The Mirena is the one thing standing between me and a hysterectomy. I don’t use it for contraception (I have my tubes tied anyway) – I use it to control a severe hormone imbalance. I’ve been using this device for a good 17 years, and what turned out to be a desperate attempt to save my inner girlie bits (it was new and rather experimental at the time) has actually paid off.
Yes okay: I’m 45 years old and perimenopausal, so I get some irregular bleeding and terrible night sweats and mood swings – but it would be about 100 times worse without the Mirena. I’ve not scratched anybody’s eyes out or murdered anyone, in spite of my perimenopausal hormones sometimes causing murderous rages that I can’t help. But my husband isn’t buried under the patio, so I think the Mirena is winning. And I don’t gush blood all over the place all of the time like I did for five and a half years, which is nice.
Anway, I had my new Mirena fitted just before I broke my hip (I know that, because I was there). Now that my hip has sufficiently recovered, I’ve had my PAP smear.
The nurse couldn’t see the threads, and so she booked me in for the sort of ultrasound that I’ve not had since I was pregnant 23 years ago. I did point out that the threads could now be stuck on either side of my foof, since I’m married and get boinked on a regular basis, but she was absolutely certain that my Mirena was AWOL.
Earlier today, I had to go for an ultrasound, just to make sure. Very nice ladies, who were probably happy to have a patient just for a change (there was nobody else there, and they were unusually delighted to have a nice lady to talk to whilst inspecting her womb).
Well, colour me not surprised – it’s still exactly where it ought to be! The lovely sonographer even showed me the screen because I was curious (I’m curious about everything, it’s the latent journalist in me). She needed to point it out, since it’s not exactly as obvious as a baby, but as soon as she pointed at it I could see that T shape. Well, I knew it couldn’t have floated out from a fallopian tube, since they’re clamped, and I was fairly sure I’d feel it if my womb rejected it (which it never has done). You’d surely notice if you were passing a plastic object, right? Especially a T-shaped one with strings? That has got to really hurt!
So, all is well in Gemma World… apart from my hip (and that’s actually getting better at last: I’ve decided that the screws are staying if I can’t have the replacement that I actually need. Removing the screws when the same injury could happen again would be very foolish). I’m still wiping off that green jelly stuff here and there, but at least I have clean lounge pants to get in to.
And I still have my Mirena 🙂
An Accident In Space And Time 
I’m so glad your could keep your Mirena. I think I understand how important it is to you, since I use oral birth control to prevent myself from menstruating. NOt sure if I have a hormonal imbalance, but I’d get very moody premenstrually.
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Thank you for your kind words, Astrid. I knew that I’d not passed my Mirena out, and knew it couldn’t have got any further than the clips on my tubes (as once happened to a friend of mine) – but I suppose they need to make sure from time to time. This is the first time I’ve been sent for an ultrasound though; usually they call me back in for a second examination if they can’t feel the threads.
Without the Mirena, I would essentially be declared clinically insane – such is the severity of my hormone imbalance!
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Oh, that sounds so hard, the severity of your hormonal imbalance. So glad you have your Mirena.
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For two weeks every month I’d feel as if I were going mad, and I was always murderously angry right before my period. Then one day I started what seemed to be a normal period, but it didn’t stop for five and a half years! I almost lost my job because I was absent so often: in the end I called my surgery from work, sobbing down the phone because I was in so much pain that I had to go home – yet again.
A simple (but painful) hysteroscopy happened, and we knew all we needed to know within minutes; no growths, no tumours, no endometriosis… apparently one of the cleanest and healthiest wombs the lady had ever seen (and she’d seen thousands, probably, at that point in her career).
A week later I had my first Mirena inserted. It took a few days to settle because my womb didn’t recognise the foreign object and kept cramping to try and expel it (that doesn’t happen any more because my womb just accepts it as normal now) but within 24 hours I’d stopped bleeding, and was back at work as soon as the cramps stopped.
Had I been examined even twelve months before I was, it would have been a hysterectomy. As it was, the Mirena was still very new and I was one of the first women in my home town to have one fitted – nobody knew if it would be a success or not. Thankfully, I’m still intact because of this tiny little device, and I’m sure many other women have the Mirena to thank for not having to go under the knife, too.
Wow, that was a bit of a novel, wasn’t it – sorry about that! 🙂
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