ORTHO-CEPT Reviews (DESOGESTREL; ETHINYL ESTRADIOL)Average Rating: 2.9 (108 Ratings)Filter ResultsCompare ORTHO-CEPT with similar:
Type: Brand name discontinued; available as generic
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Results are sorted by length of time drug was taken from shortest to longest duration (reviews with no time reported listed first). Key to Ratings: 1=LOW (I would not recommend taking this medicine.) |
More on ORTHO-CEPT: Reviews Summary | Drug Safety Information
| RATING | REASON | SIDE EFFECTS FOR ORTHO-CEPT | COMMENTS | SEX | AGE | DURATION/ DOSAGE | DATE ADDED |
| 2 | Pregnancy | Acne: face, chest, back, arms. Major mood swings which you can call bipolar disorder. Insomnia - do not take this before you go to bed! always bloated. Huge increase in appetite. Breast tenderness. Very very bitchy! I hate everyone basicly. I'm always mad and pissed off. | This pill is literally a joke. This was the downfall of my life. After 2 months of being on ortho-cept I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder and bipolar disorder. If you feel like ruining your life; knock yourself out. | F | 18 | 1X day | 5/5/2010 | 2 | no babies | break out, spotting, increased sensitivity to smell | I figured tonight after spotting 5 days after finishing a period I had (because I missed one pill) I would look up others experience with this. I've also felt less strong since I started taking this pill which I thought might just be me, but I stopped feeling as strong (not able to do as many push ups and pull ups as before) about a week after starting this pill. I'm not stoked on it at all. I took my last pill last night and I'm going back to Planned Parenthood to change it up. The last pill I was on, microgestin, was awesome but I didn't like not having periods. I know some people want to get rid of theirs but I was just scared I wouldn't know if I happened to get pregnant. | F | 26 | 1X day | 4/21/2012 | 2 | Birth Control | No sex drive, Bad mood swings, Irritablity | I have been on Ortho Cept for approx. 3 yrs now, and hated everv minute of it. I was ok the 1st 3 mos. but then I slowly started losing my sex drive and started to become very irritable. My sudden & terrable mood swings have been threating my marrage for at least a year and a half now. I thought it was just me. Then this last month I ran out of pill packs and this freak ice storm had my Dr's office shut down for 5 days. We typically have sex only once a month. But, for those 5 days I was back to my old self. My hsbands dirty dishes & laundry didn't bother me, we cooked togethr, I felt sexy again, and we made love like when we were 1st dating.(safely) On that 6th day I rushed to get my pills and get back on trac. Now once again I am screaming at him for no reason and do not want to be bothered with sex. Needless to say I realize now that I need to be switched back to my old pills Ortho Tri Cyclyn Lo. | F | 24 | 3 days | 1/25/2007 | 1 | Birth control | My appetite became ravenous! I also found it hard to fall asleep at night and to get up in the morning. The lack of sleep caused my skin to break out as well | F | 3 days | 11/2/2012 | 5 | Prevent Pregnancy | No Side Effects | I have been taking ortho-cept for 5 years now. I have not gotten pregnant once. It really is a good birth control pill you just need to give it some time. | F | 21 | 5 days | 1/23/2007 | 4 | Acne and Pregnancy prevention | Increased appetite for sure and possibly insomnia. I phrase it this way because I have had trouble sleeping before I started taking this, so I do not know if this is just a correlation or a side effect. | For all the people commenting about having horrible side effects from Ortho-Cept: Number 1- it says in the directions that side effects could last for the first three months and most physicians advise staying on the pill for at least 2 months for your body to get used to the new hormones. Number 2- it is not that Ortho-cept "sucks" but rather everybody's bodies have different hormone levels and some birth controls just work for some people and others don't. Number 3- this is a high hormone dose birth control so if you are having "extreme" side effects you should probably be on lower dose birth control. Number 4- this birth control is used to prevent acne and as with people who don't have A.D.D. taking Adderall, the effects are the opposite. For the people who did not have acne prior and then got it after taking this, that is most likely the reason. | F | 20 | 6 days 15 MG 1X day | 2/20/2012 | 2 | Mood, Acne, Birth Control | Nausea, Painful Headaches, Numbness, Horrible Mood Swings, Acne, Sore/Enlarged Breasts, Insomnia, Light Spotting | I know that I have only been on this pill for a week, but that was enough for me to call it quits. My moods have become the worst it has ever been in my life. I have acne all over my back and chest now, something I never had to worry about before. I cannot sleep at night and have no need to be staying up because I have class in the mornings.I really wanted the pill to help me with my PMS syndromes and facial acne, but that really did not work out. I cannot risk being in bad moods every single day because of this pill. | F | 19 | 7 days 1X day | 2/28/2011 | 3 | birth control | Nausea, headaches, low libido, spotting, slight cramps, increase in appetite. | This birth control prescription was given to me by my gyno. Apparently, I was given this dosage because of my height so I need a bit of a higher level of hormones, I guess. I've been taking this for only 8 days. Started on day 1 of my heavy period so I should be safe. The first few days, nothing was wrong but these past 2-3 days I've been feeling nauseous, headaches, and cramping. I take the pill everyday on time during the evening and these symptoms occur hours before the time I should take the pill and hours later so I feel like I never get a break. The smell of some food makes me want to vomit and right now, I'm currently feeling extremely nauseous as well. =[ After my period was finished, I've been experiencing spotting but that is probably withdrawal or old blood from just finishing my period. I really want to stop taking the pills but I should probably wait it out for these symptoms to stop. This is my first pack of birth control pills, ever and I already hate the idea of having to take oral contraceptives. Maybe the dosage is too high for me. I don't know, but I just wished I didn't want to vomit from just the smell of some food, all of the other symptoms are easy for me to handle. | F | 18 | 8 days 30 1X day | 7/16/2011 | 3 | prevent pregnancy | my face is getting chunky, andddd my tummy. my head hurts really bad, im really tired all the time i just want to sleep because im so tired and so my head will stop hurting, my boobs hurt and they are fuller which isnt so bad. | F | 19 | 10 days | 10/10/2009 | 5 | birth control | no side effects except slight breast tenderness, but that is fine since i think they are growing... Yippie! | I had to switch because of breakthrough bleeding from LoEstrin fe to Ortho-Cept. I'll get back to you if this works better. So far no nausea or anything like i had with LoEstrin (i was on that for 3 months) Was suffereing from yeast infection right before i went on Ortho-cept since then I have been very dry. I want to have sex with my husband, but i'm so dry it is uncomfortable and painful. So we tried vagisil lubricant. That has been helping. Hopefully the dryness goes away and I get back to my old self. I'm only 26 I shouldn't suffer from dryness. | F | 26 | 11 days | 2/1/2007 | 5 | Complications w/ Paragard | Increased sex drive & breast soreness | I switched to Ortho-cept after having complications with a Paragard (never had kids, got a nasty infection after 2 months). Before that I was on Depo for 5 years, had absolutely no sex-drive. I had weight gain on Depo but I've been on Ortho-cept for 2 weeks and so far no weight gain. I noticed my sex drive came back the day I had my Paragard removed. My breasts are growing which is nice because I'm a B cup, pretty sore though. No other side effects. Actually noticed my mood/irritability got better after switching from Depo/Paragard to Ortho-Cept. | F | 21 | 14 days MG 1X day | 9/14/2010 | 3 | irregular periods | headaches, insomnia. | It's only been two weeks, so I am trying to give it a little longer for my body to get used to it. I have noticed more frequent headaches, but I get headaches while not on birth control, again I am waiting it out to see if my body gets used to it. I feel for those on who review it who are having a hard time. It's been a few years since I've used the pill, so I think its ok to wait it out a little or try something else. Best of luck. Excedrin Migraine helps with headaches and I find lowering caffeine has helped. Good luck, if not there are other choices out there and something may be a better fit. | F | 33 | 14 days 1X day | 4/26/2012 | 3 | Period Irregularites | Tingling in my legs the first week, seemed to be whenever I drank caffiene but it has since stopped. Mild cramps, fatigue & an increase in acne. | Besides the irritating breakouts on my face, I haven't really had bad side effects with this pill. No decrease in sex drive, slight mood swings, but not as bad as before, and no weight gain. yet...I have an increased appetite so I should start eating more healthy haha. I am only 2 weeks into this so I have to see if it gets better or worse, or if I like it enough to stay on it. | F | 27 | 16 days 1X day | 4/7/2010 | 2 | Birth control/regulation | I just switched to Ortho-cept last month from Zovia. It's a little less than a week before my period and I'm already starting to experience fairly bad PMS symptoms. I was bloated and started retaining water. I began having cramps 5 days before my period (I've only ever had them the day before my period, with or without birth control). and I started having extreme mood swings. One minute I'm super irritable and any little thing pisses me off... 30 minutes later I'm crying my eyes out for absolutely no reason. I've never had any of these symptoms with my old birth control pills or even without any pills. | F | 23 | 17 days | 1/27/2010 | 3 | Prevent Pregnancy | This is only my 1st month on ortho cept but so far i have had a large amount of spotting it's almost like i had my period light for the past 3 weeks. My face has also started to break out which is weird since i have never had bad skin. I have some breast tenderness but i realize that is normal when on most types of birth control. I haven't experienced any mood changes or weight gain but i also work out at least 4 days a week. I may also have been having an increase in sex drive (according to my boyfriend) but i don't see a change maybe i'm just expressing it more? | I'm going to stay on it for another month and then see what happens, if i continue to have these problems i'm going to switch but i'll get back to ya | F | 21 | 20 days | 4/13/2008 | 2 | Contraception; acne control | Breast soreness, bad mood swings & almost total loss of libido | I went on Ortho Cept because I mistakenly thought that it was the pill I was taking happily last year. It definitely wasn't! Almost instantly, my breasts began to grow (great!) and become unbelievably sore and tender (not so great!). Then, I started noticing some pretty intense crankiness. I took a trip to see my long-distance boyfriend and realized that I had absolutely no sex drive. I didn't get pregnant while on this pill but if I would have stayed on it my mood swings and lack of sex drive would have ensured I would have no opportunity to. This was all after a month of taking Ortho-Cept--when I got back home I immediately went to my doc and got Ortho TriCyclen Lo. I started having breast soreness after the second week; unfortunately, but I researched pills on the internet and found the one I used to take that I was quite happy with (Desogen) and am going to switch back to that. | F | 28 | 21 days | 5/28/2005 | 2 | birth control | none | i have been taking ortho cept for about a month and in sunday i started my green pills. usually i get my period on tuesday with my old pill (orton tri cyclyn 135) and here it is wednsday and no period. my feoncie and i dont want any more kids and i am freaking out. has this happen to anyone else? | F | 28 | 24 days | 11/15/2006 | 2 | regulate periods | acne, mood swings, overall feelings of depression | I was prescribed this bc pill to help regulate my periods and to help with some hormonal issues I was suffering with due to PCOS. It made it worse. I have gone from a bit of acne now and then to being broken out on my face, chest, and arms (very unusual for me) since the day after I started taking this pill. I find myself fine one minute, mad at my husband or kids for no real reason the next minute, and crying the minute after that. Over the last 2 weeks I've realized I feel very down and have to make myself do my regular activities like working out, gardening, etc. I just feel and look like crap right now and am asking my dr today to prescribe me something else. | F | 28 | 28 days .03mg 1X day | 4/14/2010 | 5 | Birth Control | I recently switched onto Ortho-Cept from Loestrin 24 Fe. Since the switch, I've felt great and have lost 5 pounds. The weight loss seems to be an unintended side effect since I wasn't trying to lose weight. My doctor warned me that there is a slightly increased risk of blood clots on Ortho-Cept, but I take a baby aspirin every other day (I'm 40 years-old) and am not particularly worried. | F | 40 | 30 days 33 mg 1X day | 9/23/2013 | 2 | long periods | more irritable and blue, bloated, yeast infection (which I never get unless when I was pregnant), occ mild headache | I was switched to ortho-cept b/c my periods were still long after being on Kariva for 4 months. My Dr. determined this was too much estrogen for me after having a bad yeast infection (which I don't get unless pregnant) and switched me back to Kariva and I noticed my mood and bloating is much better. | F | 29 | 30 days | 10/29/2009 |