text: birth control...help!? i'm not real familiar with what's out there over the counter for reliable birth control.  please offer some advice!  what could a woman use for added protection, like are there two things you can use at the same time? would this make it more effective?   any chance of a problem using two different things together? aren't there some condoms that you aren't supposed to use certain birth control methods with because of the condoms lubricant making it not work or something?  also,aren't there some lubricants you aren't supposed to use that interfere with condoms working? i am so confused.  thanks! well over the counter your extremely limited.   condoms are going to be the mainstay.  as someone else correctly said there are ways to make them more effective.  some condoms have spermicide that essentially kill the sperm this helps increase their effectiveness.   surprisingly but true women in the 50s used to use coca-cola… that may sound pretty strange but sugar of that level kills sperm… however does not do much good for keeping it clean.    high quality lubricated condoms with a spermicide are probably the most effective, high quality because you don't want them to break and lubricated so they not tear or break down easy.      you ask can you use two methods at the same time.   yes…. and it's not a prescription.   timing….  now this is something you deftly don't want to use by itself. if you have regular periods (some women do some don't).  try not to have intercourse between the 12th and 16th day before your next period.  don't miss what i said… you actually have to estimate when you're going to have the next period and plan backwards.   between that 12th and 16th day will probably be the most likely day you will be fertile.   the combination with a condom used every time and avoiding during this time further increases your odds of not getting pregnant.  your question about would one method mess up the other method.  essentially the more methods you use the more “safe” you're going to be.   you might be referring to using something like vaseline or some other lubricant not compatible with the latex condom.   this part is very true.  vaseline and even some silicone sexual based lubricants can break down the latex in condoms quickly… essentially causing them to break.   use water-based lubricants or the lubrication that came with a condom.     water-based lubricants and high-quality condoms you can get at places like drugstore.com under the sexual well-being category.   convenient brown wrapper box…. but always order some shampoo or something with it so if anyone gets suspicious you can say look…. that shampoo i've been wanting.  the use condoms every time and timing your probably 99.9% not going to get pregnant.  don't let your boyfriend talk you into using a method called withdrawal.  before he orgasms he pulls out.  regardless of how good you are at the timing….its a bad idea.  we can usually call women that use this method one thing…. mothers !  moving over to prescription birth control probably increases efficiency somewhat. but it can also opens you to more sexually transmitted diseases.  because you are having direct contact. now if your boyfriend and you have never had sex with anyone else your chances of having a sexually transmitted disease is probably about as close to zero as it gets.  but there are plenty of low-level diseases that don't make the paper every day that have a lot of consequences.  before you ever have intercourse without a condom i would highly recommend you have your boyfriend pay for a vaccine called gardasil.  let him pay for he's getting the pleasure out of it.   this vaccine just released by the fda stops hpv (that's the reason women get a pap smear every year to look for cervical cancer).  the main cause of this cervical cancer is hpv (human papillomavirus).  the fda has actually recommended this  vaccine from girls age 9 to 26…. yah you heard me 9.   it's not because they're sexually active it's that the vaccine has to take effect before intercourse with the male that's infected with the virus.  males can carry this around all their lives and never know they have it.  there are usually no outward symptoms in males or females.   but women will develop (if infected) genital warts and or cervical cancer later in life.   the vaccine is effective against 70% of all cervical cancers and 90% of all genital warts.  that's some serious protection     the problem is once you've had unp