Use the condom, and still pull out. Those bastards break a lot. But make sure to use one, a weeks dosage of antibiotics is never fun.
Buy some morning-after pills. Crush them up. Put in orange juice. Win. Easy game. Spoiler jk Spoiler kinda
As someone who has done research about the effects of birth control pills, and who took more than one girlfriend to Planned Parenthood to get them, back in the day, I have to say you are a bit misinformed, SacTown. Yes, some women don't react well to taking them, and in rare instances, there can be serious side effects, but the vast majority don't have any problems that don't disappear after a few monthly cycles. Actually, the Pill can have real advantages. As an example, "A January 2008 study in the medical journal The Lancet showed that the longer a woman took the pill, the lower her risk of ovarian cancer. For many healthy women without risk factors, the benefits of taking the pill tend to outweigh the risks. Women on the pill often report shorter, lighter menstruation, fewer and less painful cramps and better skin. The pill can fix irregular periods, reduce iron deficiencies (as less blood is shed during menstruation) and reduce the risk of benign cysts in the breasts or ovaries." http://health.howstuffworks.com/sexual-health/contraception/birth-control-pill3.htm Again, there are always exceptions to the norm, but when one considers the risk of a pregnancy to a woman, the Pill makes for a great alternative to other forms of birth control. In my opinion, of course.
If I'm in a serious relationship with a girl now I'd almost rather she not be on any birth control. Sure, finishing inside feels great, but the side effects are pretty obvious. But I don't really know about the pill. I haven't dated a girl who uses pills for a while. The last few girls I've been with have been on depo. The long term effect of what depo does to a woman is not worth it as far as my opinion is concerned.
Deckard, I think your information is a bit dated. There are recent studies showing a greatly increased risk of breast cancer for those who go on the pill and breast cancer is a huge problem in our society. My wife is an OBGYN (not western) and she wouldn't dare take the pill. She educated me on all of this and I'll try to educate you guys here... if your girl is on the pill, I would recommend reading what I'm about to post here and do some of your own research and make a conscience decision. You also have to keep in mind that birth control pills are big business. We are talking western medicine big pharma here so of course there is going to be propaganda. I won't use the word "harmful" as that's how most of western medicine views things (either it will kill you or it won't).... I don't think it will shorten a woman's life or kill her to take birth control directly, but it will increase her chances of breast cancer, it will make her enjoy sex less as it shrinks the clitoris by 20% and causes vaginal dryness because it kills a woman's free testosterone, and it will make her attracted to a differentt type of male than she would naturally be attracted to. The pheremones she's attracted to will change. Think that sounds crazy? If your girl is attracted to you and your smell before she goes on the pill, there is a good chance she will no longer be after, because it changes her hormones. So, if you want a woman who is less interested in sex, less stimulated from sex due to a shrunken clitoris, and a woman who suffers from vaginal dryness then by all means, put her on the pill. Here is a recent podcast episode I had bookmarked with Dr. Sarah Gottfried who is famous for writing the book, "The Hormone Cure", I'll bold the goodies about the birth control pill.
I'm currently a us medical student so I'll leave my 2 cents here. Again these are all prescription medications so its always best to speak to your own personal physician to learn about whats works best as they will have a better understanding of your health: 1. Cancers The evidence of increased breast cancer is dodgy at best. Large prospective cohort studies (with sample sizes in the tens of thousands) have shown that there is no association between oral contraceptives (OCPs) and increased breast cancer. If anything, they reduce the risk of getting cancers in the ovaries and uterus. http://www-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.pitt.idm.oclc.org/pubmed?term=17855280 http://www-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.pitt.idm.oclc.org/pubmed?term=9051324 http://www-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.pitt.idm.oclc.org/pubmed?term=24090961 2. Sexual dysfunction The role of testosterone in woman's sex drive is minimal. If she was attracted to you before, she is not all of a sudden going to be unattracted to you simply because she is taking them. OCPs will not decrease women's sex drive. It may suppress testosterone a little bit but it hasn't been shown to have any adverse effects. This is what they taught us in class: women on oral contraceptives are more likely to be in a sexual relationship and sexual activity may be facilitated by confidence in the ability to be sexually active without becoming pregnant. 3. Vaginal dryness and clitoris I haven't read anywhere that clitoris size is reduced by OCPs so I'll have to look it up. In terms of vaginal dryness, its not an uncommon side effect but it usually subsides after of couple months of starting the pill once the body adjusts to outside sources of hormones you are giving it. 4. Now when would you NOT take birth control pills? The biggest risks to OCPs are heart attacks and formation of blood clots. which can be increased via the following factors. Again, these factors will be assessed by all physicians before they prescibe OCPs: -Smokers, obesity and high blood pressure; There's certain criteria for these so its not an absolute contraindication to taking OCPs. -Family history of heart disease 5. Pharma companies and birth control Not really a huge issue as alot of OCPs have been made generic so there isn't really a financial incentive for physicians to push OCPs on patients.
You're a med student and you think the role of testosterone in a woman's sex drive is minimal? Females with higher free testosterone have higher sex drives and it's pretty much the same with males. Testosterone is THE sex hormone in both sexes. Estrogen plays a role in both sexes as well, but testosterone is the king. The things they teach you in class don't always line up with the most current studies and research out there. They typically teach you older, dated advice which isn't always wrong, but it isn't always current either. You're in med school, that's fine, but the lady I quoted is a doctor, did the research, and wrote a book on this stuff, so that's why I said in my original sentence, for people to do the research and not just "that's what my doctor told me" type of research. I think the jury is still out on this but based on my research and that of my wife (who completed med school in Europe), I personally would not recommend the pill to anyone I care about. http://www.amazon.com/The-Hormone-C...8&qid=1396589671&sr=8-1&keywords=hormone+cure Here is another study posted on WebMD regarding testosterone:
I'd like to comment on this. There is so much more to it than a doctor simply pushing OCPs on patients for financial gain. With western medicine, most of the time the studies are done by the company who created the drug and if not, the the studies are done independently, yet paid for by the company who produced the drug. The doctors are then educated in med school based on these studies, so when a doctor prescribes something, they are really doing it a lot of the times based on what they really believe and not for financial gain. Then, later after the patent runs out, the generics come along as you say but the doctor has already been educated in med school based on the incorrect study provided by the drug company.... and not all doctors stay up to date on the more recent studies so they end up giving incorrect, dated advice to their patients and it's completley innocent and not malicious advice, just incorrect.
Trust me... education in medicine is the MOST up to date information out there. Everything they teach is evidence-based drawing on the most current studies/research that has been done. The effects that OCPs have on testosterone IS minimal. Studies have shown this. Sorry but a sensationalist book based on anecdotal evidence is not how we learn in medical school. It might be a good base to start for the majority of the population but it is not scientific. Keep in mind that one doctor writing this book for sales is not should not be a substitute for information from the hundreds of peer-reviewed studies that have shown otherwise.
I hope you see this as a healthy debate and maybe we can both learn something from each other. I applaud you for being in med school and respect you for it. Luckily with the invention of the internet we can all go out to pubmed and look at the studies on birth control, breast cancer, and the role of testosterone in the female sex drive and the role that the birth control pill plays in decreasing that testosterone, so you're not learning anything in class that we can't go out and read for ourselves - so it's not like you have some insider information that the rest of us do not have simply because you're in med school. And there is a big distinction here regarding testosterone. The pill doesn't so much decrease a woman's overall testosterone numbers, however it does decrease her "free testosterone" greatly which is a more important number - and I didn't see you distinguish this in your comments. Why are you calling a book written by a doctor which cites each study it draws it's information from sensationalist with anecdotal evidence? Studies = evidence.
Birth Control Pills Shown to Alter Structure of Women's Brains http://www.popsci.com/science/artic...rol-pills-shown-alter-structure-womens-brains A new study explores the surprising cognitive effects of contraception You aren't yourself anymore. It's a familiar complaint heard by women who have recently gone on birth control pills. Now studies are providing evidence for what many of those women, and the men who love them, have long known intuitively: the pill can alter the female brain, making a woman act like a different person. The pill turned 50 this year, and it has gone through many iterations since the Food and Drug Administration gave the pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle a green light to market the first oral contraceptive on June 23, 1960. Drug companies continually roll out contraceptives containing lower doses of hormones and entailing fewer side effects. But women who have gone on hormones can point to the effects that have stubbornly endured: moodiness, depression, decreased libido. (This last one makes some birth control pills perversely effective. Not only do they protect you from pregnancy if you do have sex, they also zap your desire to have sex in the first place -- and turn you into an unstable mess, which may in turn zap your partner's interest in sex.) But believe it or not, we still know very little about the consequences of taking daily hormones on a woman's brain. That is changing, say Craig H. Kinsley and Elizabeth A. Meyer in Scientific American. They point to a recent study in the journal Brain Research comparing the brains of women on birth control pills with brains of other women and men. When the study's authors examined high-resolution images of participants' brains, they found the women on hormones showed more matter in some areas of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with cognitive activities like decision-making. The Brain Research study prompted breathless news reports suggesting that the pill makes you smarter. But Kinsley and Meyer point out that the brain works like a "neural beehive," and disturbing one part of the hive could impact the other. The fact that one brain region becomes larger than the next does not mean a woman on hormones is more intelligent or effective. It is also possible that her brain is going haywire. (Kinsley and Meyer actually use the word "catawampus.") That may be why in some situations estrogen has been shown to impair performance in rats. Other studies have suggested that the pill may change a woman's preferences to the point of affecting her taste in men. They compare the pill to steroids, which are known to cause increased aggression in men. Could the stints of hyper-masculine behavior known as "'roid rage" have their equivalent in women? Hopefully future studies will shed light on what many couples know to be intuitively true.
Birth Control Pills Affect Women's Taste in Men http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/birth-control-pills-affect-womens-taste/ This year 2.25 million Americans will get married—and a million will get divorced. Could birth control be to blame for some of these breakups? Recent research suggests that the contraceptive pill—which prevents women from ovulating by fooling their body into believing it is pregnant—could affect which types of men women desire. Going on or off the pill during a relationship, therefore, may tempt a woman away from her man. It’s all about scent. Hidden in a man’s smell are clues about his major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes, which play an important role in immune system surveillance. Studies suggest that females prefer the scent of males whose MHC genes differ from their own, a preference that has probably evolved because it helps offspring survive: couples with different MHC genes are less likely to be related to each other than couples with similar genes are, and their children are born with more varied MHC profiles and thus more robust immune systems. A study published in August in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, however, suggests that women on the pill undergo a shift in preference toward men who share similar MHC genes. The female subjects were more likely to rate these genetically similar men’s scents (via a T-shirt the men had worn for two nights) as pleasant and desirable after they went on the pill as compared with before. Although no one knows why the pill affects attraction, some scientists believe that pregnancy—or in this case, the hormonal changes that mimic pregnancy—draws women toward nurturing relatives. Women who start or stop taking the pill, then, may be in for some relationship problems. A study published last year in Psychological Science found that women paired with MHC-similar men are less sexually satisfied and more likely to cheat on their partners than women paired with MHC-dissimilar men. So a woman on the pill, for example, might be more likely to start dating a MHC-similar man, but he could ultimately leave her less sexually satisfied. Then if she goes off the pill during the relationship, the accompanying hormonal changes will draw her even more strongly toward more MHC-dissimilar men. These immune genes may have a “powerful effect in terms of how well relationships are cemented,” says University of Liverpool psychologist Craig Roberts, co-author of the August paper.
Sure there are some physicians that may not stay up to date on the most current information. I do understand your concern on the latter paragraph of physicians not staying up to date so thank you for bringing it up. It's actually an issue that they brought up in school since we I first started so they've been hammering it into our heads to always read up on the latest stuff. And yes, the initial studies are funded by the big pharm companies but the route from drug conception to its introduction to the market is rigorous and requires years of analysis and scrutiny by the FDA before it is approved. Heck even after approval there are many post-market surveillance studies that may or may not be funded by the pharm company. But the pharm thing is a whole other story I don't really want to get into since we're on the topic of OCPs. I agree with you and I apologize for making it my comment come out as "insider" information which is not my intent at all. You're right, free testosterone is decreased as a result of OCPs but this has not been shown to demonstrate sexual dysfunction. I should've have clarified my comment to say that the sexual side effects due to OCPs are minimal instead of testosterone being minimal in a woman's sex drive. But in terms of oral contraceptives, they've been out for decades and their benefits far outweigh the side effects. It may not work best for everyone, but there are always different formulations/alternatives. Anyways, good discussion and thanks for sharing the articles. It's late and I've got to get some shut eye. Let's end this discussion here. I will defer to you due to your experiences with your wife in this field. I hope "htwnbandit" will learn from these and make an informed decision based on what we have discussed. I'll definitely read up on the links that you have posted and learn more the issue.
Yeah I don't know what sample size was used but I wouldn't be so quick to apply the results to the majority of women. The #1 benefit I have heard from women using it is w/regard to lighter menstruation. I've been around enough women that have it horrible around that time of the month and the pill has worked very well for them. Re. interest in sex? Yeah, I'm sure other factors can weigh into that as opposed to merely placing that on the pill. Vaginal dryness? I guess that's why there's a market for lube. Man, all the side effects listed are all possibilities like there are possible side effects for ANY other drug out there that people take daily or weekly or seasonally or whenever. I'm no medical student. I'm not married to an OB/GYN although perhaps I'll consult with physicians in my family and get their thoughts on this. From my perspective and experience, I can't co-sign with your thoughts on this topic. It'd be nice if a few of the CF ladies would chime in on this topic. Lady Di, Isabel, 00Rocketgirl, etc. where are ya'll on this?
