The combined oral contraceptive pill (the Pill)

Last updated 05 Jul 2010, review date due 05 Jul 2012

The following information applies to you if you take carbamazepine, eslicarbazepine acetate, oxcarbazepine, phenobarbital, phenytoin, primidone, rufinamide or topiramate.

If you want to try the Pill, your doctor may suggest you follow these three steps, to make it work better:

take a version of the Pill that contains at least 50 micrograms of oestrogen; and
take the Pill all the time without the usual seven day break each month; and
take a version of the Pill which has at least twice the amount of progestogen than usual.

If you have bleeding during the time that you are taking the Pill, this could be a sign that the Pill is not working very well. In this case, your doctor may increase the dose of oestrogen to 75 micrograms or 100 micrograms each day.

Even if you take a higher dose of the Pill, it might still not work very well. For this reason, your doctor might advise you to use condoms as well, until they can be sure that the Pill would prevent you from getting pregnant. The doctor can check this by giving you blood tests at certain times of the month. The blood tests would show if the Pill has stopped you from ovulating (releasing an egg). This would mean that you can’t get pregnant.