Entocort and BC

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jmayk8
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Entocort and BC

Post by jmayk8 »

can entocort make my birth control ineffective? There wasn't anything explained about that on my rx sheet and i forgot to ask my dr/pharmacist...
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tex
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Post by tex »

I'm not aware that any of the common corticosteroids will affect the performance of a contraceptive, but the opposite effect is a concern - most corticosteroids are affected by oral contraceptives. IOW, the blood levels of cortisol are increased by oral contraceptives, which suggests that the contraceptive increases the absorptivity of corticosteroids. Prednisone, for example is significantly affected, (131% increase, as you can see from the research abstract at the following link). That means that in effect, the Prednisone will be more than twice as potent, as it was intended to be. Fortunately, though, the effect on budesonide is minimal, so Entocort will not be significantly affected.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10801246

I would make a wild guess that due to the 22% increase in serum levels of cortisol, when Entocort is used concurrently with a contraceptive, the risk of side effects would be increased by roughly that amount. That's still nothing to be concerned about, though, because the risk is relatively low to begin with - much lower than with Prednisone, or any of the other corticosteroids, for example.

Also, be aware that several members have found that contraceptives trigger MC symptoms for them - even the transdermal patches, for some women.

Tex
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Gabes-Apg
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Post by Gabes-Apg »

another consideration is that if your digestion process is not functioning 100% then your ability to absorb the dosage of the contraceptive pill may be compromised.

I had to stop oral contracptives 13 years ago when my IBS (?? which could have been MC) was quite bad, as i was not absorbing them
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tex
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Post by tex »

Gabes wrote:another consideration is that if your digestion process is not functioning 100% then your ability to absorb the dosage of the contraceptive pill may be compromised.
That's certainly a possibility.

Tex
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It is suspected that some of the hardest material known to science can be found in the skulls of GI specialists who insist that diet has nothing to do with the treatment of microscopic colitis.
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