Birth Control and 12 Hour Shifts

[sillymu]

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.

[Jory, MSN, APRN, CNM]

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.

[allnurses Admin Team]

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.