IUD Question?

I have had both, a normal IUD and a Mirena. Great concept but I had the heaviest bleeding of my life with the IUD (like overflowing a maxi tampon every hour) and with the Mirena, I had very very bad headaches (which was caused by the progesterone).

If it was a choice though, go for the cheaper option for a start and see how you get on. That way, if its all bad, you can have it removed without thinking "wow, that was $300 wasted" like I did.

It's ok, I don't mind explaining - I'll try to keep it as simple as I can though. The regular IUD prevents a pregnancy from implanting in the uterus and therefore the embryo cannot survive and you then shed the lining of your uterus (and have a period) as per "normal". My personal feeling is that there is 'life' from conception onwards, and I couldn't bring myself to interfere with that. I know that the pill and depo etc interferes with the conception process too, but it does so in a different way - that said, as I mentioned before I am trying to avoid having *anything* in my body that I don't need, including the pill, Mirena, Depo etc Hope this answers your question Deb. I've added you to MSN by the way, so if you see me online feel free to give me a buzz whenever you like.

I asked my doctor about how the copper IUD worked when she suggested it to me as an option, as I had heard the same as Jax. She told me that new research has proved that that is untrue and gave me a booklet that explained what they know now, that the IUD creates an environment that is toxic to sperm.

I also found this on the web, similar to what is in the booklet so I don't need to type it all out! :

"At first, we thought the IUD worked by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg, but that turned out not to be true. It makes sense to think that the IUD would work that way, but research has shown that the egg is in fact never fertilized if a woman is wearing an IUD. Some women have shied away from this form of protection because preventing implantation of a viable fertilized egg could be seen as a form of abortion. But that concern is not valid since the egg is not fertilized (every month you destroy an unfertilized egg through menstruation, after all!)

So what do we think is going on? The best theory right now is that the IUD works by inducing a low-grade infection or at least some irritation in the uterus, the by-products of which are toxic to sperm. Research shows that women wearing IUD's are producing cells and proteins and other substances in their uteruses which attack the cell walls of sperm, thus preventing fertilization. The inflammation supposedly persists only as long as you have the IUD in place, although some women seem not to recover from it."

I hope that is helpful in some way!


Edited by caraMel

Right... found a few articles which attest that the incidence of an egg being fertilised is very very rare.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3817172&dopt=Abstract - This is just the abstract for the study

http://www.fhi.org/en/RH/Pubs/booksReports/methodaction.htm - Article about a few different types of contraception. Scroll down to find IUD section.

http://www.fhi.org/en/RH/Pubs/Network/v16_2/nt1623.htm - Article titled "IUDs block fertilisation"

Now to go and find some sites which claim the other side. Note: Only will go for scientific studies here as I know the anti-abortion camp has jumped on this issue.

But you get why I am concerned right...? I can't quote exactly... but I remember another teen mum saying "I would never use the IUD because my mum said it's like having an abortion"

This is a study which says there are post-fertilisation effects when using an IUD, but I can't get to the actual study (without $$$) and it doesn't include figures in the abstract.
http://www.medscape.com/medline/abstract/12501086

Well thank's for all the help ladies. Hubby and I have discussed it all at length and we have decided to try Natural family planning for now see how that goes for us. The reality is if we get pregnant it would not be the end of the world. I just don't feel comfortable with the idea of anything else at this stage well except condom's.
Thank's again for all the advice and suppot on htis one it is areally complcated issue.

Hope it goes well Deb!

I was speaking to my doctor on Monday and asked her about getting an iud and she said because I'm up at the hospital every day that I should talk to the social worker and see if she can talk to someone in the gyno ward about putting one in, Well I talked to my midwife about it today and because I usually suffer from really heavy periods she is going to refer me to the hospital for a IUCD or ICUD (cant remember which it is) and that involves swabs first then I have to go back in to get it inserted, the difference between this one and the normal one is it produces more progesterone in hope to 'lighten' my periods and make them less painfull