My IUD Experience part 2

Hey all, So it's been about five months since my IUD insertion so I thought I'd update. If you read part one of my IUD experience you'll know I'm just picking up from where we left off.

It's hard to explain the symptoms I was experiencing. For the most part I was fine after about 3-4 days, and even those days weren't awful.  After day 2 I was comfortable 75% of the time. The cramping I did have was horrible, but I didn't seem to have almost any spotting until a week later. I'm not really sure if that was just spotting or the start of my period, it was a bit confusing after two days it turned into a heavy flow that lasted about a week and a half and was a pretty bad period as far as cramps go. However I haven't actually had any cramps since then except during my periods, which are painful but not as bad as the first few days after insertion. I was told these would become more regular and possibly shorter (I had short periods to begin with, so I'm not sure how this will be affected in the long run, as it can take up to 6 months to fully adjust to the IUD).

The really TMI stuff is the following: I chose the IUD due to allergies to several lubricants and condoms, and even in our last three, almost four years of dating we haven't found anything that didn't cause a reaction, so as a result we didn't do as much sexy-time activities as we wanted to since most often the thought of pain and discomfort from allergic reactions outweighed the desire to have sex, for me anyway. So to me this seems to be the perfect solution considering I'm in a long-term monogamous relationship and my only concern is pregnancy.

After weighing the pain against the now much more comfortable and enjoyable benefits, I have come to the conclusion that I will most likely get another IUD when mine expires and at this point we will be married...oh yeah we got engaged in January for those of you who didn't see the instagram post. I do want to do another update once I've had it for about a year, just in case things change or whatever, but for now that's all for this peek into a very intimate part of our lives.

-Courtney

My IUD experience Part 1

For the past three years with John we've struggled to find condoms that met our needs. I have a lot of allergies so even the brand we've used consistently gave me an allergic reaction, just less than others. When I weighed the pros and cons I decided that being able to have a safe, reliable method of birth control that wouldn't cause an allergic reaction was too good to pass up.

After discussing this with John I called my doctor for a consultation... which lead to a great appointment with a cute doctor and then a month later the insertion appointment came... and went as my doctor was unable to insert the device claiming my uterus was too small, when the reality was (so says a new doctor) he didn't get past my cervix.

Which brings us to today. I haven't had my iud insertion yet, Im doing that in a few short hours. The first time around I remember being extremely uncomfortable in the free clinic staring at three boxes skyla, mirena and the implant nexplanon (which I'm dead set against). The whole ordeal was uncomfortable and a tad painful, so this time I was prescribed Cytotec and told to take 800mg of ibuprophen as I've built up a tolerance to it from a rediculous number of headaches. I'm expecting some discomfort still, even pain, but I won't know until after its over.

The Procedure:
It's been about 5 hours since insertion. I was surprised at how easy it was. I read about a hundred horror stories but honestly the whole thing took less than a minute. Basically my gyno used a metal clamp to hold me open, cleaned my cervix then measured my uterus. That was the first big cramp, which felt like a really bad period cramp only longer, maybe 10 seconds? and then she gave me some time (I only needed like 30 seconds) to breathe and relax from that before placing the device, which was basically an identical cramp to the first one. I would say not to expect to be able to keep silent, I did... loudly complain but not scream, however the doctor assured me that it was alright to do so as it is a painful procedure. That being said it was very brief pain for 3 years of birth control so in comparison I find it totally worth it.  After it was in place I had immediate cramping and some dizziness. They assured me this was normal and had me and John feel an example of the strings so we knew what to look for when checking. They're surprisingly soft feeling cables and they're very thin so I can't imagine them being uncomfortable during intercourse.

So like I said it's been about 5 hours.
I'm a little nauseous, I did think I was going to throw up but I havent. I'm still cramping and every so ofte. they're painful but so far no spotting has occured. I'm not on my period but I imagine that would have made it easier. I'm taking it easy and hopefully they will subside completely in around a week.

I also want to mention that I have a friend who got Mirena and she loves it. She said the insertion was pretty bad and she cramped for around a week, the first day being the worst and after that its been great.

I'll update when my cramps are gone!

Until next time,
Courtney