God I wish I could. Unfortunately hormonal birth control in all forms makes me a psychopath. I'd like to avoid killing my friends and family. I just simply do not have the freezer space.

It would be nice if these researchers came up with something for men. Goddess forbid, men have to take something to stop the onslaught of little rugrats!

When I went on birth control, I insisted on the Depo shot because it was the only option at the time that had a really good chance of stopping my period. I've never been happier--no cramps, no migraines, no mess every month.
The girls at work insist its bad birth control since without a period I can't be sure I'm not pregnant. My argument is that I'm correctly using a birth control product so odds are very slim that I could get pregnant (not to mention I also use condoms to be safer from disease so the odds are even slimmer that I'll have an unplanned pregnancy).

Relying on a period to tell you whether you're pregnant seems a bit iffy ... it only comes once a month. Buy a test whenever you want. Simple.

But periods have served as handy excuses and out clauses.

so much for the rhythm method!
(if anyone still uses that...)

I can picure many women hearing the phrase, "no period" and they'll raid their pharmacy just to get these pills. I think its a woman's dream for many to hear that they won't have periods.

Periods are a terrible way to tell if your pregnant or not. For one some people HAVE gotten their period and still been pregnant, and likewise many women dont get it and are not.

If your using it right, and exhibit none of the signs (of which there are many) that your knocked up... chances are, your not knocked up.

That's not right. Cramps, headaches, bloating. mood swings, and irritability be damned: I still think you are supposed to have a period every month or two. How else will you know everything's in working order?

Yay!
No throwing up once a month, and feeling like clawing the nearest person's eyeballs out, and having a RAVING chocolate obsession!
A cheer, anyone?

@cgmaetc:

im gonna have to agree with you, its one thing to prevent pregnancy by tricking your body into think its already pregnant..its totally different to stop nature all together.

What happens when you're on this pill for a year or two or 3 and suddenly...you never get a period again? You can never have children. Your body is no longer working properly.

Telling nature no is never a good idea. Stopping something that is suppose to happen to the body every 30 or so days cant be healthy and i dont care if a Doctor says otherwise. There is a damn good reason Women evolved the way they did and if nature wants you to have a period every month you might want to listen.

If I took this pill, I would be in a permanent state of PMS. And that's no good at all.

@LuvJones

I had typed out a big thing about how I'd LOVE to take a pill instead of using condoms (since my wife's anti-seizure meds don't get along well with hormonal birth control), and it was all very angry, but then I found out that the U of Washington, right here in Seattle, has a freaking "Male Contraception Research Center" and now I just wanna get myself in on some trials.

Anything to keep my cranky "Aunt B" from visiting every month, eating all my icecream, downing all my chocolate, giving me a serious migrain, being a mess and a pain in the crotch? I'm all for it!

Having a period is NOT "reassuring" and is NOT a good indicator of not being pregnant. Every single woman that I know that got pregnant has said that she had what she thought was her period and that she was "out of the woods" when in actuality it wasn't her period but breakthrough bleeding: she was actually pregnant! So any woman who solely relies on having a period to be a real indicator that she isn't pregnant isn't all that wise... You should be using condoms in conjuntion with a pill/shot/patch not only to be near 100% sure that you won't concieve but to also protect yourself from all those nasty STDs.

P(M)S: They should really come up with a pill for MEN. Why is it that women are only 50% of the equation but are forced to deal with 100% of the hassle and responsibility?!?

@LuvJones:

Well, they did try to come up with a Male Birth Control Pill. They tried it out at the same time that they did the trials for the female birth control. Three women died and one man experienced testicular shrinkage. As a result they abandoned the concept of a male birth control pill and just lowered the dose for women before releasing it to the market. Nothing like pumping your body full of 40,000 times the amount of hormones that you would normally have. Long live unbiased science!

I've been hearing a bunch of buzz about this in the last few days, and I've got to say that I don't understand why this seems like such a new, foreign idea to people.

I've been period-free on Depo Provera for the past five years, and I couldn't be happier. One injection every three months, a 99.7% effectiveness rate, no daily pills to miss, combined with being in a long-term monogamous relationship is about as worry-free as sex gets these days.

Don't get me wrong, I think women should be supported in making whatever personal choices they feel comfortable with, and I also think that it's important to have open dialogue about any hormonal drug's risks and benefits, and to hold the pharmaceutical companies accountable for the long-term safety and other possible effects.

On the other hand though, it seems like a lot of women have a very gut-level negative response to this idea that I just don't really understand. To me, the quality of life improvement during that otherwise miserable 1 out of every 4 weeks, more than outweighs the very minor risk of undetected pregnancy or nebulous 'loss of femininity' that some women so concerned with.

Almost any birth control pill can be used to skip periods. This has been widely known for a long time. Just skip the green (or whatever color yours are) "dummy" pills that you take when you have your period and go straight to the next pack. I haven't done any research on this (I have an IUD, which also has the added benefit of no period), but I'd guess that all this is is some form of "regular" BC pills with the placebos taken out.

I find it rather amusing that this pill has "suddenly" been approved when women and their doctors have taken advantage of this benefit of the pill for years.

The biggest problem I see with this is that we don't have enough of a long-term view on this to know how it would affect things like cancer risk (or risk of other diseases and conditions).

Also, to everyone calling this a freedom from all period-related symptoms: getting rid of the period doesn't always get rid of the rest of the symptoms. I know several young women who, for medical reasons, don't have any periods. They still get monthly cramps, their mood swings are worse, and they're not much better off for not having a period, save the lack of hemorrhaging.

I'd be interested in seeing some really long-term studies on these, but wouldn't want to take them then, either. Turns out that the hormones in birth control pill give me a blood pressure reading of 170/120.

I am part of the minority and would like to keep my periods. The main reason why is (for me anyways)it is a litmus test of what is going on with my reproductive organs. I had an ovarian cyst rupture and ever since I have paid more attention to my period. A period can tell you among other things if you have fibroids, are pregnant, endometriosis, pcos, you are stress etc...

I know this is not the same for everybody. I too have known people or read stories of women who have had periods all throughout their pregnancy, but I think it comes down to one thing and that is what works best for your body.

@d0x: I'm going to say you're a man and your stupidity can be excused this once.

I never plan on having kids. I'm not old enough for neutering, so this is great.

Sure, everything might turn out like The Giver, but hell, that's better than bleeding for a week.

@d0x:

Erm...if you are going on the pill you are stopping your period anyway. The bleeding is just there as a placebo, possibly to up Tampax stock? You *are* stopping nature altogether.

I routinely skip the placebo week of my pills just to avoid the hassle. The main reason I ever don't is when it occurs to me that with my insurance, my birth control pills cost a dollar and twenty cents EACH, even the placebo ones, and throwing away a week of them feels wasteful. Tampons are cheaper.

The last website I read about this new drug made the excellent point that since the advent of birth control in the '30s (and not just hormonal birth control, any birth control), the average woman has four hundred and fifty periods. Before that, we spent most of our time either pregnant or breastfeeding, and the average woman had fifty periods. In her life. Total.

I've had twenty years, so at least two hundred and forty. Mindblowing. If I can be done, I'm done.

An author who I really enjoy reading wrote a short story about this. I recommend it mostly because it is an entertaining, amusing story, but also because it won the Hugo in 1993 for Best Short Story:
Connie Willis: "Even the Queen"

@philosobrat: I would love to see a source for your claims, since every study I have looked up has said nothing of the sort. The biggest issue with a male pill is the differences between a man and a woman.

The female pill only has to block one, maybe two eggs (on those rare occasions) who have a roughly 20-34 day cycle. The male pill has to stop millions of sperm that regenerate within minutes.

That and the fact research has only recently started to tackle the issue the reason we dont have a male pill yet. Its too bad too, I would take one in a instant since my fiance has adverse effects to many of the pills, and for a time couldnt take all of them because her gyno didnt like the combination of medicine she was on.

@d0x: "There is a damn good reason Women evolved the way they did and if nature wants you to have a period every month you might want to listen."

I disagree. Characteristics don't always evolve for any particular purpose. Many extraneous and outright negative characteristics come about as a consequence of some other evolutionary event.

For example, we evolved to walk upright and to have the largest brain/body ratio of any animal, both of which are undeniably advantageous. But as a consequence, babies must pass through a rather narrow opening in the pelvis, putting both the mother and child in significant danger. No other species has so much trouble with birthing, and most mammals are born nearly fully functional whereas we come out rather feeble.

Cesarean births are, essentially, bypassing nature. You would have a hard time convincing me that this is in anyway bad.

I'm not saying periods aren't important. I have no idea really. But there is no support for the conclusion that anything nature produces is purposeful or beneficial.

Still, I understand your reluctance to give up your period (or so I claim). I've actually had a vasectomy, but if it were to result in nothing being ejaculated I would never have considered it even though it is just for show now.

As others have said this stuff is no different than the regular pill, it's just packaged differently. I've intentionally skipped periods before by just not taking the placebos and starting a new pack, usually because of a vacation or other even it would get in the way of.

It works, but for the next month, the usually very minor side effects I get from the pill (bloating, breast enlargement and tenderness) increase like ten-fold. They don't subside until I get my period the next time around, and by then it's quite a relief.

So while I think there are plenty of women this will work quite well and safely for, it's not for me-- you just have to know your own body.

I wonder how long it will take before Lybrel is associated with an increased risk of endometrial (uterine) cancer?

I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but I wouldn't recommend Lybrel to anyone who has any personal or family history of any female hormone irregularities or who would like to become pregnant at a later date.

As a PCOS sufferer, I have become much more appreciative of my periods lately.

I've heard that these, "No period" birth control methods cause spotting, because there is never a period. Is there any truth to this? Or were the other kids at the playground lying to me?

@kingofmars: I realize that I only count as anecdotal evidence, but with the Depo, I had light, semi-random spotting for the first 4 or 5 months I was on it, but I've been spot-free since then.

@tinychicken:

Men birth control. Imagine you are going to sleep with a guy and you ask "did you take your birth control?"

"Yeah baby, of course I did."

Sure, it could go both ways, but who is more likely to use that line?

Comment Audition (crosses fingers!)

This is a subject I'm VERY interested in and I've been reading as many articles about this particular pill as I could find for the past hour or so. I hate hate HATE having a period with a voracity that has no equal on this earth. That's why when I was 19, I started taking Depo Provera. It was awesome, my periods stopped pretty much right away (they were irregular to begin with) and I never even had "spotting." I'll be 23 in about 2 weeks and I just switched to the pill for two reasons: it's a lot harder to lose weight on depo and it was making my hair fall out. I know these 2 side effects aren't common, and I really hope the other gals on this site that use it never get them, but they definitely got to me. Now I'm on the pill. And I hate it. But I love my hair more.

To the commenter above who was wondering about spotting, most of the articles I read today mentioned that you may be losing a period, but you're getting spotting in return. I can't find it now, but an almost verbatim quote was "trading expected bleeding for unexpected bleeding."

I'm gonna ask my doc about skipping the placebo pills every cycle cuz that sounds delightful. And I don't have to pay for them! Thank god for being a broke minority in Maricopa County!

I've been skipping periods using birth control pills for 10 years with no side effects other than very infrequent spotting (once or twice a year, maybe). I've gone without a break from the pills for anywhere from 3 months to 1 year. No problems other than remembering when I last had a period. Right now I'm on a 4 packs (21 active pills each) with one week off cycle right now, mostly because it is easier to keep track of breaks.

Honestly, the most annoying thing is explaining to a new health care provider what I'm doing and how the prescription should be written so that my insurance will cover the expense.

Who would ever want to stop getting a period?? The promise of possible accidental leakage would be gone! Sure it hasn't happened to most of us since jr. high, but there's always that fear...you use shop windows as mirrors, surreptitiously drop your phone under the table at lunch. It's the closest to being James Bond you'll ever come. I say YOU because I rock the Bond shit on the daily.

New medicines, especially the ones taken regularly, are always at least a little hazardous, and the hazards can never be known until *after* a large number of human guinea pigs have been taking them for a long time. But on the other hand, if they work to fix some pressing problem, plenty of people are willing to take the risk and be those guinea pigs. All well and good.

But these days the issue is clouded by enormous and incredibly evil drugco campaigns to influence science, government, and media. And even worse, any woman-specific medicine has to contend with the deeply misogynistic history of medicine, because doctors have always tended to be traditionalist and authoritarian, and sexism goes with that.

I'd say the best solutions are to make sure women are better represented among doctors, and to lobby the government to block drug company propaganda. We could join all the other industrialized nations, who don't allow prescription drugs to be marketed to the public. We could use laws to end the culture of drugco bribery of doctors, taking them to free baseball games or yachting trips, with a "brief seminar" about the latest drug, which the doctors insist "doesn't influence them." We could stop drug companies from lobbying legislators and restrict the revolving door between drugcos and the FDA. And we could demand that when some loudmouth Nick Naylor type starts taking industry money and clouding the issue, our government and journalists point out that the emperor has no clothes and laugh him out of town.

Remember Frances Kelsey!

For the woman interested in sterilization, there's a new form out called "Essure." Here's a link to the FDA Talk Paper on it.

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/ANSWERS/2002/ANS01168.html

And here's an excerpt from that paper:

FDA expedited review of the product because of its potential benefit to couples seeking alternative means of sterilization.

During the implantation procedure, the physician inserts one of the devices into each of the two fallopian tubes. This is done with a special catheter that is inserted through the vagina into the uterus, and then into the fallopian tube. The device works by inducing scar tissue to form over the implant, blocking the fallopian tube and preventing fertilization of the egg by the sperm.

During the first three months, women cannot rely on the Essure implants and must use alternate contraception. At the three-month point, women must undergo a final x-ray procedure in which dye is placed in the uterus and an x-ray is taken to confirm proper device placement. Once placement is confirmed, the alternate contraception can be discontinued.

FDA based its approval of the device primarily on a review of two clinical studies of safety and effectiveness conducted by the manufacturer and on the recommendation of the Obstetrics and Gynecological Devices Panel of FDA's Medical Devices Advisory Committee. No serious adverse events were reported from either clinical study.

Doctors can sometimes be persuaded to sterilize you when you're young if you're very articulate and seem to know your own mind.

The depo shot did horrible things to me. You're not supposed to have a period? Mine never ended. I went into crazy depression. I lost weight instead of the suppposed gaining. I took one shot and never went back for another one. Over one year later I am still having periods that are either two or three weeks longs or I'm having one week periods twice a month. I haven't had a sex drive either. I don't have insurance and I can't afford to go bac to Planned Parenthood or any other womens clinic.

After this experience with birth control, I'm terrified to take anything else. I don't know if my body could handle any more estrogen!! But stop my period?? Yes, god, please stop it.

If only I could rip out my uterus. I want to adopt anyways.

I'm going to post this again here, because it fits. It especially fits for those that think that having a period once a month, every month, for their long life, is the biological norm.

"Although to be honest, women in our society menstrate much more frequently than their "bush" relatives. Stopping a woman's period completely is a bit outrageous, but to limit its numbers is not all that out there. There is nothing wrong with having a period, but because women aren't having children as frequently as some, the number of periods they have is much higher than is perfectly safe elsewhere."

@superlayne: Men get neutered, women get spayed. It's a detail that would help your point substantially.

Women weren't MEANT to have a period every month. We were meant to get pregnant easily and stay pregnant or breastfeeding (which, itself, often prevents ovulation). I think there's probably less harm for women in the long run to fake their bodies into thinking they're constantly pregnant and not bleeding than actually having a normal, non-birth controlled period monthly. The only hesitation I have is that any new chemical/drug can have unforseen side effects.

I agree with the other Depo users and have always been mystified by my other female friends when I hear them talking about their HORRIBLE periods. I have been on Depo for about 10 years, I'm 28 and haven't had a period since I was 17. I couldn't be happier. I don't see ANY reason or advantage to having a period. Perhaps the women that want to get their periods don't have the horrible, messy, stressful PAINFUL periods that last 5-6 days...I did and I don't miss them!
MonkeySwitch -- Most Planned Parenthoods have a plan where you submit your paystubs or school schedule and you can get free care or at the very least sliding scale based care. Check into it, there is no reason for you to have to live like that! They will help you.

@LuvJones: I read a year or two ago that Planned Parenthood offers men "temporary vasectomies." Who knows if they really are temporary? But essentially, they just wrapped their man juice tubes up with some rubber bands and BAM, their good to go.

@davere: That's a great laugh. I could just imagine my boyfriend doing that. He routinely forgets to take his allergy medicine and he'll be miserably and I'll ask, "Did you remember to take your pill?" and He'll respond "of course I did. It just hasn't kicked in yet." Then I'll hear him a few minutes later in the bathroom taking his pills.

On last thing. I have a question for all the Depo users:

Is it true that the shot makes your food craving go sky high and that the shot also makes you break out a lot? I've hear these rumors from friend and I wanted to know if they really were rumors.

Life is so much more fun as a model.

It's shocking how much coke you can buy with the money you would ordinarily spend on such mundane items as tampons and birth control. Plus you always feel fabulous.

@superlayne: FYI, there's a new hysterectomy where they just remove your uterus and leave the ovaries in tact. No periods and no hormone replacement pills to take. Ask you doctor.

I still say if your period is merely inconvenient (symptoms that can be handled with some Midol and a heating pad), then let to flow. If you suffer from extreme periods, like PPMD, then explore your period-halting options. I hate the process, but I'm willing to deal with it. If I were suffering like I know some women are, I'd definitely consider stopping it all together.

Personally, i like the NuvaRing. The hormones don't have to travel thru my digestive system (the pill makes me nauseated) and are released similar to an IUD, except it's inserted 3 weeks in, 1 week out. It's helped regulate my period, shorten it's length and, decrease my symptoms. Check it out.

@MonkeySwitch: I also got the never-ending period of Hell when I was on Depo. I called the OB/GYN and I got attitude from one of the nurses who told me that "irregularity is a normal side effect". I told her "it isn't irregular, it's every damn day". I ended up with a very heavy period every day for 5 months.

It was really effective birth control though- my boyfriend didn't want to have sex with me.

My best birth control method- my husband got a vasectomy (as a wedding present to me). Not for everyone, but it isn't as bad as a lot of men think.

I'm very skeptical of this drug simply because I had a horrible time on Depo. I didn't have monthly periods on Depo. Instead, I had months of daily spotting and light bleeding in addition to cramps and horrible mood swings. A monthly period was preferrable to the mess that Depo turned me into.

My brother got a vasectomy sometime after his third kid. My insurance doesn't cover it, but it'd only be a $550 charge and a weekend off work (icing the nuts afterwards). But I'm not 100% sure I don't want kids, maybe only 99%. I hear that vasectomies are reversible though...

@JesusOnAPogoStick: Regarding whether Depo makes you crave food and break out-- it all depends on how sensitive you are to estrogen/progesterone. If the oral ("regular") pill gives you lots of side effects, then you'd probably do really badly on Depo since it's a big honking dose of hormones at once that then lasts over the next three months.

I'm pretty sensitive to hormones (a lot of pills gave me side effects, I did better on low-dose ones like Yasmin), so I think Depo would hit me like some of the posters here (neverending period, etc). Other posters have bodies that can obviously handle the high dose of Depo without issue; more power to them and I'm more than a little jealous.

I will add one more vote to the Nuva-Ring. Nice, low dose that's slowly released without taking the pill, and very few side effects (some bloating that gets bad toward the end of the 3 weeks).

Hell, if never having periods sterilizes me, I'd count that as a benefit. If I change my mind about kids, I can always adopt. Win win!