What is Yasmin?
There are so many popular oral contraceptive pills and Yasmin is one of them. It is claimed that Yasmin provides over 99% protection against pregnancy, if you take it right. Drospirenone and Ethinylestradiol are the active ingredients contained in a pill. Their combination works against ovulation that occurs every month during the menstrual cycle.
How does Yasmin work?
Ovulation is a process controlled by the female sex hormones – progesterone and oestrogen. Ovulation in a normal menstrual cycle is a release of one egg by ovaries every month. If an egg is fertilized by sperm, a pregnancy occurs. Two synthetic hormones, contained in a pill, imitate those natural hormones and prevent the egg from being released. Yasmin pills also affect the sperm, making it difficult for it to reach the uterus. One of the synthetic hormones, Ethinylestradiol, prevents the buildup of the endometrium, which makes it less likely for a fertilized egg to grow into an embryo. This also has impact on periods, as they become lighter. One blister of Yasmin contains 21 pill. When you finish one pack, you should take a break for 7 days and then start a new one. Periods come during this 7-day break.
What are the benefits from using Yasmin?
- Shorter and lighter periods
- Less severe PMS
- Reduced risk of ectopic pregnancies
- Lower risk of anemia, etc.
Who can use Yasmin?
Yasmin can be used by woman who is older than 18 years old, is sexually active and requires an effective method to prevent pregnancy.
Yasmin is not for you, if you are:
- Allergic to any of its ingredients. Consider to use another way of contraception.
- Older than 35
- Heavy smoker (more than 15 cigarettes a day)
Breastfeeding and pregnancy
Yasmin passes into the breast milk and can influence the baby’s health. If you want to use oral contraceptive pills while breastfeeding, contact your doctor or gynecologist for further information.
Precautions and Interactions
If you have any allergies or health concerns, your doctor need to know about that before prescribing you any medication. Yasmin cannot be prescribed if a woman had:
- Stroke
- Problems with blood circulation
- Heart issues
- Vaginal or abdominal bleeding
- Breast cancer
- Liver or kidney diseases, etc.
It is recommended to limit the amount of alcohol when you take Yasmin for the first time to observe the interaction. It is observed that an active ingredient drospirenone interacts with ibuprofen and the level of potassium increases. This can lead to health complications, especially with kidney. Although this occurs rarely, it’s need to be taken into consideration.
It is absolutely fine to take Yasmin with other antibiotics. However, there are some medicines that can make Yasmine less effective. For example, rifabutin and rifampicin are antibiotics that can make Yasmin stop working.
How to take Yasmin?
Taking Yasmin is simple – 1 tablet orally at the same time each day. Each pill contains two active ingredients - Ethinylestradiol (0.03mg) and Drospirenone(3.0 mg). Yasmin pills are round, light yellow color and have a convex surface. When pills are missed or taken incorrectly, a failure risk may increase. To get the maximum effectiveness, women should take pills in the order shown on the blister. A single missed pill should be taken as soon as remembered.
A woman should start taking contraceptive pills on the first day of her menstrual period. A patient should take one yellow Yasmin tablet daily for 21 days. Then goes a 7-days split when a person should take 1 white (placebo) pill daily.
Pills can be taken without regards to food with a glass of water. If the first pill was taken later than the first day of the menstrual period, Yasmin should not be considered 100% effective as a contraceptive method.
Like all medicines, this medicine potentially can cause some side effects, however, not everybody gets them. If you get any of these side effects (or listed in a product leaflet), particularly if severe and persistent, or have any change to your health in general that you think may be due to Yasmin, please talk to your doctor.
Signs of a severe allergic reaction to Yasmin:
- swelling of the face, lips, mouth, tongue or throat
If you think you may have any of these, see a doctor straight away. You may need to stop taking Yasmin.
Common side effects (between 1 and 10 in every 100 users may be affected):
- depressive mood,
- headache, migraine,
- nausea,
- breast pain, breast tenderness,
- menstrual disorders, bleeding between periods, thick whitish vaginal discharge, vaginal yeast infection.
Uncommon side effects (between 1 and 10 in every 1,000 users may be affected):
- breast enlargement,
- altered interest in sex,
- high blood pressure, low blood pressure,
- vomiting, diarrhea,
- acne, severe itching, skin rash, hair loss (alopecia),
- vaginal infection,
- fluid retention,
- body weight changes.
Leaflet info
The Patient Information Leaflet (PIL) is the leaflet included in the pack with a medicine. It is written for patients and gives information about taking or using a medicine. It is possible that the leaflet in your medicine pack may differ from the PDF-version from this website because it may have been updated since your medicine was packaged or the medicine is from another brand.