Been away and now I'm back, and I'll be rating with enthusiasm!
Been away and now I'm back, and I'll be rating with enthusiasm!
Member since:22.01.2008
Reviews:87
Members who trust:16
Myrena coil is an intra-uterine thing but not a real coil, as it is not made of copper. it is plastic, with progesterone in it. The docs say that progesterone released directly into your uterus is much better than taken orally.
I have had 5 children, and decided that almost certainly number 5 (aged 11 months), is the one going to be labelled baby of the family his whole life. In the twenty-odd years before, during and after my children I have tried most contraceptives.
This one is by far the best for me.
As we know, contraceptives suit different people. Why did I wait til I was 40
years old to have this? Well I think mostly prejudice on my part - I thought the coil would give me heavy periods and my periods were way too heavy to start with.
The opposite is true. Yippee!!!
Insertion
I had this inserted 12 weeks after the birth of my son. Ow. It hurt. No, not the birth, that was fine. The coil insertion. I was told by my lovely GP to take painkillers beforehand. I did that, and it still hurt. What was so yucky (TMI warning) was the feeling or it being pushed up through my cervix. Yes I know a lot of much larger things have gone down through my cervix but that, although painful of course, is at least the natural order of things. I found it toe-curlingly horrid.
Having said that it lasted all of 15 seconds and I don't have to have it done for another 5 years. Time to psych myself up then.
Next time of course I won't just have given birth before I have it inserted. If that does happen I'll change my rating on this product.
I do think a few weeks after some stitches etc might not be an ideal time to be prodded and poked. this is of course a chicken and egg dilemma, cos you don't need the contraceptive unless you want to be prodded and poked and you can't exactly have it inserted before birth, but I might have waited a bit longer and done a couple of months on the old "hang on while I open the packet" routine to give myself more time to heal and get things a bit more back to normal down there. The tricky thing is that you are supposed to have had a period to prove you are not pregnant before insertion, unless you have not been sexually active since birth yet, so there is a bit of a dilemma there if you breast feed and so might not ovulate for 4 to 6 months. It would be a good answer if you were bottle feeding and expected your system to get back to normal quite quickly.
The other alternative on timing might be to do it at the six week check which hurts anyway (or am I just a wimp?) so you might not notice the extra.
Living with it
I have had it in now for about 9 months.
First six weeks I had spotting/breakthrough bleeding. :o( Nothing that required more than a panty liner most days and a light towel on a few days, but still, it was a long time. I did being to doubt whether it was going to suit me, especially having bleed post-partum for six weeks only a month previously, I was getting pretty fed up.
But after that - oh wow! I have used the odd tampon (say 10 in the last 7 months) and have probably needed to use a panty liner on about 35 days in that time, due to very light spotting.
After my other children I had a truly hideous first period - pouring out and almost unable to work for 36 hours. This time - nothing! My son is year old next week and I finished breastfeeding completely some two months ago and all is well.
You are supposed to check the strings are there every now and again and other than that you don't have to think about it. No remembering to take a pill, no interruptions to romantic moments, and if your love life suddenly got complicated there would be nothing to stop you using a barrier method to prevent STD as well as having this in.
In summary for me the side-effect of spotting is totally out-classed by the other joyous side effect of lack of proper periods - and the discomfort on insertion (followed by mild period pain for the rest of the day as things settled down) was well worth 5 years of virtually symptom-free, hassle free contraception.
And it's all available for free on the NHS. Amazing!
Highly recommended and I wish I'd been using it for years.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Great, personal account here, deserves an E (run out today, please give me a nudge to re-rate)
Popalee 23.01.2008 17:41
Great review. Maybe I'm odd, but I'd rather have regular heavier monthly bleeding than random spotting, so I don't think this would ever be an option for me.
Jan 23rd, 2008
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very helpful by (89%):
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