Tuesday 2 March 2010

Most Painful Day of My Life

***Warning, this may be TMI for some readers***

Ouch.

Today I had a Mirena coil fitted.

It was the most painful thing I have ever had done.

For those of you who are unaware of the mirena coil it is a small device that fits inside the womb and releases a small amount of hormones. It not only acts as a very effective and easily reversible contraceptive for 5 years, but it also reduces the heaviness and pain of periods. A large number of women with the Mirena actually stop having periods all together.

Anyway, enough of the factual stuff... I need a rant about the whole experience.

The nurse specialist who fitted it was a really nice guy. He explained everything and warned me that as I haven't had children it would probably be painful to fit and may not even be able to be fitted. This is because before having children the cervix (neck of the womb) is very tightly shut and not very easy to stretch to get the mirena coil in.

The chaparone used to be the practice nurse at the GP where I had my hep B injections before uni, which was really nice. She's also lovely and really put me at ease.

I had to have an internal exam first to check which way my womb is aligned and after that they pop a speculum in so that they can see the cervix. Then the painful bits start...

The first thing they have to do is measure the womb. They do this by shoving a measuring stick up through the hole in the cervix. This was mindblowingly painful but only lasted a couple of seconds. However it left me with a really severe period-like pain.

After that there was over 10 minutes of trying to ram this coil into my womb via my very uncooperative cervix. The nurse was going to give up but I gritted my teeth and asked him to try one more time (I wasn't going to go through all that pain for nothing). Next thing I had what felt like an eternity of excruciating pain (probably in reality less than a minute) and it was in. Hurrah!

After it was fitted I lay down for a bit to recover. My legs were shaking non-stop and I felt pretty woozy. I got dressed and decided the 15 minute walk home in the fresh air would be a good idea.

It wasn't.

Half way I was sick in a bin the pain was so bad and had to call my Dad to pick me up and take me home. Since having it fitted over 5 hours ago I have been having awful pains. I get a tight cramping pain which lasts 3-4 minutes and then I get a couple of minutes respite before the next one. It's seriously demoralising. Paracetamol hasn't touched the pain so I've got the strongest paracetamol and codeine combination that is made. It's dulled the pain enough for me to sit on my laptop but it's still enough to make me cry each time I get one of the pains.

I was hoping to go back to uni this afternoon, but now I think I'll have to take tomorrow off. I really hope the pain dies down soon.

:(

Lily xXx

4 comments:

The Young Mummy said...

erm to a none medical mind that sound awfully like contractions.

hopefully you get well soon

Lily said...

I ended up going to a&e when the pain got so bad that even with 60mg of codeine I was lying on the floor unable to move....

They said it was contractions as my uterus was just trying to expell the coil... so now I should know what to expect if I ever have children. Fantastic.

Anonymous said...

Ouch! I can honestly say reading your post has put me off after this fitted. I was giving much consideration to go for this before I start university in September. I knew from reading online about it, that it was difficult to insert for people who had not had children (likewise) but how you have worded your post has really radically put me off having it! I think I’ll just grin and bear putting up with the inconvenience each month! I hope your okay and have recovered from the experience.

Tofu said...

just when i thought learning about childbirth was bad, this sounds pretty on par. >.<

hope u feel better soon!