used continuously....when I was a new prescriber, when women would discontinue the ring, bleeding wouldn't start for 2 or 3 days...then at 7 days, it was time to put a new one in...but the bleeding wasn't over from a period. So you ended up having the right plus a tampon in your lady parts...patients didn't like that. So I would always recommend continuous dosing.

OP, all of the feedback you've received should help point you in the right direction when discussing with your PCP.

We'll close this thread now as #1, it is off-topic/non-nursing related and #2, we cannot provide the medical advice you need.

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