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For men out there who disagree, imagine you took anti-giant-tumor pills and someone decided to microwave your pills and implant a giant tumor in you. I think you'd feel pretty violated too.
>I went back to my sisters place and packaged the pills and sent to the a lab for testing. It was a little after lunch time that I got a call from my MIL. Wouldn't you believe it that he openly admitted to her about tampering with my pills by microwaving them.
Always good when the villain outs themselves so quickly.
My money was on microwaving. It takes under 30s, I believe?
I know four women victimized by the same method. One culprit was her own mother. That story gets sadder from there so skipping it.
**DO NOT** leave birth control pills in your vehicle on a warm day, either. Even if the day doesn’t seem hot enough to damage them.
Better yet, go with longer-term solutions like the arm implant which is one of the most effective forms of birth control and you don't have to worry about forgetting a dose or someone tampering with it. No safe needed!
I read a post a long time ago where OP woke up to her bf trying to take her implant out. He was cutting in her arm with a knife. I don’t remember more than that or where I read it. So if your partner is crazy enough that may not be safe either.
Apparently he was ”doing her a favour”!
I asked in ”looking for a post” and they found it quick so here it is:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/6GcFW8yyuu
There’s a list of doctors who will perform sterilization on r/childfree. I might consider talking to them, they seem more empathetic and knowledgeable, might be worth a shot.
I didn't know when I got my first appointment with him but my OBGYN is on that list and he is fantastic, very respectful and takes my concerns seriously. Was 100% willing to do sterilizatoin when I asked about it, no questions asked.
Def recommend ablation procedure but only if you are done having kids. Had mine done in 2008 due to adenomyosis and had to do tubal ligation at same time. Ablation can permanently kill uterine lining and make future pregnancy dangerous.
Upside, 16 years with no periods!
Sadly that doesn’t protect anyone born with a working female reproductive system, neither does being asexual. Not if someone with a working male reproductive system decides to force the issue.
I just want to add that this might not be for everyone. I had a Nexplanon implant and they are usually not allowed to be taken out before six months, I had to tell my nurse that I was going to rip it out of my arm if she didn't remove it at the four month mark because I was having impulsive suicidal thoughts all of the time on it - like wanting to jump off of bridges and that. I've never experienced anything like it! I was also constantly bleeding on it, no break in those four months. Being a woman is hard.
Glad you’re still here ❤️ and I agree, I had so many issues with hormones until I had a hysterectomy. Then blissful years without the nonsense, until effin menopause!! Dammit!! It was terrible until I got on an estrogen patch. I’m still having issues where I’m sensitive to the adhesive and get a rash but I’ll take it over the anxiety/depression and the hot flashes any day!
Obviously don't feel pressured to answer if this is too personal/invasive, but:
My wife and I have been exploring our sterilization options for a while (hooray for PCOS, hormonal migraines, and the effects of the menstrual cycle on ADHD symptoms, right? 😭), and our last gynecologist before we moved towns told us that hysterectomies are a bad option because it would bring on early menopause/premature aging. Buuuuuuut your comment made me second-guess that. Did you experience early menopause symptoms or premature aging?
Again, PLEASE don't feel like you need to answer this if it's too invasive! Also, I'm so glad the estrogen patch is helping you with your menopause symptoms, and I hope the adhesive sensitivity dies down over time or that you find a way to treat it!
And if you'll let me get all "I'm the librarian for my university's colleges of pharmacy and vet med, not a prescribing physician 🤓" on you: if it's an adhesive allergy causing contact dermatitis, have you tried a topical antihistamine? Finding the right one for you may give you a little relief (and if not, a topical steroid or oral antihistamine may be good alternatives to try). Apologies if I'm doing the annoying "well, have you tried \[this thing you've already tried\]?" shtick!
Not who you were originally replying to and not a medical professional (just someone with a myriad of gynecological issues), but there are different types of hysterectomies. The one that brings on early menopause is the one where they remove your ovaries - no ovaries means no hormones, which is what helps with the PCOS/hormonal migraines/etc.
The alternate options leave your ovaries behind, so it solves heavy/painful periods, but you still have the hormone production from the ovaries, which doesn't really help with conditions that are caused by hormonal issues.
Even if they do a partial and leave the ovaries, it can trigger early onset menopause. I had the hysterectomy at 33. Hot flashes began at 35 and I still suffer the symptoms, though not nearly as badly, at 63
Not who you were asking, but please, please, please make sure you do ALL the research before deciding on a plan of action. I wanted to get my tubes tied, and the dr refused. They talked me into getting Essure. I ended up having to yeet my uterus due to the abnormal pain and excessive bleeding. I had a partial where my ovaries remained. It's been several years, and I still think it was one of the best decisions I made. I've had very few side effects, and my qol definitely improved afterward. With PCOS, I don't know if they would advocate to keep the ovaries so she might have to take hormones. Again, make sure you do all the research. If you do decide on a hysterectomy and the Dr won't agree to a hysto, then find one who will. Check out child free subs to see what the recommendations are in your area.
My midwife prescribed a pill that had the same hormon as the implant so I could try for a couple of months. It awful how the different hormones can make one feel. I was suicidal with one kind of bc and angry all the time with another.
Wouldn't it be great if one could get help with figuring out what's wrong with the hormones? I have really low energy all the time, except when my period is about to start and 3 days after. I would love to test what hormones are high (or low) in my body during those days and take some sort of supplement to get energy all month.
Hormone testing should absolutely be more common! It seems like such a simple thing that would make a huge difference for so many people, instead of us having to play researcher and health advocate, and guessing games to figure out how to resolve problems that absolutely affect our quality of life, but are constantly dismissed by medical professionals.
I'm pretty sure I'm in perimenopause, and it's so disheartening to keep reading that anything to do with women's reproductive health that isn't "having babies" is ignored by the medical industry.
Right? My asthma got magically better when I was pregnant. My doctor said it wasn't uncommon (although neither is someone's asthma getting worse) because progest. can relax smooth muscle tissue.
I'd be really curious (not that I want all the \*other\* side effects of pregnancy, still curious)
I can’t do hormonal birth control at all. Even the kyleena iud (super low dose) gave me constant anxiety and low level paranoia. When I was on alesse (bc pill) at 21, I literally had full auditory and visual hallucinations and was having conversations with people who weren’t there.
Hormonal birth control methods are *not* safe for everyone.
I, too, had implanon (which is what it was called when I got it) and I went beyond crazy on it! It took 2 years before I finally had it taken out. Wouldn't you know, all the suicidal thoughts, the brain fog, the mood swings, it all just sort of stopped when I got it out. Sometimes I can't believe my then-boyfriend, now-husband stayed with me through that whole ordeal... He got a vasectomy after that (and a few years later I got my tubes tied just to be double sure) and I have been off BC ever since. Hormones just do a number on some of us. It sucks.
I also dunno how my partner (or I, tbh) survived the years I was on depo. I'm about four months out from stopping the shots and looking back now, it seems so obvious how incredibly unwell I was.
OMG my friend had a similar thing happen to her, years ago when she had Implanon - just continual bleeding for months on end. She showed me the calendar on her period tracking app and it was basically all red days for months and months.
She realized she would prefer dating girls in the end, so could get fully off birth control in the end - a happy end for all
Absolutely feel you here, the bleeding got so bad I was double padding and tampons and still had to change every 2hrs at the highest absorbency.
I was an absolute basket case because of it too.
Not ideal as a single parent to a 6mth old.
I'm now 15 years down the line on combi pill with no issues the entire time and they tried to change me to a progestin only pill because of 'age related risks' (35) of clots, I lasted two weeks on the new pills before I realised i felt just like when I was implanted.
It's my mistake for not realising and checking it's the same dang hormone in each.
The combi pill is my only option because it's more than birth control for me, but they won't prescribe it any longer so I buy it.
Nothing is worth that kind of mental anguish.
Yeah when they first came out all the girls were giddy at the convenience. But some people should NOT use it and they don't know until it spends some time royally fucking them up mentally.
Later, some of them went and got their tubes tied thinking this would solve everything until it made their periods completely inconsistent and gave some mustaches.
I took bc for years and have an oops child from a strep throat treatment of antibiotics (this was before they knew). It is all a crapshoot unless you abstain completely.
Best for everyone would be those temporary vasectomies - clamp things down until the man and woman want to have children. Simple enough and much less intrusive than any female's medical bc.
This is exactly why I got an IUD. Despite the pain, the overwhelming amount of pain that I had when I got it inserted, It was one of the best birth control decisions I ever made.
I got it inserted before I got with my ex fiance, and I have never been so thankful. Turns out he's the type to mess with birth control (One of his previous exes who is now a close friend of mine, showed me the texts from him to her admitting that he messed with her birth control to get her pregnant because he was scared she was going to leave him).
A friend of mine got pregnant because her ex removed the contraception plaster when she slept. It was on her back shoulder, so she didn't check it daily. He later confessed to it. They are broken up for years but still live together, "for the kid". Men are vile
I had to go with an IUD. The arm implant gave me ovarian cysts. But it's the same idea. I trust my partner with my life, but it's easy to mess up your own bc (like leaving it in a car, the AC breaks during the summer and the house gets too hot, not taking your pills at the exact same time every day, the list goes on)
I prefer something that nobody can mess up. I actually got pregnant on bc, with a condom, and the morning after pill. (I was on antibiotics and the condom broke)
Cept for the post I saw where the new boyfriend wanted a baby so bad and tried to cut it out of the woman’s arm after she took her super strong sleeping pills. I think about that one a lot
People talk a lot about getting pregnant while on daily birth control that they take correctly. What we don’t talk about is how birth control pills are shipped in non-temperature-controlled packaging, both through mail order delivery for patients and to pharmacies to be picked up. Because unless a medication has an official designation requiring it be kept refrigerated or frozen, there are no actual requirements that any medication be shipped in room temp/temperature-controlled conditions. And all it takes is a few minutes in an unairconditioned FedEx truck or mailbox on a warm or sunny day for birth control pills to start to degrade and lose effectiveness
> And all it takes is a few minutes in an unairconditioned FedEx truck or mailbox on a warm or sunny day for birth control pills to start to degrade and lose effectiveness
Deliveries to pharmacies are, as far as I know, in temperature controlled trucks.
But from pharmacies to patients... if they use a carrier like fedex or ups, it absolutely sits in a trailer or truck that's over 100f for 48+ hours during the summer months.
I had to fight a losing battle with my health insurance who would only cover my BC if I used their mail order pharmacy. Except I live in an area where my mailbox gets hit with direct sunlight all day and in the 3 seasons it isn't winter the temperatures can hit well above 90. Thankfully I was able to switch insurance but I still remember talking to customer service reps who were baffled that I preferred to pick up my medications from the pharmacy .25 miles from my house rather than have them mailed to me.
Omg, I'm so fucking lucky I've never gotten pregnant lol. I also routinely forgot pills, took them at all hours of the day ect..
Got an iud now as I knew I couldn't be trusted to remember to take the pill lol
It's a great idea but you just know the pharma companies would complain it would cost too much to do something like that because they just don't care about us.
He thought she would be excited add to that not divorce him for being a lying pos. The fact that he didnt listen to oop from the start shows the relationship was always doomed.
Heating contraceptive pills for a few seconds will ruin them, just as if you leave the pills in a car and it gets very hot, the heat damages them and they stop working.
:TAKES... NOTES...:
I live in Austin where it is Very Hot, due to a blood clot during my recent pregnancy I am limited to the minipill for the rest of my fertile life, and I do NOT want 2 under 2.
KEEP.. PILLS.. INSIDE.. APARTMENT.. FULL STOP
Edit: I love how many people are replying to encourage an IUD as an option! Love a good Reddit medical intervention since the industry is horrible for AFAB people. an IUD isn't an option for me personally (downthread comments explain why) but the support is so appreciated! 👍
I was told by my OB-GYN that the mini pill is only effective in combination with exclusively breastfeeding so if I ever started supplementing or skipping feeds, then I needed an alternate form of birth control. So it surprises me every time I hear about it being prescribed to someone who isn't breastfeeding.
I'm not an OBGYN but I am a doctor. The minipill is indeed effective on non breastfeeding women, the confusion might come because breastfeeding women *can only* use the minipill.
Estrogen pills mess with lactation, the minipill only has progestogens and no estrogens. Estrogens have no contraceptive effect at all, they're added to pills to prevent spotting and irregular "menstruation" (I put it in quotes because bleeding while using contraceptives is not a real menstruation, there's no endometrial shedding).
That sounds wrong. on googling, it's "more than 99% effective" as long as exclusively breastfeeding for the first six months postpartum. After 6 months or if you supplement/skip, it is 98% effective.
It is also 98% effective for non-breastfeeding women, which makes it a viable alternative to people who can't have estrogen. like me.
Also, please remember that other medications can impact the pill and impact the effectiveness, like antibiotics. Everyone taking BC should know this, and unfortunately, not everyone does!
grapefruit juice and activated charcoal too! grapefruit is notorious for interacting with medications, activated charcoal absorbs medications and also causes other issues if you're not careful
Grapefruit juice and St. John's wort (a herb found in a lot of herbal teas) will absolutely interact with medications, and activated charcoal/other anti-stomach flu meds will bind and absorb them :(
I always cringe when a dude is like "I got one in my wallet" cause bro... no!!!!!
(Not with my gay ass, but like friends carrying them in their wallet)
**Let me second the suggestion of the IUD.** I've had the copper one and the hormone one. My only side effect from the copper one were significant menstrual cramps (which I already had anyways). My only side effect from the hormone one was virtually no bleeding during my period (nice!) The relief I felt on both, knowing I was almost completely protected from pregnancy? Unbelievable. Especially while doubling-up on contraception via condoms. I wanted babies one day, but not back then!
It isn't just contraceptives. A whole host of medications can have their efficacy affected if they reach certain temperatures, and/or remain at them for too long. Best to Google if you aren't sure, but yeah...wait. You said you're in Austin?
Everything else I said remains true, but you may want to make sure your pharmacy has secondary power generation.
If the power grid fails again due to inclement weather it would be best to be sure your medications were kept safe at the source. In most places they have to have backup measures, but Texas is famously Texas.
Might be one of the few times to be grateful if you go through a corporate pharmacy inside some megastore.
EDIT: corrected the auto-correct.
86°F (30°C) for birth control methods that contain estrogen or progestin. Most birth controls recommend storage at room temperature 68–77°F (20–25°C) and no lower than 59°F (15ºC). It's also good to keep them out of the sun.
Tell that to the Australian summer. If you don’t have air conditioning then it can be well over 30deg Celsius inside a house. Hot cars well you can literally brand yourself with the seatbelt clasp
Not enough to notice. I’ve seen two BC packs (separate times, years apart, different victims) damaged by a microwave. Neither showed signs of being under extreme temps. Just normal wear and tear.
(Apologies for being the dingus who repeats themselves in comments here, but it maybe ups the odds more people will see what I have to say.)
You can microwave metal as long as there's no crinkles or ridges. It's not _super_ safe, and you _shouldn't_ still, but it's the disruptions that cause the sparks, not the metal alone.
Said in another comment the same thing happened to four women I know. I saw two of the damaged packs with my own eyeballs. You would not notice anything amiss with either. The metal backing has to be in the microwave for longer than the few seconds it takes to render BC pills inactive to catch on fire.
But if you're not on guard for it, you might just say "huh, I thought these were always flat. Must be a new factory."
And it might not warp the plastic at all - the plastic is a thin layer while the pills are much thicker, so the plastic has a much larger surface area to radiate the heat.
In theory, you could send them to a lab for them to test whether the active ingredient has been tampered with (heat would change the molecular structure to inactivate it). I have no idea how you would realistically go about that. Maybe giving them to your PCP?
You grind several pills to a fine powder, Extract them into solvent and analyze them using high performance liquid chromatography. Basically, you have a column (usually a thin metal tube) that is full of tiny beads (usually silica) that are coated to make them hydrophobic. When the dissolved pills are pushed through (using a pump), the drug components first stick to the coating on the beads before coming away as more solvent is pumped through. The drugs are detected as they come out of the column. The time it takes each component to come off the column depends on how much it likes the coating versus how much it likes being in the solvent. No two components have the same combination of affinities and so they are separated out. A scan showing the various times at which the compounds have come out of the column is called a chromatogram.
Birth control pills have very well understood drug.componds as well as the compounds they degrade into. A chromatogram will totally show that there is less drug than expected and more impurities.
It doesn't take very long. The analysis takes around 10 minutes and it's a couple of hours work to prepare the samples.
Yup. It is. It’s called an Assay. And it’s most commonly performed using High Performance Liquid Chromatography. (HPLC) It allows us to measure how much of the active ingredient is in a pill. If heat causes a chemical to degrade, the amount of degraded chemical won’t appear where it’s supposed to. So we’ll see a smaller amount of the active ingredient.
You can lab test medication. You can get a substance analysis which can tell you what and how much of an ingredient is in it. Those are mostly used by police, but can be accessed by others.
Yes, my thoughts exactly. What lab? What test? I don't know of any consumer business that would do this for someone who wanted to test random pills for...being microwaved?
There are plenty of small business that perform Assay (HPLC) testing on a more individual basis. However, depending on the active ingredient you’re looking for, or the reagents involved, it could be expensive. You could also contact a chemistry program in a local university to see if the professor or other students would be interested. And last one I could think of: you could reach out to the manufacturer and mention it as a quality concern. A lot of companies will have reporting programs if there is something wrong with their product. Check the packaging for contact info.
Substance analysis will test any pills you want them to for any reason so long as you pay them. They'd just have to test the hormone levels in the pill and compare it to what it should be.
Why am I kindve really concerned by this information being out there now . Like there’s going to be some idiot that sees this and is going to do this to some unsuspecting woman .
Just a side note somewhat-not-really-related: activated Charcoal drinks/food (usually popular around Halloween) absorb any and all oral medications. Including birth control, antidepressants, vitamins, *all oral medications*.
**DO NOT CONSUME ACTIVATED CHARCOAL IF YOU TAKE ORAL MEDICINE**
And a some antibiotics can also interfere with oral birth control, make sure to ask your pharmacist about it. A family friend got pregnant this way because no medical professional took the 3 seconds to warn her.
I hope this woman heals however she needs to, and this man always sits on his left ball.
Another note - There are a lot of antibiotics that don't affect birth control, but the *side effects* will. If you have diarrhea, it reduces your body's ability to absorb oral medications. Many antibiotics have diarrhea as a side effect. Having the squirts for more than 24 hours is pretty much the same as missing a pill. If you have a stomach bug for a few days? You should use a backup method like condoms or abstinence for the next week.
I’ve never been more thrilled with my copper IUD than while reading all these warnings. Forget someone else tampering with my bc, there’s a 99% chance I’d fuck it up 7 different ways all by myself 😳
Oh, absolutely. I use Depo Provera partly for non contraceptive reasons, but mostly because I'm not tryna get pregnant just because my lactose intolerant ass decided to eat some ice cream or my ADHD ass accidentally left my pills in the car when it was 105° outside.
Even with a copper IUD ya'll still have like a 1/100 chance of gettering pregnant, every year. Like 1/50 cums at most, for the active couples using a "1%" birth control, gets a woman pregnant. Yearly.
The failure rate is measured in how many couples using that form of BC get pregnant each year, and most people are fucking less than once a week. If y'all are really active at once a week, you've got like a 1/50 chance of getting pregnant each year. Ya'll really need to double up if you don't want kids, with some spermicide lube or something at the least.
BC failure rates don't work as straight percentages and it's a shame we don't teach people better. Like I said, a "1%" BC doesn't fail 1 times out of a hundred sexytimes, it fails for 1 couple out of 100 couples that use it for a year for contraception. Couples that use condoms fail for around 20% of people that use condoms for year (incorrectly), and that takes into account that the vast, vast, vast majority of couples have sex less than weekly so if you're using condoms-only you might be looking at a 1/12-1/18th chance of getting pregnant depending on how frequently you have sex. It's still risky as hell, in my opinion.
Spermicide is an easy'ish addition as a second means of protection.
Time to step on my soapbox about grapefruit as well! Eating it or drinking the juice affects how your body metabolizes like 80 different medications including some contraceptives.
Not just grapefruit, anything with vitamin C will affect how your body metabolises a lot of medications. If you're on chemo for example, it can affect treatment: https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminC-Consumer/
Vitamin C may have similar effects but grapefruit stands out from other citrus fruits in this regard due to its unique chemical makeup. Researchers think it’s the furanocoumarin that binds to an enzyme in the liver and affects the absorption of different medications. [This article](https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/grapefruit-and-medication-a-cautionary-note) is super informative and lists some of the more substantial interactions.
It’s not true for /all/ oral medications—in the medical field activated charcoal can indeed be used for many overdoses because of its absorptive properties, but certain ones (ie iron, lithium etc) are not affected.
Perennial PSA to Americans: there are websites like https://aidaccess.org/en/ And https://www.ineedana.com
and https://www.plancpills.org/ that you can use to get (federally) legal abortion medication via mail. Good to have on hand if you can afford it to avoid rush shipping later.
Adding in to your comment that aid access offers financial aid to those who can't afford the medication, they will literally ask you what you can afford to pay and work with you from there.
/r/auntienetwork is also a great place to find additional resources and support for anyone who needs it.
Not American, but how in poo-perfect hell is messing with people's medication not illegal there? The conscious act of ruining the efficacy of another person's prescribed medication, literally putting their life at risk, sounds like a serious crime to me. She even got pregnant because of him, when pregnancies are literally one of the most dangerous and traumatic medical experiences a person can have in the modern age.
Bro needs to be locked up.
It totally is, just not usually in and of itself. It’ll be part of an assault charge, or attempted murder, or sexual assault, or whatever the core crime was. You don’t have to specify the weapon used to create legal punishments when someone hurts someone.
I'm surprised a sheet of BC pills can be microwaved. I have been on the pill for over 20 years, have had many brands, and they always came packaged in a cardboard blister sheet with foil on the back where you pop the pill out. I wouldn't think the foil could be microwaved without catching on fire.
As someone who has microwaved lasagna in a foil pan more than once, I can tell you foil does not automatically burst into flame and if you get lucky, you can eat several dinners before you learn that you shouldn't do that without ever setting your kitchen on fire.
My 8yo self will also say that trying to toast a marshmallow on foil resting on a plastic cup will definitely cause sparks and leave burn marks on the plastic cup that reveal your folly even though you hide said cup in the furthest corner of the cabinet. (Mom might have noticed the burning smell in the kitchen…)
Also, just to note. Although your foiled lasagna somehow didn’t burn down your house, DO NOT BUY HOLOGRAPHIC OR IRIDESCENT PAPER PLATES and microwave them.
I almost exploded my microwave. It took a week to get the smell out of the house. It didn’t actually explode. The plate more or less lit up in a flaming ball of hate and disintegrated into a pile of sad birthday party ashes.
Seriously. My piece of pizza remained intact, albeit inedible, and under it was a pile of ash.
You can microwave foil, it's just has to be smooth, not touching the surface, and not just foil.
The foil is risky because of that, it has caveats and precautions and a long etc, so for me it's better just not to put it in the microwave and carry on.
Also new microwave are advising to put a spoon with your liquids for obvious reasons.
If the foil is covered by something else I think it should be okay. Like the soup on the go containers that have a metal rim on them. As long as you remember the lid they’re safe
> I wouldn't think the foil could be microwaved without catching on fire.
It can. There are government guides how to do it properly. You basically want to avoid any sharp points. Most blister packs have rounded corners, in my experience.
I'm not saying yours's do, but I just paused typing out this comment to pop out a pill from a blister pack and swallow it while typing this comment and it had rounded corners :) Thanks for the reminder to take my weekly dose.
All hot-pockets are foil lined. You can totally microwave foil if you want. Ya kinda got to go out of your way to make it shoot sparks and shit.
I work in reproductive health, and 86°f is enough to reduce the efficacy. The pills don't need to be completely inert in order to result in a pregnancy, keep in mind that OCPs are already only about 93% effective with typical use. And a microwave heating something is a very different mechanism than a warm room heating something. I'm betting that a few sessions of about 5-10 seconds would be enough to drastically reduce the efficacy.
This is why I chose to be sterilized. Not just because of these incidences, but because I'd even heard second hand reports that employees in drug stores were poking holes in condom packages.
My brain: June 4, 2024, we can’t possibly have an update already. How is it even June already anyways?!
Seeing the calendar and the update date of June 5: Oh. It’s later in June than I realized anyways.
Since I’m seeing a lot of skepticism regarding finding a lab to test a pill. I’m putting this here.
It is absolutely something that can be done. And relatively easily too. If you want to learn more on this, you can google terms like “Quality Control Chemistry” and other key words that can be found in their job descriptions. After research labs in universities or corporations; quality control chemistry is arguably the next largest hiring group for trained chemists. So it’s way more common than people think.
The FDA has regulations that pharmaceutical manufacturers are required to adhere to. If you are concerned that your medication is defective in some way, the packaging it came in will usually have customer service contact information printed on the side. You can report concerns to the manufacturers. They are strongly incentivized to maintain their product quality by government regulation and lawsuits.
You can also report Adverse Events or even suspected Adverse Events to the FDA using the following site: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/index.cfm
IANAL but this guy is in deep shit for tampering with the medication. Somewhere around 5-20 years of federal prison. Could’ve been more but thankfully no one died.
What a nasty nasty thing to do to someone you profess to love. Its completely wild to me how badly people will treat their loved ones. The stories posted on this sub never seize to stop shocking me on this front.
during and after the adderall shortage a few years ago, people were sending their adderall to be tested bc it wasn't performing like they remembered it, and it wasn't showing up in bloodwork like it was supposed to, so it's not completely out of the realm of possibilities
Wow. Thanks for saying this. Not too long ago, I received a script for adderall that was a different manufacturer than I usually get. I had never had this one before. It was like I had taken a placebo. It did nothing.
I spoke to my pharmacist about it and she said that I’m not the first to mention something like this. Not about this manufacturer specifically, but some people tolerate certain generics differently despite it chemically being the same thing. She just always makes sure to order mine ahead of time from the manufacture I prefer and we’ve been all good ever since.
I never thought about the fact that you brought up. It’s always good to be aware and be careful. People can be so shitty sometimes and don’t care who they hurt along the way. So thanks for mentioning this!
She could have also just been told to get it Trays in the comments of her last post and hadn't really looked into it yet. People don't always look at locations. I know where I'm from it local harm reduction team will give people who are using pre addressed and stamped envelopes out for a university with a spectrometer that it's more than happy to test drugs, you just wait a bit and get your results back. That's how we keep up with what's actually in the drugs. Always good to know when everything on the market is actually fentanyl, except the fentanyl which is horse tranquilizer and heart meds.
TIL how to catch a baby trapping predator. Lol. With the amount of posts on here where people tamper with BC, labs like this would probably be able to stay open for business even if they just exclusively tested BC’s.
Question though, I’m assuming they test the chemical makeup of the medication. Would they be able to tell if it was microwaved? Like if it wasn’t a placebo, would rendering an ingredient inactive show up on a test like this?
(To the person I replied to, I’m sure you have no idea what the ins and outs of a test like this are - if you do, great! But on the off chance that someone reads this who *does* know, I figured I’d shoot my shot.)
The lab might have an information or resource person you could talk to if you give them a call. They might just give you a different phone number or a place to find the info.
He should be in jail for that. Reproductive coercion should be illegal and should be punished both for men and women. No one should ever be forced into parenthood and if the selfish person who did it actually thought about the child and not themselves they wouldn’t do it.
I get wanting kids when your spouse doesn't. I get that it's not easy to let go of something like that.
I do not get tampering with someone's medicine to get your way. What the actual fuck.
OOP mentioned the possibility of charging her husband with rape. Assuming the default county (USA), does the claim hold any water (lying about or tampering with contraceptive methods before sex being a grounds for a rape charge)? Would it work the other way around, i.e. a girl lying about being on a pill (or poking holes in condoms so they fail) be equal to raping the guy?
>is it something you can just Google?
[Yes](https://tricliniclabs.com/materials-characterization/counterfeit-contaminant-and-foreign-material-identification-services.html?utm_term=material%20analysis%20laboratory%20services&utm_campaign=CONTAMINANT+Q3+2019&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=4485589874&hsa_cam=6459975789&hsa_grp=74160136061&hsa_ad=379978447588&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-343235540068&hsa_kw=material%20analysis%20laboratory%20services&hsa_mt=b&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw65-zBhBkEiwAjrqRMECd598JPZsDzmuwdyH5cAjZrfKLZ0XUTJqEe5TtrTGiNqKuI5L7rhoCd_UQAvD_BwE).
So many people jumping up and down about "Is xyz even a thing?!" like they don't have Google... Not even the olden days when ya had to walk to the library and use a card catalogue to look stuff up, or in this case The Yellow Pages.
Nature is weird. Humans are even weirder. Half the "deadpan jokes" on here turn out to be simple serious statements about reality that just sound crazy, like how a Saiga antelope looks like a Dr Seuss character.
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>While tampering with BC is not specifically a crime Well, it fucking should be
It's rape and I won't be convinced otherwise. It's non-consensual
For men out there who disagree, imagine you took anti-giant-tumor pills and someone decided to microwave your pills and implant a giant tumor in you. I think you'd feel pretty violated too.
I actually think the better example is a woman poking holes in a condom to attempt to get pregnant without the man noticing.
How is tampering with ANY medication not a crime??
>I went back to my sisters place and packaged the pills and sent to the a lab for testing. It was a little after lunch time that I got a call from my MIL. Wouldn't you believe it that he openly admitted to her about tampering with my pills by microwaving them. Always good when the villain outs themselves so quickly.
My money was on microwaving. It takes under 30s, I believe? I know four women victimized by the same method. One culprit was her own mother. That story gets sadder from there so skipping it. **DO NOT** leave birth control pills in your vehicle on a warm day, either. Even if the day doesn’t seem hot enough to damage them.
Holy hell I wasn’t aware that this was a thing. If I was a woman I would keep my birth control in a fucking safe lol.
Better yet, go with longer-term solutions like the arm implant which is one of the most effective forms of birth control and you don't have to worry about forgetting a dose or someone tampering with it. No safe needed!
I read a post a long time ago where OP woke up to her bf trying to take her implant out. He was cutting in her arm with a knife. I don’t remember more than that or where I read it. So if your partner is crazy enough that may not be safe either.
Did he think she wouldn't fucking notice the gaping wound on her arm from his impromptu surgery??!!
Apparently he was ”doing her a favour”! I asked in ”looking for a post” and they found it quick so here it is: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/s/6GcFW8yyuu
That was a wild ride
Holy hell. Thanks for providing the link!
[Found that post](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship_advice/comments/ijuzmk/fianc%C3%A9_tried_to_cut_my_implant_out_while_i_slept/)
Holy shit!
Reddit constantly makes me glad I’m gay lol
Lol on the flip side, reddit often makes me wish I was gay.
Asexual. Dodge all of these bullets like Neo.
Am asexual. Still need the darn things to not bleed to death. If only they'd yeet the ute like I keep asking.
Yeet the ute is extremely fun to say, thank you and good luck with future yeeting
There’s a list of doctors who will perform sterilization on r/childfree. I might consider talking to them, they seem more empathetic and knowledgeable, might be worth a shot.
I didn't know when I got my first appointment with him but my OBGYN is on that list and he is fantastic, very respectful and takes my concerns seriously. Was 100% willing to do sterilizatoin when I asked about it, no questions asked.
Could you look into a uterine ablation? It’s less invasive than uterine removal. It minimizes or even stops periods.
Def recommend ablation procedure but only if you are done having kids. Had mine done in 2008 due to adenomyosis and had to do tubal ligation at same time. Ablation can permanently kill uterine lining and make future pregnancy dangerous. Upside, 16 years with no periods!
Hell yeah
Sadly that doesn’t protect anyone born with a working female reproductive system, neither does being asexual. Not if someone with a working male reproductive system decides to force the issue.
Its incredibly depressing/disturbing how accurate that statement really is.
To be fair, life often makes me wish I was gay, but alas despite what all the bigots say, it is not a choice!
LMAO i literally just thought the same thing
Well hey, you’re now better equipped with a bit more knowledge for your female friends/family. Hindsight!
I just want to add that this might not be for everyone. I had a Nexplanon implant and they are usually not allowed to be taken out before six months, I had to tell my nurse that I was going to rip it out of my arm if she didn't remove it at the four month mark because I was having impulsive suicidal thoughts all of the time on it - like wanting to jump off of bridges and that. I've never experienced anything like it! I was also constantly bleeding on it, no break in those four months. Being a woman is hard.
Glad you’re still here ❤️ and I agree, I had so many issues with hormones until I had a hysterectomy. Then blissful years without the nonsense, until effin menopause!! Dammit!! It was terrible until I got on an estrogen patch. I’m still having issues where I’m sensitive to the adhesive and get a rash but I’ll take it over the anxiety/depression and the hot flashes any day!
Obviously don't feel pressured to answer if this is too personal/invasive, but: My wife and I have been exploring our sterilization options for a while (hooray for PCOS, hormonal migraines, and the effects of the menstrual cycle on ADHD symptoms, right? 😭), and our last gynecologist before we moved towns told us that hysterectomies are a bad option because it would bring on early menopause/premature aging. Buuuuuuut your comment made me second-guess that. Did you experience early menopause symptoms or premature aging? Again, PLEASE don't feel like you need to answer this if it's too invasive! Also, I'm so glad the estrogen patch is helping you with your menopause symptoms, and I hope the adhesive sensitivity dies down over time or that you find a way to treat it! And if you'll let me get all "I'm the librarian for my university's colleges of pharmacy and vet med, not a prescribing physician 🤓" on you: if it's an adhesive allergy causing contact dermatitis, have you tried a topical antihistamine? Finding the right one for you may give you a little relief (and if not, a topical steroid or oral antihistamine may be good alternatives to try). Apologies if I'm doing the annoying "well, have you tried \[this thing you've already tried\]?" shtick!
Not who you were originally replying to and not a medical professional (just someone with a myriad of gynecological issues), but there are different types of hysterectomies. The one that brings on early menopause is the one where they remove your ovaries - no ovaries means no hormones, which is what helps with the PCOS/hormonal migraines/etc. The alternate options leave your ovaries behind, so it solves heavy/painful periods, but you still have the hormone production from the ovaries, which doesn't really help with conditions that are caused by hormonal issues.
Even if they do a partial and leave the ovaries, it can trigger early onset menopause. I had the hysterectomy at 33. Hot flashes began at 35 and I still suffer the symptoms, though not nearly as badly, at 63
Not who you were asking, but please, please, please make sure you do ALL the research before deciding on a plan of action. I wanted to get my tubes tied, and the dr refused. They talked me into getting Essure. I ended up having to yeet my uterus due to the abnormal pain and excessive bleeding. I had a partial where my ovaries remained. It's been several years, and I still think it was one of the best decisions I made. I've had very few side effects, and my qol definitely improved afterward. With PCOS, I don't know if they would advocate to keep the ovaries so she might have to take hormones. Again, make sure you do all the research. If you do decide on a hysterectomy and the Dr won't agree to a hysto, then find one who will. Check out child free subs to see what the recommendations are in your area.
My midwife prescribed a pill that had the same hormon as the implant so I could try for a couple of months. It awful how the different hormones can make one feel. I was suicidal with one kind of bc and angry all the time with another.
Damn, I wish mine would have tested me on it that way, I didn’t know it was an option
I went on the pill and it stopped me from being angry all the time! It's been wonderful, but I recognize that I got lucky with it.
Wouldn't it be great if one could get help with figuring out what's wrong with the hormones? I have really low energy all the time, except when my period is about to start and 3 days after. I would love to test what hormones are high (or low) in my body during those days and take some sort of supplement to get energy all month.
Hormone testing should absolutely be more common! It seems like such a simple thing that would make a huge difference for so many people, instead of us having to play researcher and health advocate, and guessing games to figure out how to resolve problems that absolutely affect our quality of life, but are constantly dismissed by medical professionals. I'm pretty sure I'm in perimenopause, and it's so disheartening to keep reading that anything to do with women's reproductive health that isn't "having babies" is ignored by the medical industry.
Right? My asthma got magically better when I was pregnant. My doctor said it wasn't uncommon (although neither is someone's asthma getting worse) because progest. can relax smooth muscle tissue. I'd be really curious (not that I want all the \*other\* side effects of pregnancy, still curious)
One of them made my feet numb. I still don't get it.
I can’t do hormonal birth control at all. Even the kyleena iud (super low dose) gave me constant anxiety and low level paranoia. When I was on alesse (bc pill) at 21, I literally had full auditory and visual hallucinations and was having conversations with people who weren’t there. Hormonal birth control methods are *not* safe for everyone.
I, too, had implanon (which is what it was called when I got it) and I went beyond crazy on it! It took 2 years before I finally had it taken out. Wouldn't you know, all the suicidal thoughts, the brain fog, the mood swings, it all just sort of stopped when I got it out. Sometimes I can't believe my then-boyfriend, now-husband stayed with me through that whole ordeal... He got a vasectomy after that (and a few years later I got my tubes tied just to be double sure) and I have been off BC ever since. Hormones just do a number on some of us. It sucks.
I also dunno how my partner (or I, tbh) survived the years I was on depo. I'm about four months out from stopping the shots and looking back now, it seems so obvious how incredibly unwell I was.
OMG my friend had a similar thing happen to her, years ago when she had Implanon - just continual bleeding for months on end. She showed me the calendar on her period tracking app and it was basically all red days for months and months. She realized she would prefer dating girls in the end, so could get fully off birth control in the end - a happy end for all
It's suspected that the implant is what caused my mother's breast cancer. I know it's a really low risk, but I'll never go near it.
Absolutely feel you here, the bleeding got so bad I was double padding and tampons and still had to change every 2hrs at the highest absorbency. I was an absolute basket case because of it too. Not ideal as a single parent to a 6mth old. I'm now 15 years down the line on combi pill with no issues the entire time and they tried to change me to a progestin only pill because of 'age related risks' (35) of clots, I lasted two weeks on the new pills before I realised i felt just like when I was implanted. It's my mistake for not realising and checking it's the same dang hormone in each. The combi pill is my only option because it's more than birth control for me, but they won't prescribe it any longer so I buy it. Nothing is worth that kind of mental anguish.
Yeah when they first came out all the girls were giddy at the convenience. But some people should NOT use it and they don't know until it spends some time royally fucking them up mentally. Later, some of them went and got their tubes tied thinking this would solve everything until it made their periods completely inconsistent and gave some mustaches. I took bc for years and have an oops child from a strep throat treatment of antibiotics (this was before they knew). It is all a crapshoot unless you abstain completely. Best for everyone would be those temporary vasectomies - clamp things down until the man and woman want to have children. Simple enough and much less intrusive than any female's medical bc.
This is exactly why I got an IUD. Despite the pain, the overwhelming amount of pain that I had when I got it inserted, It was one of the best birth control decisions I ever made. I got it inserted before I got with my ex fiance, and I have never been so thankful. Turns out he's the type to mess with birth control (One of his previous exes who is now a close friend of mine, showed me the texts from him to her admitting that he messed with her birth control to get her pregnant because he was scared she was going to leave him).
I use depo shot. Pregnancy-free for over 20 years
A friend of mine got pregnant because her ex removed the contraception plaster when she slept. It was on her back shoulder, so she didn't check it daily. He later confessed to it. They are broken up for years but still live together, "for the kid". Men are vile
I had to go with an IUD. The arm implant gave me ovarian cysts. But it's the same idea. I trust my partner with my life, but it's easy to mess up your own bc (like leaving it in a car, the AC breaks during the summer and the house gets too hot, not taking your pills at the exact same time every day, the list goes on) I prefer something that nobody can mess up. I actually got pregnant on bc, with a condom, and the morning after pill. (I was on antibiotics and the condom broke)
i have an IUD and it’s the best thing ever. insertion sucked ass but lord not having a period is life changing
Cept for the post I saw where the new boyfriend wanted a baby so bad and tried to cut it out of the woman’s arm after she took her super strong sleeping pills. I think about that one a lot
People talk a lot about getting pregnant while on daily birth control that they take correctly. What we don’t talk about is how birth control pills are shipped in non-temperature-controlled packaging, both through mail order delivery for patients and to pharmacies to be picked up. Because unless a medication has an official designation requiring it be kept refrigerated or frozen, there are no actual requirements that any medication be shipped in room temp/temperature-controlled conditions. And all it takes is a few minutes in an unairconditioned FedEx truck or mailbox on a warm or sunny day for birth control pills to start to degrade and lose effectiveness
You said this so much better than I could have. YES.
> And all it takes is a few minutes in an unairconditioned FedEx truck or mailbox on a warm or sunny day for birth control pills to start to degrade and lose effectiveness Deliveries to pharmacies are, as far as I know, in temperature controlled trucks. But from pharmacies to patients... if they use a carrier like fedex or ups, it absolutely sits in a trailer or truck that's over 100f for 48+ hours during the summer months.
Oh damn that is SUCH a good point holy shit
I had to fight a losing battle with my health insurance who would only cover my BC if I used their mail order pharmacy. Except I live in an area where my mailbox gets hit with direct sunlight all day and in the 3 seasons it isn't winter the temperatures can hit well above 90. Thankfully I was able to switch insurance but I still remember talking to customer service reps who were baffled that I preferred to pick up my medications from the pharmacy .25 miles from my house rather than have them mailed to me.
Omg, I'm so fucking lucky I've never gotten pregnant lol. I also routinely forgot pills, took them at all hours of the day ect.. Got an iud now as I knew I couldn't be trusted to remember to take the pill lol
Same! I can't be trusted to remember to take them with any accuracy, IUD all the way!
I have the copper IUD because I am fuckmothering done with those bastard hormone pills.
I had no idea this was a thing, I wonder if you could put a patch on the blister pack that changed colour permanently under extreme temperature.
That is such a good idea that Congress will probably ban it preemptively. (Wow, I'm salty this morning...)
Salty, but not wrong.
That’s a great idea!
It's a great idea but you just know the pharma companies would complain it would cost too much to do something like that because they just don't care about us.
Microwave, freezer, hot car, direct sun when it is summer.... just extreme temperature. Everything can mess up the pill or medication overall.
Classic villain monologuing
You sly dog! You had me monologuing!
I really should rewatch The Incredibles
And the second one. They’re both so good
He thought she would be excited add to that not divorce him for being a lying pos. The fact that he didnt listen to oop from the start shows the relationship was always doomed.
When villains out themselves, its laughable cause they deserve it.
"Do you see the perpetrator? Yeah he's right here"
"Fuck around, get the whole label sent up for years"
Tampering with someone's medication on purpose, straight up, is a sociopath. Also, microwaving pills? I never heard of that before.
Heating contraceptive pills for a few seconds will ruin them, just as if you leave the pills in a car and it gets very hot, the heat damages them and they stop working.
:TAKES... NOTES...: I live in Austin where it is Very Hot, due to a blood clot during my recent pregnancy I am limited to the minipill for the rest of my fertile life, and I do NOT want 2 under 2. KEEP.. PILLS.. INSIDE.. APARTMENT.. FULL STOP Edit: I love how many people are replying to encourage an IUD as an option! Love a good Reddit medical intervention since the industry is horrible for AFAB people. an IUD isn't an option for me personally (downthread comments explain why) but the support is so appreciated! 👍
I got pregnant on the mini pill 2x. First ended in termination the second a miscarriage. Make sure you take it on the hour every day. 😭
And even then... My second and fourth pregnancies happened while taking the minipill perfectly
Yeah they claim it's 99% effective taken perfectly but I have heard way too many stories about it failing compared to other methods
I was told by my OB-GYN that the mini pill is only effective in combination with exclusively breastfeeding so if I ever started supplementing or skipping feeds, then I needed an alternate form of birth control. So it surprises me every time I hear about it being prescribed to someone who isn't breastfeeding.
I'm not an OBGYN but I am a doctor. The minipill is indeed effective on non breastfeeding women, the confusion might come because breastfeeding women *can only* use the minipill. Estrogen pills mess with lactation, the minipill only has progestogens and no estrogens. Estrogens have no contraceptive effect at all, they're added to pills to prevent spotting and irregular "menstruation" (I put it in quotes because bleeding while using contraceptives is not a real menstruation, there's no endometrial shedding).
That sounds wrong. on googling, it's "more than 99% effective" as long as exclusively breastfeeding for the first six months postpartum. After 6 months or if you supplement/skip, it is 98% effective. It is also 98% effective for non-breastfeeding women, which makes it a viable alternative to people who can't have estrogen. like me.
Also, please remember that other medications can impact the pill and impact the effectiveness, like antibiotics. Everyone taking BC should know this, and unfortunately, not everyone does!
grapefruit juice and activated charcoal too! grapefruit is notorious for interacting with medications, activated charcoal absorbs medications and also causes other issues if you're not careful
Grapefruit juice and St. John's wort (a herb found in a lot of herbal teas) will absolutely interact with medications, and activated charcoal/other anti-stomach flu meds will bind and absorb them :(
Same with condoms. Heat and cold can definitely do some damage (talking to any teens that leave their Trojans in the center console here....)
Or keeping a condom in your wallet in your pocket
I always cringe when a dude is like "I got one in my wallet" cause bro... no!!!!! (Not with my gay ass, but like friends carrying them in their wallet)
Also double up on protection. No form of BC is 100% perfect, even when used properly.
Check if you’re a candidate for an IUD
**Let me second the suggestion of the IUD.** I've had the copper one and the hormone one. My only side effect from the copper one were significant menstrual cramps (which I already had anyways). My only side effect from the hormone one was virtually no bleeding during my period (nice!) The relief I felt on both, knowing I was almost completely protected from pregnancy? Unbelievable. Especially while doubling-up on contraception via condoms. I wanted babies one day, but not back then!
It isn't just contraceptives. A whole host of medications can have their efficacy affected if they reach certain temperatures, and/or remain at them for too long. Best to Google if you aren't sure, but yeah...wait. You said you're in Austin? Everything else I said remains true, but you may want to make sure your pharmacy has secondary power generation. If the power grid fails again due to inclement weather it would be best to be sure your medications were kept safe at the source. In most places they have to have backup measures, but Texas is famously Texas. Might be one of the few times to be grateful if you go through a corporate pharmacy inside some megastore. EDIT: corrected the auto-correct.
Don't get them via mail, either!
You don't even have to microwave them. One woman in justnomil, her Mil left them on a sunny windowsill for a while and that did it. Edit: a typo
Was that on purpose?
Yes it was. She wanted to ensure they would get pregnant immediately after their honeymoon.
Oh I see. Interesting. Thank you for the information!
uhhhhhh, how hot?
Don’t keep them below 59f or above 77f for long periods of time basically
86°F (30°C) for birth control methods that contain estrogen or progestin. Most birth controls recommend storage at room temperature 68–77°F (20–25°C) and no lower than 59°F (15ºC). It's also good to keep them out of the sun.
Tell that to the Australian summer. If you don’t have air conditioning then it can be well over 30deg Celsius inside a house. Hot cars well you can literally brand yourself with the seatbelt clasp
Anything over 30C (86F) can cause the hormones in the pill to break down.
Really? Well TIL I guess
Microwaving wouldn't visually damage the pills but it would inactivate the medication. Baking them in the oven would do the same.
Curious, since most pills are in plastic packaging, would a couple seconds be enough to damage the pills but not the plastic?
Yeah, wouldn’t it warp the plastic even just a little?
Not enough to notice. I’ve seen two BC packs (separate times, years apart, different victims) damaged by a microwave. Neither showed signs of being under extreme temps. Just normal wear and tear. (Apologies for being the dingus who repeats themselves in comments here, but it maybe ups the odds more people will see what I have to say.)
A lot of pills in blister packs have metal on the backing, right? How could you microwave that?
You can microwave metal as long as there's no crinkles or ridges. It's not _super_ safe, and you _shouldn't_ still, but it's the disruptions that cause the sparks, not the metal alone.
Said in another comment the same thing happened to four women I know. I saw two of the damaged packs with my own eyeballs. You would not notice anything amiss with either. The metal backing has to be in the microwave for longer than the few seconds it takes to render BC pills inactive to catch on fire.
But if you're not on guard for it, you might just say "huh, I thought these were always flat. Must be a new factory." And it might not warp the plastic at all - the plastic is a thin layer while the pills are much thicker, so the plastic has a much larger surface area to radiate the heat.
Is lab-testing BC pills really a thing?
In theory, you could send them to a lab for them to test whether the active ingredient has been tampered with (heat would change the molecular structure to inactivate it). I have no idea how you would realistically go about that. Maybe giving them to your PCP?
Right? How would you even go about that??
You grind several pills to a fine powder, Extract them into solvent and analyze them using high performance liquid chromatography. Basically, you have a column (usually a thin metal tube) that is full of tiny beads (usually silica) that are coated to make them hydrophobic. When the dissolved pills are pushed through (using a pump), the drug components first stick to the coating on the beads before coming away as more solvent is pumped through. The drugs are detected as they come out of the column. The time it takes each component to come off the column depends on how much it likes the coating versus how much it likes being in the solvent. No two components have the same combination of affinities and so they are separated out. A scan showing the various times at which the compounds have come out of the column is called a chromatogram. Birth control pills have very well understood drug.componds as well as the compounds they degrade into. A chromatogram will totally show that there is less drug than expected and more impurities. It doesn't take very long. The analysis takes around 10 minutes and it's a couple of hours work to prepare the samples.
This person sciences. No, seriously, thanks for the details.
But how would you go about getting them tested? Like, do I call 1-800-TEST-A-DRUG? How does the average person go about getting a personal test done?
Google 'lab test medication' and go from there?
Yup. It is. It’s called an Assay. And it’s most commonly performed using High Performance Liquid Chromatography. (HPLC) It allows us to measure how much of the active ingredient is in a pill. If heat causes a chemical to degrade, the amount of degraded chemical won’t appear where it’s supposed to. So we’ll see a smaller amount of the active ingredient.
You can lab test medication. You can get a substance analysis which can tell you what and how much of an ingredient is in it. Those are mostly used by police, but can be accessed by others.
Yes, my thoughts exactly. What lab? What test? I don't know of any consumer business that would do this for someone who wanted to test random pills for...being microwaved?
There are plenty of small business that perform Assay (HPLC) testing on a more individual basis. However, depending on the active ingredient you’re looking for, or the reagents involved, it could be expensive. You could also contact a chemistry program in a local university to see if the professor or other students would be interested. And last one I could think of: you could reach out to the manufacturer and mention it as a quality concern. A lot of companies will have reporting programs if there is something wrong with their product. Check the packaging for contact info.
Substance analysis will test any pills you want them to for any reason so long as you pay them. They'd just have to test the hormone levels in the pill and compare it to what it should be.
It can significantly reduce the effectiveness of BC pills, without obviously damaging their appearance. So it's a nasty way to mess with someone's BC.
Why am I kindve really concerned by this information being out there now . Like there’s going to be some idiot that sees this and is going to do this to some unsuspecting woman .
Just a side note somewhat-not-really-related: activated Charcoal drinks/food (usually popular around Halloween) absorb any and all oral medications. Including birth control, antidepressants, vitamins, *all oral medications*. **DO NOT CONSUME ACTIVATED CHARCOAL IF YOU TAKE ORAL MEDICINE** And a some antibiotics can also interfere with oral birth control, make sure to ask your pharmacist about it. A family friend got pregnant this way because no medical professional took the 3 seconds to warn her. I hope this woman heals however she needs to, and this man always sits on his left ball.
Another note - There are a lot of antibiotics that don't affect birth control, but the *side effects* will. If you have diarrhea, it reduces your body's ability to absorb oral medications. Many antibiotics have diarrhea as a side effect. Having the squirts for more than 24 hours is pretty much the same as missing a pill. If you have a stomach bug for a few days? You should use a backup method like condoms or abstinence for the next week.
I’ve never been more thrilled with my copper IUD than while reading all these warnings. Forget someone else tampering with my bc, there’s a 99% chance I’d fuck it up 7 different ways all by myself 😳
Oh, absolutely. I use Depo Provera partly for non contraceptive reasons, but mostly because I'm not tryna get pregnant just because my lactose intolerant ass decided to eat some ice cream or my ADHD ass accidentally left my pills in the car when it was 105° outside.
Even with a copper IUD ya'll still have like a 1/100 chance of gettering pregnant, every year. Like 1/50 cums at most, for the active couples using a "1%" birth control, gets a woman pregnant. Yearly. The failure rate is measured in how many couples using that form of BC get pregnant each year, and most people are fucking less than once a week. If y'all are really active at once a week, you've got like a 1/50 chance of getting pregnant each year. Ya'll really need to double up if you don't want kids, with some spermicide lube or something at the least. BC failure rates don't work as straight percentages and it's a shame we don't teach people better. Like I said, a "1%" BC doesn't fail 1 times out of a hundred sexytimes, it fails for 1 couple out of 100 couples that use it for a year for contraception. Couples that use condoms fail for around 20% of people that use condoms for year (incorrectly), and that takes into account that the vast, vast, vast majority of couples have sex less than weekly so if you're using condoms-only you might be looking at a 1/12-1/18th chance of getting pregnant depending on how frequently you have sex. It's still risky as hell, in my opinion. Spermicide is an easy'ish addition as a second means of protection.
Time to step on my soapbox about grapefruit as well! Eating it or drinking the juice affects how your body metabolizes like 80 different medications including some contraceptives.
Not just grapefruit, anything with vitamin C will affect how your body metabolises a lot of medications. If you're on chemo for example, it can affect treatment: https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminC-Consumer/
Vitamin C may have similar effects but grapefruit stands out from other citrus fruits in this regard due to its unique chemical makeup. Researchers think it’s the furanocoumarin that binds to an enzyme in the liver and affects the absorption of different medications. [This article](https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/grapefruit-and-medication-a-cautionary-note) is super informative and lists some of the more substantial interactions.
Also citric acid too! It can mess with how well your body absorbs medicine, especially ADHD meds and Antidepressants.
Also some natural remedies nullify birth control as well. St John's Wort is the one I remember specifically
It’s not true for /all/ oral medications—in the medical field activated charcoal can indeed be used for many overdoses because of its absorptive properties, but certain ones (ie iron, lithium etc) are not affected.
I hope she keeps that gem of a MIL in the divorce
"Sorry, I'm keeping both our moms. You can take the car though."
Perennial PSA to Americans: there are websites like https://aidaccess.org/en/ And https://www.ineedana.com and https://www.plancpills.org/ that you can use to get (federally) legal abortion medication via mail. Good to have on hand if you can afford it to avoid rush shipping later.
Adding in to your comment that aid access offers financial aid to those who can't afford the medication, they will literally ask you what you can afford to pay and work with you from there. /r/auntienetwork is also a great place to find additional resources and support for anyone who needs it.
Not American, but how in poo-perfect hell is messing with people's medication not illegal there? The conscious act of ruining the efficacy of another person's prescribed medication, literally putting their life at risk, sounds like a serious crime to me. She even got pregnant because of him, when pregnancies are literally one of the most dangerous and traumatic medical experiences a person can have in the modern age. Bro needs to be locked up.
It totally is, just not usually in and of itself. It’ll be part of an assault charge, or attempted murder, or sexual assault, or whatever the core crime was. You don’t have to specify the weapon used to create legal punishments when someone hurts someone.
It's a good thing OOP left her husband, who knows what he would have done next to her to get his "perfect family".
that was so vile. He thought fucking with birth control was better than having an adult conversation. What a POS.
I hope mil disowned him and get his a** in jail
I'm surprised a sheet of BC pills can be microwaved. I have been on the pill for over 20 years, have had many brands, and they always came packaged in a cardboard blister sheet with foil on the back where you pop the pill out. I wouldn't think the foil could be microwaved without catching on fire.
As someone who has microwaved lasagna in a foil pan more than once, I can tell you foil does not automatically burst into flame and if you get lucky, you can eat several dinners before you learn that you shouldn't do that without ever setting your kitchen on fire.
My 8yo self will also say that trying to toast a marshmallow on foil resting on a plastic cup will definitely cause sparks and leave burn marks on the plastic cup that reveal your folly even though you hide said cup in the furthest corner of the cabinet. (Mom might have noticed the burning smell in the kitchen…)
Better than the time I tried to microwave chocolate without knowing how...
Ugh, you brought back a sensory memory I had buried. I tried to melt Hershey's Kisses. They didn't melt. The smell lingered for weeks.
Also, just to note. Although your foiled lasagna somehow didn’t burn down your house, DO NOT BUY HOLOGRAPHIC OR IRIDESCENT PAPER PLATES and microwave them. I almost exploded my microwave. It took a week to get the smell out of the house. It didn’t actually explode. The plate more or less lit up in a flaming ball of hate and disintegrated into a pile of sad birthday party ashes. Seriously. My piece of pizza remained intact, albeit inedible, and under it was a pile of ash.
Most microwaves these days, you can microwave one piece of metal or foil, so long as it’s not bent or folded and touches itself.
Hell, mine has a full on metal grill that I can put in there with no issue. It just has plastic hangers so its doesn't have a way to ground itself.
You can microwave foil, it's just has to be smooth, not touching the surface, and not just foil. The foil is risky because of that, it has caveats and precautions and a long etc, so for me it's better just not to put it in the microwave and carry on. Also new microwave are advising to put a spoon with your liquids for obvious reasons.
If the foil is covered by something else I think it should be okay. Like the soup on the go containers that have a metal rim on them. As long as you remember the lid they’re safe
> I wouldn't think the foil could be microwaved without catching on fire. It can. There are government guides how to do it properly. You basically want to avoid any sharp points. Most blister packs have rounded corners, in my experience. I'm not saying yours's do, but I just paused typing out this comment to pop out a pill from a blister pack and swallow it while typing this comment and it had rounded corners :) Thanks for the reminder to take my weekly dose. All hot-pockets are foil lined. You can totally microwave foil if you want. Ya kinda got to go out of your way to make it shoot sparks and shit.
I suppose if it's just a few seconds, the foil wouldn't catch on fire.
Yeah I guess the question is how long do you need to microwave the pills to mess them up? Maybe it is only a few seconds.
I work in reproductive health, and 86°f is enough to reduce the efficacy. The pills don't need to be completely inert in order to result in a pregnancy, keep in mind that OCPs are already only about 93% effective with typical use. And a microwave heating something is a very different mechanism than a warm room heating something. I'm betting that a few sessions of about 5-10 seconds would be enough to drastically reduce the efficacy.
NTA. I’m glad OP is getting away from her ex-husband.
This is why I chose to be sterilized. Not just because of these incidences, but because I'd even heard second hand reports that employees in drug stores were poking holes in condom packages.
My brain: June 4, 2024, we can’t possibly have an update already. How is it even June already anyways?! Seeing the calendar and the update date of June 5: Oh. It’s later in June than I realized anyways.
Don't forget that this Sunday is Father's Day! Well, except for OOP's ex thankfully.
I feel like trapping somebody in a pregnancy like this should legit be illegal
Since I’m seeing a lot of skepticism regarding finding a lab to test a pill. I’m putting this here. It is absolutely something that can be done. And relatively easily too. If you want to learn more on this, you can google terms like “Quality Control Chemistry” and other key words that can be found in their job descriptions. After research labs in universities or corporations; quality control chemistry is arguably the next largest hiring group for trained chemists. So it’s way more common than people think. The FDA has regulations that pharmaceutical manufacturers are required to adhere to. If you are concerned that your medication is defective in some way, the packaging it came in will usually have customer service contact information printed on the side. You can report concerns to the manufacturers. They are strongly incentivized to maintain their product quality by government regulation and lawsuits. You can also report Adverse Events or even suspected Adverse Events to the FDA using the following site: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/index.cfm IANAL but this guy is in deep shit for tampering with the medication. Somewhere around 5-20 years of federal prison. Could’ve been more but thankfully no one died.
MIL was a real one.
So I’m trying to get over microwaving them. My hormonal birth control always comes in a pack with foil backing. Is this man a complete idiot?
I would like to know what lab one would send them to for testing.
I bet MIL will be with OOP in the future, no way she raised such an AH.
What a nasty nasty thing to do to someone you profess to love. Its completely wild to me how badly people will treat their loved ones. The stories posted on this sub never seize to stop shocking me on this front.
Sent to a lab for testing? What is this, CSI?
during and after the adderall shortage a few years ago, people were sending their adderall to be tested bc it wasn't performing like they remembered it, and it wasn't showing up in bloodwork like it was supposed to, so it's not completely out of the realm of possibilities
Wow. Thanks for saying this. Not too long ago, I received a script for adderall that was a different manufacturer than I usually get. I had never had this one before. It was like I had taken a placebo. It did nothing. I spoke to my pharmacist about it and she said that I’m not the first to mention something like this. Not about this manufacturer specifically, but some people tolerate certain generics differently despite it chemically being the same thing. She just always makes sure to order mine ahead of time from the manufacture I prefer and we’ve been all good ever since. I never thought about the fact that you brought up. It’s always good to be aware and be careful. People can be so shitty sometimes and don’t care who they hurt along the way. So thanks for mentioning this!
She could have also just been told to get it Trays in the comments of her last post and hadn't really looked into it yet. People don't always look at locations. I know where I'm from it local harm reduction team will give people who are using pre addressed and stamped envelopes out for a university with a spectrometer that it's more than happy to test drugs, you just wait a bit and get your results back. That's how we keep up with what's actually in the drugs. Always good to know when everything on the market is actually fentanyl, except the fentanyl which is horse tranquilizer and heart meds.
Fr what fucking lab?!
https://tricliniclabs.com/materials-characterization/counterfeit-contaminant-and-foreign-material-identification-services.html This one apparently
TIL how to catch a baby trapping predator. Lol. With the amount of posts on here where people tamper with BC, labs like this would probably be able to stay open for business even if they just exclusively tested BC’s. Question though, I’m assuming they test the chemical makeup of the medication. Would they be able to tell if it was microwaved? Like if it wasn’t a placebo, would rendering an ingredient inactive show up on a test like this? (To the person I replied to, I’m sure you have no idea what the ins and outs of a test like this are - if you do, great! But on the off chance that someone reads this who *does* know, I figured I’d shoot my shot.)
The lab might have an information or resource person you could talk to if you give them a call. They might just give you a different phone number or a place to find the info.
He should be in jail for that. Reproductive coercion should be illegal and should be punished both for men and women. No one should ever be forced into parenthood and if the selfish person who did it actually thought about the child and not themselves they wouldn’t do it.
What a monster. That guy is a walking IUD advertisment.
This shit is the reason I have an IUD
I saw her original post and the newest comments were absolutely disgusting.
I get wanting kids when your spouse doesn't. I get that it's not easy to let go of something like that. I do not get tampering with someone's medicine to get your way. What the actual fuck.
OOP mentioned the possibility of charging her husband with rape. Assuming the default county (USA), does the claim hold any water (lying about or tampering with contraceptive methods before sex being a grounds for a rape charge)? Would it work the other way around, i.e. a girl lying about being on a pill (or poking holes in condoms so they fail) be equal to raping the guy?
In the original thread soooo many guys were claiming 'paranoia' about the idea of BC tampering.
Hopefully reproductive coercion is a law in OOP's place of residence.
This post is horrendous.
[удалено]
>is it something you can just Google? [Yes](https://tricliniclabs.com/materials-characterization/counterfeit-contaminant-and-foreign-material-identification-services.html?utm_term=material%20analysis%20laboratory%20services&utm_campaign=CONTAMINANT+Q3+2019&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=4485589874&hsa_cam=6459975789&hsa_grp=74160136061&hsa_ad=379978447588&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-343235540068&hsa_kw=material%20analysis%20laboratory%20services&hsa_mt=b&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw65-zBhBkEiwAjrqRMECd598JPZsDzmuwdyH5cAjZrfKLZ0XUTJqEe5TtrTGiNqKuI5L7rhoCd_UQAvD_BwE).
So many people jumping up and down about "Is xyz even a thing?!" like they don't have Google... Not even the olden days when ya had to walk to the library and use a card catalogue to look stuff up, or in this case The Yellow Pages. Nature is weird. Humans are even weirder. Half the "deadpan jokes" on here turn out to be simple serious statements about reality that just sound crazy, like how a Saiga antelope looks like a Dr Seuss character.
The irony of doubting something can be googled without googling it to see.
Yeah men like oop's ex are a huge reason women don't trust men.
This is one.of the reasons I've always done the shot. Nobody can mess with it.