First off, she tells patients taking Lo/Ovral-28 to check the list of the lot numbers for recalled products. Her office doesn’t track the lot number of pills that are prescribed to patients, and a CVS spokesperson told me the chain is sending out letters to inform patients, which they might not receive for a few days.
Those who have taken pills from affected lots have no way of knowing whether they mistakenly took any placebos, said Goltra, so certain precautions should be taken.
“Use a backup method like condoms until you get your period,” recommended Tufts Medical Center obstetrician-gynecologist Dr. Laura Baecher-Lind, and “take your pill packs back to the pharmacy where you purchased them to exchange them for new ones.”
Women should take a pregnancy test one to two weeks after taking the last pill from the affected pack to be on the safe side, said Lind.
The Plan B morning after pill to prevent pregnancy might also be an option if women had “unprotected” sex -- meaning they were using a recalled pill pack -- over the past few days. “It works best when taken within the first three days of unprotected sex,” said Goltra, “but it has some effectiveness when taken for up to five days afterward.”
As far as a woman’s chances of becoming unexpectedly pregnant from the recalled pills, the odds are pretty slim.
According to Pfizer, very few of the 1 million recalled packages actually contained mis-ordered pills. Taking just one placebo pill is akin to missing just one pill in a pack, which both Goltra and Lind said isn’t a big deal in terms of reducing effectiveness.
While the pill’s 99 percent effectiveness rate applies only to women who use their pills perfectly, most women forget multiple pills a month or don’t remember to start their new pack on time, bringing the “typical use” effectiveness rate down to 92 percent, said Goltra, which might be the effectiveness rate that one would expect from taking mis-ordered pills.
