Hi all,

First off I want to thank everyone for contributing to such a wonderful, supportive and informative community. The information I found here really helped me make my decision to get an IUD and made me feel informed and empowered.

I'm 29, NP and have been on HBC for the past 10 years or so. I always had easy regular short periods on the pills but after 10 years I'd really like to see what my body can do without them. I'm in a monogamous relationship, but I'd also like to decrease my chances of an accidental pregnancy. I chose Mirena because I already know my body doesn't have any horrible aversion to the hormone and lighter irregular periods appealed more to me than regular heavier ones with no hormones.

( My Insertion Story )

I feel fantastic today. Cramps are barely noticeable. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Thank you Divas!

Tags: insertion, mirena

I'm 21, married, NP.

Next month will mark 1 year that I've had my Mirena [woo!]. So far, I've loved it. All of my friends who have had an IUD had bad experiences with theirs, so I'm hoping their bad luck doesn't rub off on me. My insertion was painful and I cramped horribly and bled horribly for a straight month afterwards. After that, it died down and I realized that anything caffeinated or carbonated was irritating my cramps. I didn't pay any mind to the first 6 months, because I figured that was the main adjusting period and figured things would settle down after the 7th month.

Pre-Mirena:
Heavy bleeding
Horrible cramps [I was practically bed ridden for the first couple of days]
Approx 5 days

Post Mirena:
Light bleeding
Bad cramps around time of period in right leg and hip [I can take an 800mg Motrin and be fine]
Spot 2-3 prior, stop 1 day, period 3-5 days, stop 1 day, spot 4-6 days after

Will this spotting ever go away? I like that my period has been lighter and the cramps have been better. I'm skeptical about doing Motrin therapy [1 Motrin a day] because of the long term side effects from it. I eat well, I try to stay hydrated, and do light exercising. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with that. I've talked with my doctor about it, but she says that it will lighten up. It hasn't - in fact, the spotting has gotten progressively longer! Is there anything I can do?

Is the pain in the leg [never below the knee] and hip normal? Sometimes it goes to my outer vagina. My husband comes home in the next couple of months and I want to not be spotting/hurting like I am. :\ Thank you!

Tags: bleeding, cramping, long-term updates, mirena

Hi Ladies,

I've had my paragard for nearly a year with absolutely no problems until last night. My SO and I rarely have time for sexy time during our busy weeks, so last night we had quick, rough sex after a week without any sexual contact. I noticed that when he first entered me, there was a weird pressure-type feeling. Then, about 5 min afterwards, I got a HUGE piercing pain (to the right side of my uterus area) that spread to my guts and rectum. I was completely unable to move, had chills, and was light headed. The pain was so intense that I crawled into bed and fell asleep. I woke up two hours afterwards with the same stomach pains, but my cramps had subsided considerably to less-than-menstrual-cramp level. The only time that it really hurt in my uterine area was when I went to the bathroom. My past period was on time but "strange" in that it was just spotting, which is not normal for me (usually it's like opening the flood gates! Yikes!) so I took 2 pregnancy tests 1.5 and 2 weeks after the weird period, and both are negative. I think this sufficiently rules out ectopic.

Fast forward to today: I have tender breasts, the same urinary pain, pain with bowel movements... etc. These are ALL symptoms that match ovarian cyst rupture. However, I have not ruled out the possiblity of my IUD shifting. What do you think? Have any of you ladies had to deal with cysts/rupturing cysts? If I were in more pain I would head over to the ER but at the moment I feel like that's sort of overkill. I'm taking pain meds which manages my pain, and my stomach cramps are reduced to almost nothing. Thoughts? Advice? I'm so worried.

Tags: paragard
Current Mood: distressed

First, me:
21
NP
Monogamous for 6 years
Endometriosis and vaginismus
Before Mirena, I was on various combination pills for 6 years. I've been taking them continuously for the past 3 years and probably had 3 or 4 periods in that time.

So, I'm 3 weeks in on my Mirena loving it, for the most part. I'm not sure how to link to my past entries (new to LJ), but if anyone remembers, I posted right after insertion concerned about bleeding and my cervix being really low.
Well, the bleeding/ spotting lasted about 2 weeks and I haven't had any since then. My cervix moved back up to its normal position. I haven't really had any cramps since the first 3 or so days.

ETA: My sex drive is already WAY up and I'm producing a lot more natural lubrication. So that's awesome.

Just a few questions:

My strings are really long, just about to the opening of my vagina. My boyfriend says he can feel them, but they don't hurt, they mainly just tickle. They don't really bother me. I've read that a lot of people's string curl up around their cervix but I think mine are too long to do that. But maybe not? I don't really know what you all mean when you say that your strings are left long. Basically, should I ask my doctor to trim them when I go in for my follow-up appointment in 2 weeks? I would like them to be less in my way, but I don't really know how to make that happen.

Thanks!

Also, I haven't had any cramps since the first few days, but yesterday I had kind of weird cramps all day. They didn't really feel like my normal menstrual cramps, but really I have no idea what my reproductive system does naturally. Today they're gone and no bleeding. My cervix seems fine, so nothing's wrong. So, are these just random settling in cramps?

Nothing to report except I've finally got an appt for Dec 4 for the Paragard. And I won't have to pay a dime :). My mother's insurance still covers me til the end of the year, and she's already met all the out of pocket expenses and deductibles for the year. Awesome!

Hi Everybody,
I love this community! Before getting my Mirena (inserted 2 weeks ago today) I googled the hell out of it. Oh, the horror stories I found! I am so thankful that I found you guys. Very refreshing to find actual experienced people writing candidly about their experiences.
( My experience so far... )

I do have a question. Has anyone noticed an increase in hair-loss? I may be crazy, but it seems like I'm losing a lot more than normal. I'm finding it everywhere.

That's all! So far, so good!

Tags: insertion, mirena, risks/side effects

20, NP, have had a pargard for about 2 months (had my checkup recently and was told everything looked just fine) and was previously on nuvaring for a year and a half or so.


I have had a personal history of depression and anxiety problems, and there is a family history of it. I was on antidepressants for a few years when i was a teenager, but its been a couple years since I've taken any with the exception of zoloft for a few weeks last winter, but I didn't stick with it. I haven't been super happy over the last year, which I chalked up to a predisposition toward depression and stress, but in the last few weeks I've been finding myself miserable to the point of not caring enough/being too sad to get out of bed in the morning, feeling like my life is pointless and crying all the time.

In the past several weeks:
1. I have stopped using nuvaring and got a paragard
2. I have had an unusual amount of stress in my personal life (situations that don't seem to be resolving promptly)
3. Its getting in to winter with much shorter days, and I know I have more trouble staying happy this time of year

Part of my goal with the paragard was to spend some time experiencing life totally medication free (and get some of my sex drive back)

This depression and anxiety hasn't been confined to PMS times or anything, though I have some better days and some worse. I do know that I really need to see a professional psychiatrist for help, but I guess what I'm asking of all of you is:

What was your experience emotionally going off of hormones? If you did have emotional changes during the time it took your body to adjust to being hormone free, how long did this last?

I guess I'm looking for opinions on whether or not this is something I can at least partially blame on the hormonal changes that I should just ride out, or if I should put my aspirations of seeing what life is like without pills off while I get myself under control. I'm very conflicted about this, but I'm having such difficulties coping that I suspect I should take antidepressants if its recommended and then reasses trying the no medication thing in the spring.

Thanks for reading, and I'm sorry if any of this was confusing.

Tags: hormones, paragard, pms

This question arose from a comment that loreto_richy made in response to this [http://community.livejournal.com/iud_divas/2149269.html] recent post.

I've never read/heard anything about it, but does anyone know anything about the chances of an IUD embedding itself into the walls of the uterus? Does this happen? How often? What happens then?

Thanks Divas.

Tags: risks/side effects

I got a Paragard inserted today. I was expecting it to hurt, and it did, BUT it was not as bad as I thought it would be and was shot pain. I had time to cringe and that was it. It definitely was not a bad cramping type of pain though. But anyway, it was over so fast, and I've felt a little crampy since but not too bad.

I've been thinking about doing this for about a year but was a little chicken, and I'm so glad I finally did it! Goodbye HBC side effects!

I have to start remembering to track my period now.

Tags: insertion

I got my Flexi-T IUD one week ago today. I had an experienced female doctor insert it in Toronto. I knew there would be some pain during insertion so I took 2 Tylenol #3 approx. 45 min. before the procedure. I thought that with the strength of the tylenol that I should have next to no pain...but I was wrong. I'm not trying to scare anyone out of getting this because I definitely don't regret it so far. She put my feet in the stirrups and did a manual exam to feel the size and location of my uterus. Next she froze the cervix with a tiny needle (not painful at all).
A really nice nurse held my hand as she was inserting the IUD. I had 15-20 seconds of intense pain where I squealed, but they reassured me the entire time that everything would be fine. When I got up off the table I was bleeding quite a bit. They had a pad waiting for me to use. Over the next few hours I had moderate cramping (I kept taking tylenol throughout the evening). I bled and had tolerable cramps for about 4 days after wards and then it eventually subsided. At the 3rd day after insertion I had horrible "contractions" that came in waves. I was so worried that I had an infection or my body was rejecting the IUD. It only lasted 1 day though. I now have next to no spotting and only feel a twinge of a period like cramp here and there for a couple seconds. I felt ready to try intercourse the other night. All went well, except I couldn't let him hit my cervix because it was tender. He could not feel the string coming out of the IUD. I'm confident everything will heal up fine and we'll be able to have sex as we normally did. It has only been 1 week remember! I definitely recommend this IUD to anyone who is looking for a non-hormonal birth control method. The pros of this contraception method definately outweigh the cons of insertion pain. Be advised that there are three different sizes of the Flexi-T IUD. For some reason they inserted the size recommended for women who have had a vaginal birth (I have NEVER given birth). I found out after it was put in. This may have been why insertion was painful for me. Talk to the doctor about this before hand. GOOD LUCK!

Tags: insertion