Hormonal Contraception: The Pill [General Discussion]
in Women's Health ·
Kenneth Brown5 said:That’s basically what my primary care doctor told me too—not using those exact medical terms, obviously, but she just kept reassuring me that everything was fine because I was totally spiraling at the time.
She also gave me a referral to get the labs re-run after ten days, and those results came back perfectly normal.
Do you happen to know anything more specific about how this works?
And if these numbers are actually fine, why did my OBGYN react so strongly that she had me stop taking my birth control right away?
Well, we don't actually know what those initial lab results looked like, do we? If all that worried her was an INR of 0.88, then maybe she totally misread the report. 🤷
The report probably listed the PT (prothrombin time) as well, which is how they calculate the INR—and if that was normal (which it should have been, given your INR is 0.88), I honestly have no clue what set her off.
PT is basically just the time it takes for your blood to clot; a normal range is usually around 11 to 13.5 seconds—though that varies depending on which lab you use, like if you were at Quest Diagnostics versus Labcorp. The INR is calculated by taking that PT value and dividing it by a standard "normal" PT. So, a healthy range is typically 0.8 to 1.1—makes sense, right? 🙂 For people on anticoagulant therapy, though, they aim for a target of 2 to 3 because they *want* the blood to take longer to clot, so that's why you see that wider range on the charts.
They also measure aPTT, which was likely perfectly fine for you too.
From what I can gather, you were dealing with spotting, which is just a standard side effect of birth control pills... if it really bothers you, I’d suggest switching to a different brand and seeing if it still happens. Otherwise, the pill does increase the risk of thrombosis—which would shorten your PT and lower your INR—but your symptoms don't seem to have anything to do with that, so there’s really zero reason to panic here.
I’m just sitting here wondering what on earth spooked your gynecologist. 😕