I’m in a bit of dilemma. Whenever I start taking my pill to end my break while i’m still bleeding, it never stops the bleeding. My break is 5 days long rather than 7 to make sure i stay protected during the break. I don’t really want to make the break longer but I also hate the fact that the bleeding continues while I’m taking my pill consistently. I’ve thought about upping the dosage of my pill but from what I’ve heard my brand doesn’t have a higher dose. What should I do? Brand: Microgynon 30

How long have you been on this brand? Because unfortunately bleeding is a common side effect of birthday control & you can’t really do anything about it unless you ask your doctor to switch brands and you try something else to see if the bleeding stops.

@seechell i’ve been on the same one for roughly 2.5 years and ive never really had this problem. its only the past 3-ish months that this has been happening. my period just continues wether i take the pill or not which defeats half the purpose of my pill as i originally went on it to control bleeding.

Maybe you can try another birth control brand or method like the patch, ring, IUD or implant. Unfortunately breakthrough bleeding (assuming you’ve been bleeding on your active pill) is a common side effect there’s nothing you can really do about it but be patient and potentially waiting it out, since this happened 3 months into 2.5 years like you said.

@seechell i’ve tried the implant and it did not work for me at all, but ill look into different methods and see if any of them could work for me. thank you x

This happened with my daughter. The breakthrough bleeding refused to stop no matter how many active pills she took. We upped the dosage and it still didn’t work. After months of trying and even switching brands, we gave up and quit. I have yet to try another method with her yet. It sounds counterintuitive I know, but you could maybe try a lower dose like Lo Loestrin or the mini pill Slynd. Both of those stopped my periods altogether and I had never had that happen on any other pill. They are known for completely stopping periods.

@pug_lady i’ll definitely take a look into those brands as that seems like the sort of things i’d prefer, thank you x

Have you tried skipping your breaks to see if it helps? Or are you set on having a break week?