Cortisone and birth control pill: Interactions, precautions and side effects

When taking multiple drugs at the same time it is important to be cautious since some may interact, such as cortisone and the birth control pill.

From the outset, all drugs have side effects. Hence, as essential standards, we should not follow the wrong treatments (dose, duration …). Also be careful when two drugs are taken at the same time as it can be interact with each other. Interactions that may mitigate or, on the contrary, exceed the effect of one of them. It is important to tell your doctor if you are taking any medications, and this also includes the pill that can interact with cortisone.

We are going to see more carefully the precautions to be taken to avoid possible side effects. The pill contains hormones, whereas cortisone is a potent anti-inflammatory. Each of these drugs is taken to obtain a therapeutic effect, but taken together may cause other unwanted side effects.

Thus, the interaction of drugs can increase or decrease the effect of one of the two, and even both. You can also modify their level of toxicity and lead to unexpected reactions.

The adverse reactions may occur within a few minutes, hours, days, weeks or months of taking the drug, and in the case of these two drugs the longer period of observation should be taken in the first quarter. The effects of the interaction with the contraceptive pill also vary depending on the type and dose of cortisone. In general, in the case of betamethasone can result a moderate increase in the effect of corticosteroids. For interaction with prednisolone and prednisone will have a moderate increase in toxicity.

In summary, the simultaneous ingestion of cortisone and the birth control pill causes an increase in the levels of cortisone in the blood, but does not interfere with the contraceptive effect, which, however, it can happen when taken antibiotics.

A useful tip: before the doctor prescribes us a medicine we must inform him if we are taking other medications.