Ortho Tri Cyclen Lo - good or bad?

[goddess1976]

I've just started on Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo hoping it would help my hair. I read that it has 25mcg of estrogen verses 35mcg in Ortho Tri-Cyclen. Is this not what I'm looking for? Do I need more estrogen to help combat the shedding? Thank you to anyone who help me out here.::o

[Evee]

Welp different people have different reactions to this pill. I was on Loestrin 24 and just recently switched to ortho tri cyclen lo. It does have more estrogen which might help hair grow back. I took OTC lo about 5-6 years ago and it didn't do any harm to me, no side effects or anything! So I'm trying it again, and I'll definitely report back to how it's working. :)

[Lise]

OTC lo shouldn't do you any harm. The higher dose (estrogen) pill might benefit you, or not. Most of the people I know who are, or have been, pregnant claim that their hair was fuller, grew faster and was generally just "better" while pregnant, and I would think that has to do with the high levels of estrogen during the last 2 trimesters. I've never been pregnant, but I do know that when I was on birth control (before my HL started) my hair was generally fuller and seemed healthier and grew longer than before. So I assume that estrogen is generally beneficial. BTW, at the time was seeing these benefits on a pill with 30mcg of estrogen (but of course, my HL had not started back then).

Having said that, everyone is different and will react to the same hormones in different ways. You could always give OTC lo a try for 4 months and if nothing changes, switch to the higher estrogen version to see if it makes any difference.

[Moonchild]

Estrogen tends to help most hair issues- it's the androgenic pills that would probably hurt them.

Here is a list of birth control pills ranging from lowest androgen index to highest:
http://www.americanhairloss.org/women_hair_loss/oral_contraceptives.asp