How Many Times Can U Take Plan B

How Many Times Can U Take Plan B

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How many times can you take Plan B?

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Medically reviewed by Sally Chao, MD . Last updated on Aug 1, 2021.
You can take Plan B ( levonorgestrel ) as many times as needed for emergency contraception . There is no known limit on the number of times you can safely use Plan B. Plan B can even be taken more than once in the same menstrual cycle.
While research is limited, existing data suggest repeated, long-term use of Plan B has no known health risks and does not affect future fertility. In several studies reviewed in Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology , taking Plan B multiple times in one cycle did not cause any serious side effects. Frequent use of Plan B is not known to pose an increased risk of birth defects or health issues in babies born to women who become pregnant or are already pregnant when Plan B is taken.
Longer term birth control methods are significantly more effective at preventing pregnancy than routinely taking Plan B as your only method of birth control, and they are often cheaper.
A doctor can advise and provide standard birth control options for emergency and longer term use, especially for those who find themselves requiring Plan B or other emergency contraception frequently. One option is the insertion of a copper IUD, which is an effective form of emergency contraception when placed within 5 to 10 days of sexual intercourse, and it can be retained to offer long-term protection.
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Drugs.com provides accurate and independent information on more than 24,000 prescription drugs, over-the-counter medicines and natural products. This material is provided for educational purposes only and is not intended for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Data sources include IBM Watson Micromedex (updated 5 July 2022), Cerner Multum™ (updated 27 June 2022), ASHP (updated 16 May 2022) and others.
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When your regular form of birth control fails—whether it's a broken condom or missed oral contraceptive—using emergency contraception can help prevent an unplanned pregnancy. While it's perfectly safe to take a morning-after pill, should you be concerned if you've taken it more than once, or even countless times? And could it affect your ability to get pregnant in the future? We asked experts to weigh in.

The most common morning-after pills are over-the-counter tablets containing higher doses of levonorgestrel, a synthetic progestin hormone that is also in oral contraceptives. These pills work by preventing the ovary from releasing an egg or delaying the release of an egg, which in turn lowers the risk of male sperm fertilizing an egg. You might know them by brand names such as Plan B One-Step.

You don't have to wait until the actual morning after to get or take the pill. You do have the option to get emergency contraception in advance; additionally, if you have unprotected sex, you should take emergency contraception as soon as possible. Morning-after pills aren't 100% effective at preventing pregnancy, but they "can prevent up to over 95% of pregnancies when taken within five days after intercourse," according to the World Health Organization (WHO) .

Of note, morning-after pills are not intended to be used as routine birth control, per the Office on Women's Health (OWH) , as using them for that reason has not received FDA approval. The OWH added that the correct use of regular birth control (so, taking it daily and on time) is much more effective than emergency contraception for pregnancy prevention.

While morning-after pills won't have harmful long-term effects on your body, taking it multiple times can turn your hormones upside-down, said Sherry A. Ross, MD , a Los Angeles-based ob-gyn and author of She-ology ($26; amazon.com ). "It's temporarily harmful in that you will have irregular bleeding and may feel emotionally unraveled," Dr. Ross told Health . "But once you stop taking it, your body will have the opportunity to reset."

Orlando-based ob-gyn Christine Greves, MD , a fellow of the American Association of Obstetrics and Gynecology, agreed with Dr. Ross. You might experience unpleasant side effects after taking Plan B, Dr. Greves explained, including nausea and lower abdominal cramps in addition to irregular bleeding. Other short-term effects might include headaches, dizziness, fatigue, or breast pain, per the OWH.

Although taken less often, Ella, another type of morning-after pill available with a prescription, also won't have long-term effects on your health, Dr. Greves said. But she did note that you shouldn't take other forms of birth control pills that contain progesterone for at least five days after using Ella, because it could interfere with the pill's effectiveness.

However, if you've taken the morning-after pill countless times, you might want to speak to your gynecologist about alternate contraceptive options, said Bat-Sheva Lerner Maslow, MD, a reproductive endocrinologist at Extend Fertility .

Dr. Maslow pointed out that it's better to have a reliable form of contraception than constantly turning to emergency ones. If you struggle to remember to take birth control pills, for example, long-term contraception such as an intrauterine device (IUD) can make forgetfulness a non-issue. Even if you don't already have an IUD, you also have the option to have a "copper T IUD inserted within five days of unprotected sex," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) .

So, say you had unprotected sex and took the morning-after pill. Would that same pill prevent pregnancy if you then had unprotected sex again a few days after taking it? To play it safe, it's best to take Plan B after every unprotected sexual encounter, experts said.

"In theory, it should cover you until your next period because of the changes it causes in the uterine lining," Dr. Maslow explained, "but I wouldn't necessarily recommend relying on it as a proactive form of birth control."

And can taking Plan B make it difficult to get pregnant when you do want to down the road? Fortunately, all experts we polled were in agreement on this: The morning-after pill won't have any long-term effects on future fertility.

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Plan B, commonly known as "the morning-after pill," can prevent you from becoming pregnant. And while there's no limit to how many times you can take Plan B, that doesn't mean you should treat it like a standard

birth control

pill that you take regularly.
Contrary to popular belief, it's not an abortion pill and cannot terminate a preexisting pregnancy. Instead, you should only take Plan B in an emergency after you've had unprotected sex because either you didn't use protection, your form of birth control failed during intercourse, or you missed a dose of your oral contraceptive pill that day.
If you take one dose of Plan B within 24 hours of unprotected sex, you have a 95% chance of preventing pregnancy because it interferes with your ovulation by either preventing or delaying it.
You only need one dose for each episode of unprotected sex. "Taking more than one dose of Plan B after one episode of unprotected sex is not going to make a difference in its effectiveness," says Aparna Sridhar, MD , an OB-GYN at UCLA Health.
If you become nauseous and vomit shortly after taking Plan B, this is a case where you should take another dose, since the pill didn't have the chance to really enter your system and do its job.
Additionally, let's say you had unprotected sex again, a day or two after taking Plan B. In that case, you should consider taking another dose, since Plan B is really only meant to prevent pregnancy for that one instance of unprotected sex that's already happened.
In other words, the Plan B you took for that first episode won't cover you for the next one. According to the Plan B site's FAQs , "If you have already used Plan B, it can be safely used again after another instance of unprotected sex or birth control failure."
Sridhar says the general consensus of doctors is that you should use some type of birth control the next time you have sex, so you won't need to take Plan B again.
If for no other reason than emergency contraception, at $15 to $45 , is usually more expensive than other forms of birth control, like a box of condoms for $2 to $6 .
"The most important counseling I give my patients is to use condoms or another form of birth control for the rest of the cycle, because I don't want them to assume they won't get pregnant after taking one Plan B," says Sridhar.
This being said, she also advises against taking Plan B multiple times a week. While, short-term side effects like headache, fatigue, and nausea can be common, it's not technically medically harmful or dangerous to take multiple doses. But if you find yourself in this situation, you should strongly consider another type of birth control so you don't find yourself relying on Plan B.
Plus, she says that using a different form of birth control properly will be more effective at preventing pregnancy than Plan B.
"While it is not recommended that Plan B be taken regularly, or as a replacement for traditional birth control, its effectiveness may not change with repeated use," Sridhar says. In other words, if you do need to take Plan B multiple times, you won't build up a tolerance to it like you can with some other medications.
"There may be transient changes in menstrual cycle bleeding patterns when it is used multiple times, but there is no evidence that emergency contraceptive pills have any long-term adverse effects on fertility," Sridhar says.
So, if you've had unprotected sex within the last 72 hours and are nervous about an unwanted pregnancy, don't hesitate to take Plan B, the sooner the better. You can rest assured that your body will be fine in the long run.

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