What happens if you take extra birth control pills?

You should never double or triple or quadruple the daily dose of Birth Control pills. Here are reasons why it is not advisable unless your doctor instructs you to 'double up' for a day:

Birth control pills contain hormones. Hormones must maintain a "steady state" in your body to work effectively. Steady state means no rapid ups or downs of med dosage. Taking more birth control pills on one day will NOT give you any additional protection against pregnancy. Taking more on ONE day means you skip on other days---so again, you lose your protection. BC Pills are NOT aspirins or a pill to take "when needed" (and even aspirins won't work right unless you take meds right). Just like all other drugs, you can have bad side effects to high doses of hormones, except hormones can cause things like extra hair growth, completely screwed up menstrual cycles, etc. Hormones act on other hormones. Hormones "like friends" so 2 hormones "work together" cooperatively in the body. But, hormones also react against each other, not exactly "enemies", but when 1 hormone is high, the other hormone drops. You must always remember any hormone affects other hormones and hormonal glands in your body. If you mess with the BC dose over and over, your body won't 'know' whether 'now' is okay to release an egg or not... So your body could sneak in a surprise pregnancy simply because you did not follow the exact instructions. Doctors might tell you to 'double up' on one day, but usually this is to treat another problem, like break-thru bleeding. But I repeat, never double or triple the dose unless your doctor instructed you to do that. When you run out too soon in the month because you used too many, too quickly, be prepared for a lecture from your doctor.