Started placebo too early now what!?

I have to ask: Why are you calling it 'placebo?'

You clearly DO NOT know what a placebo is. There is a serious lack of understanding here.

By definition, a placebo cannot have any medical effect on a person. A placebo pill usually is a sugar pill.


Are you asking about a prescription birth control? If you are in fact asking about birth control (which is literally the opposite of a placebo ... because you have a great % of becoming pregnant using a placebo)? Talk to a planned parenting counselor or nurse or doctor.

Don't waste time asking medical advice from unregistered and untrained professionals. In our TOS or terms of service, we aren't supposed to give medical advice anyways.

Messing around with birth controls and getting unprofessional medical advice can likely lead to unwanted pregnancies (which is the literal opposite of why you are taking contraceptives in the first place).

I’d check very quickly with a medical person. Do you have phone advice available where you are?

I’d take the real pill for a few days and do a pregnancy test as soon as possible....I’m not sure when a pregnancy would be detectable though, another good reason to seek informed advice.

You may need to get a new pill prescription to ensure you can keep taking it normally.

You don’t HAVE to take the sugar pills...missing them won’t make you sick or anything.

Why are people focusing on whether placebo is correct nomenclature?

The pill comes with a certain number of non active pills so you have an apparent period. So people don’t make mistakes, the non active pills allow you to just take a pill every day....makes it easier to remember. Doesn’t matter what you call them, really, technically they aren’t placebos, because nobody is testing to see if they have less effect than pills with an active ingredient. But it’s not a drama if someone calls them placebo pills.

That isn’t what matters here.

Actually, I vaguely recall the doctors describing the sugar pills as placebo pills, back when I used that form of birth control.

I remember thinking fleetingly that it was a slightly odd description, but it’s no biggie.

For those questioning the placebo -
Yes this is correct - when you get a pack of monthly pills - there are 3 weeks of pills that are "active" pills in a sense. And then one week of sugar or placebo pills. This is set up so you are in the habit of taking the pill each day and so you don't forget where you are in the cycle. When you take the week of placebo pills is typically when you get your period.

Then after that week you start a new monthly pill package where you again repeat the cycle. I used to just not take the one week of sugar/placebo pills - they do nothing other than be a reminder for you mentally. I tended to remember so I just didn't take them.

In this case yes, there is always a chance. Depending on the dosage some birth control pills have a higher dosage than others - but overall it usually takes 3 months to rid your body of the entire effect of the pill - however, there are people that do get pregnant right away - most though it takes the 3 months.

I would see a doctor or at least take an at home pregnancy test which are pretty well accurate.