What is norethisterone used for?

Authored by

Dr Adam Williams

21 October 2022

What’s covered?

What is norethisterone?

Norethisterone is a progestin medication used for contraceptive purposes, hormone replacement therapy and other women-related disorders like delayed periods. Norethisterone drugs may also be recommended to prevent your period if you don't want it to appear, e.g. while travelling or for an important event.

Norethisterone can be obtained from your doctor with a recommendation; however, non-prescription services are also now available for customers who want to use it to delay their period.

The development and loss of the womb lining can be controlled or manipulated by taking norethisterone at different stages during this cycle. For example, if you start taking norethisterone a few days ahead of your period, your body will withhold your period until you stop taking the medication.

How can you take Norethisterone?

Norethindrone is available as an oral tablet. Depending on the disease being managed and how effectively norethindrone treats the disease, several dosage regimes for norethindrone are used. Norethindrone is often given once daily for 6 to 9 months or until breakthrough bleeding becomes troublesome while treating endometriosis.

Norethindrone is often taken once daily for 5 to 10 days during the second part of the anticipated menstruation when it is used to start a regular cycle in postmenopausal women who have stopped menstruating.

Use norethisterone tablets daily at about the same time of day to make it easier for you to remind yourself to take them. You should discuss it with the doctor straight to minimize the chance of interaction.

Follow the norethindrone directions exactly. Never use it in larger or fewer amounts or more frequently than directed by your doctor.

Your doctor will likely begin you on a small dosage of norethindrone for endometrial and progressively raise your dose, not more than once every two weeks.

What are the uses of norethisterone?

Norethisterone is used for different menopausal hormone therapy and gynaecological disorders. Following are some various use of Norethisterone.

1. Endometriosis

When you have endometriosis, the abnormal endometrial tissue outside of your uterus functions just like the healthy tissue within. As it develops and sheds over your menstrual cycle, this hurts. Norethindrone acetate (Aygestin), which regulates your endometrium, helps treat pain brought on by endometriosis.

2. Delay your period

Heavy periods of blood loss can be very upsetting despite the fact it is a pretty common problem. But some drugs can aid, one of which is Norethisterone period delay tablets. A drug called norethisterone contains synthetic progesterone, the hormone that causes menstruation. Your progesterone levels will drop, and your endometrium will start to shed, and this is what induces your period if you are not pregnant during your menstrual period.

Your progesterone levels won't drop if you take Norethisterone, which prevents menstruation. Menorrhagia and period delay can both be treated with this treatment.

3. Oral Contraceptive Pill

Norethisterone works as an oral contraceptive to delay your period, which prevents pregnancy. Norethisterone tablets are structurally related contraceptive steroids.

You should start it before the onset of the menstrual cycle and continue for 17 days.

4. Breast cancer

Norethisterone acetate was administered to 24 patients with advanced breast cancer who had relapsed following primary and secondary endocrine therapy and chemotherapy. Six patients, four of whom had previously responded to hypophysectomy, saw objective regressions. Visceral metastases have shown resistance; the highest results were reported with cutaneous lesions. However, breast, lymphatic, and skeletal illness all showed improvement as it hardly had any toxicity.

Dosage of oral Norethisterone tablets

What you are using Norethisterone for will determine the dosage. It must be started three days before the anticipated start date of your menstruation and continued for up to two weeks to be effective. After stopping the medication, your menstruation should begin in around three days.

Norethisterone is often used three times each day for three weeks out of four for menorrhagia or excessive menstrual blood loss. Since bleeding often ends within 24-48 hours after taking it, taking norethisterone tablets can also treat emergency menorrhagia treatment.

Side effects of norethisterone:

The doctor prescribed norethisterone tablets to benefit your body and relieve your symptoms. However, sometime this medication also causes negative effects.

Following are some possible adverse effects of norethisterone:

Nausea and vomiting
Fluid retention
Breast tenderness
Weight gain
Missed or irregular periods
Liver problems
Severe generalised itching
Inflammation medicines

Rarely, this medicine may lead to major blood clot issues that can be fatal (such as deep vein thrombosis, heart attack, pulmonary embolism, and stroke).

If you experience the above serious effects, you should immediately stop the medication and report it to your doctor.

Precautions with norethisterone

If you have any allergic reaction to other progestins or norethindrone, let your doctor or pharmacist know before using this drug. Inactive chemicals in this product can trigger allergic reactions or other issues. To learn more, speak with your pharmacist.

Inform your doctor or pharmacist about your medical history before using this drug, particularly of:

Blood clots for example, in the legs, eyes, or lungs);
Blood clotting disorders (for example, protein C or protein S deficiency);
High blood pressure;
An abnormal breast structure and cancer.
Kidney problems

Interaction with other drugs

Drug interactions could affect how your medications function or raise the possibility of major negative side effects. All probable medication interactions are not included in this document. You should disclose all other medicines you use, so that doctor should check and prescribe alternative drugs.

Without your doctor's approval, never start, stop, or change the dosage of any medications.

By lowering the levels of birth control hormones in your body, some medications may make hormonal birth control less effective.

If you are using the following drugs, then norethisterone should be used with great care.

1. Rifampin

2. Anti-seizure drugs like Barbiturates

3. Primidone

4. HIV drugs like nelfinavir

5. Antibiotic medicines

To learn more about Norethisterone or to order it from the Welzo pharmacy, click here.