A Little Math Makes It Better

I was a little discouraged recently when I couldn't find many choices for low-estrogen Pill with less-androgenic progestins. Since

progestins with less androgenic activity tend to have little to no effect on carbohydrate metabolism

(ref), I wanted my less androgenic choice (8 months on Loestrin Fe 1/20 added 16 pounds! 1 pound per week on active pills, then I could actually control my own weight and lose 1 pound the Fe week; the iron pills are a nice touch, and I think they made me feel better that week). As I was falling asleep after that post, I realized I could determine the least androgenic choice with a little math. Yes, better living with math!

First, copy this chart into a spreadsheet (no, I didn't use Excel). So I could sort by these columns later, I added a column for progestin formula (which progestin), making sure to separate out the norethindrones from the norethindrone acetates. Then I added a column for androgenic activity from this reference (the second table, not the first). Add another column for the androgenic potency that is the product of the "Progestin (mg)" column and the newly added androgenic activity column. Since Loestrin Fe 1/20 has a product of 1.6 (1 mg norethindrone acetate * 1.6 androgenic activity), I didn't consider anything with a higher value. And once you control for the few with mestranol instead of ethinyl estradiol (mestranol has 2/3 the estrogen activity), you can sort by either value.

Spreadsheets just make this easy. I could delete the rows with multiphasic drugs since those can increase headaches, and I had a doozie last week. I could delete the rows with more than 30mcg of ethinyl estradiol since Cale and I like breastfeeding. Sort by androgenic potency, and there's a list of candidates.

So that's how a little math, just a small dose of multiplication that my computer did for me, cheered me up. Alternatives exist, and I can try them.