For The Ladies....iud?

[Ashelton80]

Ok ladies I'm sure I'm not the only one, but I have had it with my menstrual cycle. I will bleed 6-7 days so basically as soon as I'm finished guess what? Yep it's time to do it all over again. I just feel like it's starting to be unacceptable to only have maybe 2 weeks out of the month that I'm not bothered by fluctuating hormones and trying to keep my blood volume up while battling a heavy flow.

Has anyone tried the IUD? My best friend has one and she only spots every now and then. I normally want to stay pretty natural as I get nervous about anything in me that isn't supposed to be there or that is supressing things that my body is designed to do, but i'm just at a point where I don't care anymore.

[corina]

is an IUD the same as an IUS? In that case I have one, and I'm really really happy with it. It was the last thing to try before hysterectomy and it works really well for me. I was scheduled for an hysterectomy but as I'm doing pretty bad on gen. anesthetics I wanted to try the IUS as a loast option. I hardly menstruated after it was placed and after about 6 or 7 weeks my menstruation stopped which was great news to me!

[jenglynn]

I hope only the ladies read this, because it may be a bit much for the guys to handle.... It really irritates me to have to think about "birth control" as we have six children and I've a tubal ligation- but ever since my tubal my periods have been nightmare (although there is NO doctor on earth who will admit that it changes ANYTHING in your body but I digress) but since POTS, autonomic neuropathy, autoimmune disease etc... it has been nothing short of miserable. My periods are so heavy, painful and I am absolutely unable to function even at the low level I function NOW. My clotting (I know, this is GROSS, and WAY TMI) has gotten horrible. Each month is worse than the next. And the week before my period I am always miserable, goes without saying the week OF my period I am so WEAK... (Again... SORRY... WAY TMI.... but I have a 7-8 day cycle and at least 6 of those days it is so bad I have to use 2 heavy duty pads AND a tampon. Yes, this goes along just FABULOUS with my periodic incontinence or retention due to my bladder not working right... ) and the week after is just as bad. You would think that would mean I would have one good week... but somehow it never works that way

I don't want to take birth control pills or anything like that, but I was wondering if I should consider stopping my period just because they are so severe. But definitely don't want surgery or anything.... Interested to hear the replies.

Thanks! Jen

[roxie]

I was just talking to one of my dr's about this and he gave me two other options:

Evening Primrose Oil

Or

A "seed cycle" you follow the moon phases and eat certain seeds according to the phases. I guess it works well for some.

I chose evening primrose oil. It's easier than worrying about what seeds when. I started the primrose last week. I'm not sure how long it takes to see an affect

[JenLR]

I'm really glad that you posted this question. I've had the Mirena iud since May and have been trying to decide if I should have it removed or keep it in. I originally got it because my doctor recommended that I stop my cycle in hopes that I could avoid feeling worse for a week or two every month. When I first had it inserted, I had quite a bit of pain for about 5 weeks. The pain then subsided and after 5 months or so, my periods stopped. Great, right? The problem for me is that I have been having really painful ovarian cysts every month that can last for up to a week at a time. I also find that I am more emotional since getting the Mirena. I am usually not much of a crier, but ever since May I have noticed that it's very hard to hold back tears if anything is bothering me.

And the main thing that makes me consider having the iud removed is that I have gotten dramatically worse since last summer. I spent several weeks in the hospital during the holidays with severe symptoms that I had never experienced before. My POTS specialist thinks that my swift decline may be because of a 5 week trial of Octreotide that I did about this same time, and he is probably right. But a small part of me wonders if the iud could be playing a role in the worsening of my symptoms. It may have nothing to do with it, but I still kind of regret having it put in.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling post! I'm curious to see what other people's experiences have been.

[Lemons2lemonade]

Don't know what meds you take but florinef makes birth control ineffective. Don't know if the local hormones are different than the systemic but I asked Dr. G about this and he didn't comment that an iud was an exception.