AboutDr. Ravindra Bhaskar Ghooi Expertise I can provide information on drugs and medicines, their actions, uses, interactions and adverse effects. To avoid confusion, generic names of
medicines may please be provided. I am a pharmacologist, having worked
on animal and human pharmacology, and presently I am the Dean of Bilcare Research Academy, where we teach courses on clinical research. We dont work on saturdays and sundays, hence questions reachng me on these days will be replied on Monday, please bear with me.
Question hello Dr. Ravindra Bhaskar Ghooi i would like to ask you a simple question last month i took the perlutal shot but i was told to put it on the 1st day of my period so i did but then i read the instructions and said it has to be but on the 8th day and i put it on the 1st day of my period then they told me to put the next one exactly on 28 days and i did it but my question is am i safe even though i put it on the 1st day and then the other one 28 days later???
Answer Hi Eveling,
Yes you are safe, let me explain why.
When the bleeding begins, this point is the beginning of a new cycle. Firstly an ovum starts maturing and it comes out of the ovary around the 10th day, from teh 10th to the 14th day the ovm is in the fallopian tubes and that is the time conception can take place. If it does not, the ovum and the utering lining begins to deteriorate and by in another 14 days the bleeding begins, marking the end of the cycle.
Contaceptives like Perlutal contain both estrogen and progesterone, which inhibt or prevent the maturation of the ova. A slight variation in the schedule does not mean that the woman immediately is at risk of pregnancy.
However, the literature which comes with the package will never say that change in schedules is without risk. If it did so, then nobody would follow the schedule and there will be unwanted pregnancies. To avoud such a situation the advice given is specific and demands compliance, none the less a small variation here and there is without effects.
Statistically we know that no woman is 100 % compliant with the advice, yet we do not get unwanted pregnancies at a rate higher than 1%, that speaks of the efficacy of the drugs used, despite the minor failure to follow the instruction exactly.
I hope my explanation is simple enough.
Ravi Ghooi
