In everyone’s mind, oral contraceptives are hormonal, make you fat, cause breast cancer and cause all kinds of adverse reactions, however, is this really true? In fact, oral contraceptives are one of the most widely used and safest drugs in the world. In addition to contraception, they have many benefits that can effectively improve a woman’s quality of life.
Proper and effective use of oral contraceptives can even reduce the overall tumor incidence in women and improve survival rates. Today, let me talk to you about the benefits of oral contraceptives.
I. What are oral contraceptives?
The oral contraceptive pill is a short-acting drug containing low doses of estrogen and progestin that inhibits ovarian ovulation function by being taken continuously to provide effective contraception. In addition to protecting women’s reproductive health and their right to choose their own fertility, oral contraceptives have many benefits beyond contraception.
The oral contraceptive pill was one of the most important inventions of the 20th century, with the world’s first single-progestin oral contraceptive pill introduced in 1933 and the world’s first estrogen-containing combination oral contraceptive pill introduced in 1960. In the short span of 50 years since then, oral contraceptives have been updated to include more and more efficient progestins, less and less estrogen, a dosing regimen that is closer to the normal physiological cycle, and fewer and fewer adverse reactions. In short, it is getting better and better.
Second, what are the contraceptive pills?
There are many kinds of contraceptive pills, some of the most common varieties in China include Mafulong, Mecinlab, Mindin even, Eusemin, Eusyue and so on. There is also Daing-35 which is more often used by dermatologists to treat skin lesions such as acne and hirsutism. These oral contraceptives work in a similar way, each with its own characteristics. Mafron has the most prominent price advantage.
Eusebio is the sister of Eusebio, but the continuous dosing time is extended from 21 days to 24 days, which can better maintain the blood concentration and avoid irregular bleeding.
Third, what are the benefits of contraceptive pills?
In addition to effective contraception, there are many additional benefits of oral contraceptives, let me slowly explain.
1. Adjustment of menstrual cycle and treatment of abnormal uterine bleeding
Many abnormal uterine bleeding is caused by ovarian ovulatory dysfunction. For such patients, COC can be safely used to control bleeding and adjust the menstrual cycle, provided that other organic pathologies are excluded. Especially in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome, more and more young women are now suffering from polycystic ovary syndrome due to factors such as improved standard of living, change in diet and lack of exercise. If no intervention is made, not only may there be heavy bleeding causing severe anemia, but it may even lead to abnormal endometrial hyperplasia or even cancer.
Oral contraceptive pills can both effectively adjust the menstrual cycle and effectively protect the endometrium by taking them periodically, and can inhibit the ineffective ovulation of the ovaries to effectively protect ovarian function, so that when you plan to have children in the future, you can try to conceive in the first cycle of discontinuing oral contraceptive pills.
2.Ease the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome
Before menstruation due to the influence of hormones, many women will appear anxiety, headache, breast pain and other discomfort, for this type of premenstrual syndrome, although COC is not the first-line drugs, but if the selective pentothal inhibitors do not work well, you can try oral contraceptives containing drospirenone (Eusebio or Eusebio) many times can also play an effective role in relieving.
3, skin acne and hirsutism
Acne and hirsutism are mostly related to abnormally high androgens in the body, acne on the face, sweat hair on the arms and dark and dense, which is the nightmare of many young girls who love beauty.
Don’t worry, there are oral contraceptives to help you! Basically all progestin-containing oral contraceptives have effective therapeutic effects, the most used at present is Daing-35, as the cyproterone acetate it contains has a strong anti-androgen effect.
It should be noted that since the appearance of skin lesions is not an overnight result, treatment is also a long-term project, usually requiring more than 6 months of treatment before the results appear. Therefore, young girls should not worry, even if you are not married and your doctor prescribes you oral contraceptives, we are here to make the girl more beautiful.
4, dysmenorrhea and chronic pelvic pain
Dysmenorrhea is a common symptom that affects a woman’s quality of life. Many causes can cause dysmenorrhea, including endometriosis, adenomyosis, etc. Ovulation is an important reason for the occurrence of dysmenorrhea. Oral contraceptives can relieve dysmenorrhea by inhibiting ovulation and reducing menstrual flow. In addition, the frequency of menstrual flow can be reduced by taking 2-3 cycles of oral contraceptives continuously under the guidance of a doctor to reduce the occurrence of dysmenorrhea.
For chronic pelvic pain, COC is more likely to reduce the occurrence of chronic pelvic pain due to inflammation by preventing abortion and reducing the chance of pelvic inflammatory infection.
5.Treatment and prevention of endometriosis and adenomyosis
Endometriosis and adenomyosis are estrogen-dependent diseases, but COC contains very low levels of estrogen and can prevent endometriosis by lowering the level of estrogen in the body, especially for women who do not require fertility, and can prevent endometriosis by using oral contraceptives after surgical removal of ovarian endometrioid cysts. endometriosis.
Many women with adenomyosis have dysmenorrhea and excessive menstrual flow, and COC is also effective in reducing menstrual flow and treating dysmenorrhea.
6.Reducing the absolute risk of tumor
Large-scale population survey found that COC can reduce the absolute risk of malignant tumors in women by about 10-45/100,000 woman-years, and the risk of ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer and colorectal cancer have been clearly reduced. For breast cancer, which is a major concern, there appears to be an increased risk of occurrence, but it does not reach a statistical difference. Rather, there was an increase in the incidence of cervical cancer. In this regard, we say that for cervical cancer prevention, condoms should be a better choice.
Fourth, will oral contraceptives affect fertility?
Of course not. The correct use of oral contraceptives can be up to 99% of the contraceptive effect. This can effectively avoid the occurrence of unwanted pregnancy including ectopic pregnancy and reduce the occurrence of various complications and pelvic infections due to abortion. At the same time, the powerful menstrual regulation function of oral contraceptives can prevent the occurrence of diseases such as abnormal endometrial hyperplasia mentioned earlier. In short, it protects your reproductive function in a 360 degree way.
Oral contraceptives are short-acting agents that are quickly metabolized and cleared by the body. Therefore, you can get pregnant in the second month after you stop using oral contraceptives. Oral contraceptives themselves do not have the risk of causing fetal malformation, even if they are inadvertently taken during early pregnancy, they will not increase the risk of fetal malformation.
V. How long can I take oral contraceptives?
In healthy women, oral contraceptives can be taken until pre-menopause. Here is a point to remind you that the most serious adverse effect of oral contraceptives is thrombosis, and the risk of thrombosis is highest in the first three months of taking oral contraceptives or the first three months of restarting after stopping the pill, and gradually decreases with the extension of the time of continuing to take it.
Therefore, it is recommended that if you start taking oral contraceptives, it is safer to continue to use the drug.
Six, what kind of situation can not use oral contraceptives?
The biggest risk of oral contraceptives is thrombosis, that is, blood clotting in the blood vessels, don’t think it’s just a small and insignificant clot, which may cause serious life-threatening risks. For example, the formation of a clot in the brain or heart can cause a brain infarction or myocardial infarction, and if the clot is dislodged from a large blood vessel, it can cause a pulmonary embolism with a very high mortality rate.
But don’t worry, as long as we correctly recognize the possible risks of oral contraceptives and identify people at risk for blood clots to avoid taking oral contraceptives. The risk of blood clots from oral contraceptives is extremely low in a normal healthy population, and the benefits of using oral contraceptives far outweigh the possible risks.