Birth control patch: Testimonials
My life is heavily consumed with work and the things that I’m up to. And as much as possible, I try to incorporate the other areas of my life into that. It’s like family, boyfriend and all those types of things. I try to make everything kind of balance but still kind of interlace and overlap, because I really enjoy the things that I do. I was at my doctor’s office and I was reading a pamphlet about different types of methods. And I knew I didn’t want anything that was messy or that I had to stick inside. So I discovered the patch in the – in the brochure, and I read about it. It seemed really easy. I asked the doctor questions about it, and tried it out. And I’ve been on it since. That was four years ago. What I like about the patch is that there’s not very much to manage about it. I just have a particular day, which is Sundays. Every Sunday I know that I need to either put a new one on – well – yeah, put a new on one or take it off or whatever I need to do. The thing that I’d have to say that I like most about it, like absolutely, like positively is the thing about the patch is that I know when my period’s going to come. I think a lot of what I do outside of, you know, just using the patch, you know, for work and things like that is very routine and structured. So having my birth control that way just works for me. So I’ll always know, you know, for three weeks I’m wearing the patch and for one week I’m off, and that’s when I’m on my period. The one thing about the patch when I initially started – like I am way over this now, it’s been four years – but when I first started the patch, and they warn you about this when you’re at the doctor requesting it – is that there’s a little bit of skin irritation initially. Because it’s basically a sticker that has, I’m assuming, hormones and things like that on it. You stick it on, and you know, your skin isn’t really used to having things just kind of stuck there. And it’s stuck for an entire week. So initially when I started using the patch, I’d get – you know, it’d be a little itchy. But it’s something that kind of went away in time getting used to it. My experience has been that the more that I move it around, the more skin irritation there is. So I tend to keep the patch on my butt. I may switch butt cheeks, but it’s always on my butt (laughs). My name is Geraldine. I’m 29 years old, and I use the patch.
Geraldine, 29, The Patch
I didn't want anything messy or to stick inside.
Geraldine finds that the patch fits perfectly into her busy, structured life. She loves the predictability of her periods and finds the once a week patch change easy to manage.
So what if she wants to shake up the routine a bit? She just might put the next patch on the other butt cheek. But she’ll still stick it there right on schedule.