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So what does it actually mean to "miss" a pill? Is it when you completely miss a day, or when you forget and take it an hour later than usual? And I know I'm supposed to take it at the same time every day, but I usually take it within 15-30 minutes of the same time (about 7:45), does this make a huge difference?
Posts: 7 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Missing a pill by 15-30 minutes is no big deal. You basically have 2-3 hour window on either side to take you pill, so you should be fine Posts: 1000 | From: Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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Celery is right, a 15-30 minute difference won't matter much.
However, if you want to know the exact window you have, I'd encourage you to contact the person who prescribed your pills. With low dose pills, it's even more important that you take them on time. In other words, for your pills, your window may not be as big as 2-3 hours.
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The exact same time? No. A difference of a little bit isn't going to be bad. You do need to take them pretty near to the same time if you want them to be at their most effective. The purpose of taking them at the same time each day is to keep the hormone's you're putting into your body constant. So a pill needs to be taken every 24 hours (or as close to it as possible).
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I aLways thought I had to to take it with in 12hours of the missed time, so If you take it at 9am, and you only remember to take it at 7pm you're still ok.
I've done this before and my Doctor told me this was fine?
------------------ Why is it that the person that makes you cry, is the only one who can make you stop.
posted
If that's what your doctor told you, then that may be fine in your situation. My doctor told me something similar to that when I was only using the pill to help control acne. However, once I began using it as birth control, she said I needed to take it as close to time as possible.
As I said in the post above, in order for your pill to be the most effective, you need to keep a constant stream of hormones in your body. That means taking a pill every 24 hours. If you wait longer than that, the hormone level drops off and you may be less protected. That's how the pill was designed to be taken for the prevention of pregnancy...once every 24 hours (with a 1-3 hour window, depending upon your particular formulation).
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