Hi everyone! My apologies for the hiatus. I took my husband on a spontaneous trip to Vegas for his birthday and we just got back yesterday. We had a great time, but I’ve fallen behind on my blogging. Oops!
Before I left for our mini-vacation, I went out and purchased 3 or 4 grapefruits from our local grocery store. I hadn’t had grapefruit in ages and had a craving for it. Of course, it’s also packed with Vitamin C and other goodies, so that was an added bonus.
After I’d eaten one or two of them, I started to remember why it was that I hadn’t eaten them for a long time. A few years ago, my mother freaked out and told me that I couldn’t eat grapefruit because I was on birth control (Yaz). Initially, I started taking birth control as a way to help my skin (which it didn’t), but then as pregnancy prevention. So, since some of you out there might also be trying birth control to solve your skin issues, I wanted to write a post about birth control + grapefruit.
So, is grapefruit really detrimental to someone using birth control? Fortunately, not really. Isn’t hasn’t been shown to lower it’s effectiveness at preventing pregnancy (if that’s something you care about), and I can’t imagine it having anything but a positive effect on acne (unless you have a citrus sensitivity, which is certainly possible). The one way which it can hurt birth control pill users is “its chemicals may change how your body handles estrogen or interfere with the enzymes that break down certain drugs” – which translates to more intense side effects. By keeping your grapefruit intake on the low end, you don’t need to worry about this.
However, if you’re taking something other than birth control for your skin, such as an antibiotic, then seriously avoid grapefruit. This is especially true if you’re on Erythromycin. While I can give you a list of reasons why you shouldn’t be on an antibiotic for your skin, I’m sure that many of you still are or plan to be, which is why you should try to be as safe as possible about it.
Read more about grapefruit and drug interactions here and grapefruit/birth control here.
Personally, I still plan to start eating grapefruit once or twice a week, but make sure you’re aware of the ways that grapefruit could personally be effecting your prescriptions and health!
clearly minimalist 