Nuvaring - Nashville,TN

You should have refridgerated the Nuvaring.

Your cycle begins on the day your period starts. You are supposed to take your old ring out the first day of your period and insert the new ring 7 days later. If you had a ring in 3 days into your cycle you are putting it in too soon. You need to familiarize yourself with your cycle and the Nuvaring instructions if you want to prevent pregnancy.

Assuming you were mistakingly counting the first day of your cycle as the day your period ended then you are at a big risk for ovulating this month. The Lutenizing Hormone begins to build up toward ovulation at this point in your cycle. At an unknown point you can not prevent ovulation even if you reinsert your degraded Nuvaring.

To prevent pregnancy you should either avoid having sex or carefully use a condom for the rest of this cycle. You can get pregnant up to a week after ovulation. Since we don't know when of if you'll ovulation we can't predict when that will be. You may have a longer than usual cycle this month. If you wish to get pregnant I recommend going off birth control a few months to ensure a healthy egg before you TTC.

It sounds like Nuvaring is the wrong choice of birth control for you. If your husband finds it intolerable during sex that is good enough reason to see your doctor about other options. A good book to read about your cycle and how it works is called "Taking Charge of Your Fertility".

D., you need to educate yourself about proper usage of this an any BC option. Maybe the Shot is more for you... you can discuss this with your doctor. The Nuvaring has to stay refrigerated as when it is at room temperature it starts to lose it's effectiveness as the hormones are released when it is not refrigerated. It is extremely important that you talk to your DR today. I would personally use a back up method of BC so that you don't get PG unless that is your intentions. The NR is not be taken out during sex as it is being used as a birth control device. Please read the above posts again, the people who posted them have shared great suggestions.

Unless this was your first month on the nuvaring or other hormonal birth control, the "period" you had was probably an anovulatory cycle (cycle without ovulation) and not a true period. This is because the hormonal birth control methods work by preventing ovulation from occurring the in the first place. Whenever you stop the hormonal birth control (even for just a day or few days), your body will experience "withdrawal bleeding" which is what happens every month when women take the nuvaring out for the prescribed week, or take the non-active birth control pills, or take the patch off for a week.

Were you having problems with the Nuvaring? It doesn't make sense to take it out, have sex,then put it back in - it's not effective when you do that and not supposed to be used that way. If the Nuvaring isn't really working for you, maybe talk to your doctor about a different kind of birth control. I personally did not like it and had issues with it coming out during sex (which proved to be a moodkiller!) so it did not work well for me.

Do not re-insert the already used Nuvaring without first contacting the doctor that prescribed it and finding out from him or her. You could alternatively also contact a pharmacist. Here is what the manufacturer says:

# If NuvaRing® is out for less than 3 hours: Rinse NuvaRing® with cool-to-lukewarm (not hot) water and reinsert it as soon as possible, at the latest within 3 hours. You should still be protected from pregnancy. If you’ve lost NuvaRing®, insert a new NuvaRing® and continue on the same schedule you had been following
# If NuvaRing® is out for more than 3 continuous hours during the first 2 weeks of starting a new NuvaRing®: Contraceptive effectiveness may have been reduced, so you might not be protected from pregnancy. Reinsert the ring as soon as possible and use an extra method of birth control (such as condoms or spermicide) until you have used NuvaRing® for 7 days in a row
# If NuvaRing® has been out for more than 3 continuous hours during the third week of using a new NuvaRing®: Throw the ring away and choose 1 of the 2 options below

1. Insert a new ring immediately. This begins the next 3-week use period. You may not have a period but you may experience breakthrough spotting or bleeding.

2. Have your period and insert a new ring no later than 7 days from the time the previous ring was removed or expelled. This option should be chosen only if the ring was used continuously for the preceding 7 days. In addition, you must use a barrier method (such as condoms or spermicide) until you have used NuvaRing® for 7 days in a row.
http://www.nuvaring.com/Consumer/commonQuestions/index.as...

Am I understanding you to say that after 3 days of having the ring in, you took it out to have sex, then 'accidentally' got your period early?

If so, I would say that the hormones in the Nuvaring may have caused you to have an early period and NO, you should not reuse it.

You can have sex with the Nuvaring in (my husband never noticed it), but if that weirds you out, I would reintert it IMMEDIATELY after sex, even if that means taking it out nightly for an hour.

I found Nuvaring very comfortable and reliable when I used it correctly. Only leave it out for 7 days, then in for 21.

goodluck.

You should call you GYN right away and find out.