Does anyone know of a good birth control pill that will help reduce ace?… by Bit
My daughter is 17 and constanlty breaking out with hormonal acne and her periods are very irregular, anything the dermatologist gives her does not help and makes the acne WORSE!!!
Best Answer:
Which pills have higher progestin side effects or cause more acne and hair growth?
Each progestin has a different potency, milligram per milligram, in terms of progesterone effect to stop menstrual bleeding or androgen effect to stimulate acne and hair growth. However you must remember that a higher potency progestin may be used in a much smaller milligram dose and thus be equivalent to a larger milligram dose of a less potent progestin. For example, desogestrel is a very potent and androgenic progestin but its usual oral contraceptive dose is 0.15 mg instead of 1.00 mg for norethindrone. Its progestin potency compared to norethindrone would be 0.15 X 9.0 = 1.35 times. For androgenicity, it would be 0.15 X 3.4 = .51 or half as androgenic as a pill containing 1 mg of norethindrone.
Progestin Potency of Different Oral Contraceptive Progestins* Progestin Progestational Activity
(relative to 1 mg of norethindrone) Androgenic Activity
(relative to 1 mg of norethindrone)
norethindrone 1 mg 1.0 1.0
norethrindrone acetate 1 mg 1.2 1.6
ethynodiol diacetate 1 mg 1.4 0.6
levonorgestrel 1 mg 5.3 8.3
dl-norgestrel 1 mg 2.6 4.2
norgestimate 1 mg 1.3 1.9
norelgestromin 1 mg** 1.3 1.9
desogestrel 1 mg 9.0 3.4
drospirenone 1 mg 1.5 0.0
* - From Table 2 in Dickey RP: Individualizing oral contraceptive therapy. OBG Management Supplement October 2000, p 5.
** - Not yet tested but it is the major active metabolite of norgestimate
The pills that are likely to cause worse acne and hair growth side effects are those pills high in androgenicity and low in estrogen content. Such pills might include:
Loestrin