---
title: Does adding fluoxetine to birth control pills help with severe PMS?
description: Yes. Adding fluoxetine to birth control pills helped more women with severe PMS than pills alone. In the final month, 65% of women taking both improved, versu
url: https://niyora.com/research/papers/does-adding-fluoxetine-to-combined-oral-contraceptives-containing-drospirenone-2020/
---

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- Does adding fluoxetine to birth control pills help with severe PMS?

Randomised trial, 2020

# Does adding fluoxetine to birth control pills help with severe PMS?

Yes. Adding fluoxetine to birth control pills helped more women with severe PMS than pills alone. In the final month, 65% of women taking both improved, versus 50% on pills alone.

 Strong study design

300 women with severe PMS in Egypt

## What they did

300 women with severe PMS were randomly divided into three equal groups. Group 1 took fluoxetine 20 mg daily plus birth control pills with drospirenone for 21 days per cycle. Group 2 took the same pills plus a dummy pill. Group 3 took dummy pills. All were treated for 6 months with daily symptom tracking.

## What they found

In the final month, 65% of women in the fluoxetine plus birth control group had improved symptoms, compared to 50% in the birth control plus dummy pill group, and 2% in the group taking only dummy pills.

## What it means for you

Adding fluoxetine to certain birth control pills can help reduce severe PMS better than birth control alone. Fluoxetine is a prescription medicine, so a doctor should be consulted before use. These results only apply to the birth control tested.

300

Women with severe PMS

65% vs 50% vs 2%

Women with improvement in final month

6 months

Treatment duration

## About the study

Original title Does Adding Fluoxetine to Combined Oral Contraceptives Containing Drospirenone Improve the Management of Severe Premenstrual Syndrome? A 6-Month Randomized Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Three-Arm Trial Authors Shehata NAA, Moety GAFA, El Wahed HAA et al. Journal Reproductive sciences (Thousand Oaks, Calif.) Year 2020 Study design Randomised trial What was tested Fluoxetine 20 mg daily plus combined oral contraceptive containing drospirenone daily for 21 days per cycle, for 6 months Read the paper [doi.org/10.1007/s43032-019-00080-x](https://doi.org/10.1007/s43032-019-00080-x)

## Topics

[Premenstrual syndrome (PMS)](https://niyora.com/research/topics/condition-pms/)[SSRIs and antidepressants](https://niyora.com/research/topics/treatment-ssri/)[Oral contraceptives and drospirenone](https://niyora.com/research/topics/treatment-hormonal-contraceptives/)

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