Risks of Mirena???

[Dixielane]

Hi ladies,
I have a 8 week old baby girl and am scheduled to get a Mirena next week. I am nervous about it, because of the risks I've heard of.

I have read that if you get preggo on it, the pregnancy will almost always miscarry. Basically a pregnancy would most likely be doomed if I have an IUD and fall pregnant, since the pregnancy cant implant well enough.

Also have heard other random side effects - that it is a very strong hormone (like depo shot), that it can perforate your uterus (especially if you are breastfeeding) and perforation can lead to surgery and risks of infertility...

Basically all kinds of issues. BUT, I NEED a method that works really well. We dont want another baby for 1.5-2 years. I don't want to use just condoms, FAM isn't an option right now, and other barrier methods I am just not comfy using.. I really dont want to be pregnant right now. HOWEVER, I am worried that if I DID get preg on the Mirena, it would harm the baby somehow.

I considered the mini pill but it seems the mini pill is not effective enough for me (I think i read its 96%?) Otherwise it feels better to know if I did get preg I could just stop the pill.

Since I am breastfeeding I'm limited.

Anyway, any if on the Mirena would be GREAT..

[eastkygal]

Most women I talk to who have the Mirena, including my sister love it. I have heard two women who had it who got pregnant and carried their babies to term with the Mirena still in the womb. So, what I'm about to share is just my personal story. Might not be the case for you at all, but I wish I had known these things prior to getting it.
I had a Mirena for 6 months after DD2 turned 8wks. When I was able to have sex, it felt like sandpaper and was painful. I was super moody. Then, I fell sick with headaches and multiple episodes of vomitting. Sex never improved and I just kept feeling weaker and weaker physically and mentally. I realized it had to be the Mirena and made an appointment to have it removed. The midwife who removed it found an infection in my uterus surrounding the Mirena. She told me she removes more of those than any other type of IUD. Maybe that is just that they are now the most popular??? But, she said she doesn't care for them. After finishing the antibiotics, I began feeling better. Sex was immediately back to feeling like it should, and in general my moods improved.
I'm now certain that any type of hormonal birth control is not appropriate for my body, and my body certainly didn't care for the Mirena. So, we do NFP now.
I'd make sure that your practitioner has you an appointment for an ultrasound after placing it too, to ensure they have placed it properly.

[tatermom]

I know that the Mirena doesn't workout for some women, like the pp, but I have to say that I love my Mirena. I got it when DS2 was 2 months old, so I've had it in for nearly 3 years now, and I love the freedom of not having to worry about birth control! I did not enjoy it for the first month (my mw left the strings long and they were very uncomfortable), but once the strings were snipped shorter I've been happy with it ever since. I have only 1-2 days of light spotting each month and I have not felt any effects of the hormone at all, which was surprising to me since I am very sensitive to hormones in birth control pills.

I think that pregnancies on Mirena are very very rare as long as it is still in the correct location in the uterus (I check my strings every month), but yes, I think you are right that one of the ways an IUD functions is to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting, so if that idea bothers you then you might not want to go with an IUD... though I think primarily the IUD makes the uterine environment "inhospitable" to sperm, thus preventing fertilization in the first place.

Good luck and congrats on your new baby!

[alyssatuininga]

Watching this with interest. Planning to get one soon and feeling the same kinds of worry....

[mlec]

No personal experience but I have one friend with a bad experience (pain, weight gain, if I remember correctly) and another memory of someone from a message board that didn't tolerate it well at all.

Also, I remember reading that it increases your chances of ectopic pregnancy, even after you've stopped using it.

[mckittre]

Or, as in my case, the Mirena can disappear entirely.

I got one at my 6 week post partum visit, and thought I was covered. When my son was 15 months old, I discovered I was unexpectedly 11 weeks pregnant! Everything is going fine, and I'm expecting the new one in December. Not very effective as birth control, though.

No sign of Mirena, so it probably fell out without me noticing? There's a small chance that it perforated my uterus and is floating around inside me somewhere, but I can't check (has to be an X ray) until the baby is born, so I'm trying not to worry about it.

I don't think my story is usual, though!

[Toolip]

Originally Posted by tatermom

I think that pregnancies on Mirena are very very rare as long as it is still in the correct location in the uterus (I check my strings every month), but yes, I think you are right that one of the ways an IUD functions is to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting, so if that idea bothers you then you might not want to go with an IUD... though I think primarily the IUD makes the uterine environment "inhospitable" to sperm, thus preventing fertilization in the first place.

my understanding is that Mirena primarily works just like the bcp, it prevents ovulation. It is the Paraguard (sp?) IUD (copper) that kills sperm. I don't know of anything in Mirena that would affect sperm.

[tatermom]

Originally Posted by Toolip

my understanding is that Mirena primarily works just like the bcp, it prevents ovulation. It is the Paraguard (sp?) IUD (copper) that kills sperm. I don't know of anything in Mirena that would affect sperm.

It looks like Mirena works in several ways:

From the Mirena website:

"There is no single explanation for how Mirena works. Mirena may:

* Thicken cervical mucus to prevent sperm from entering your uterus
* Inhibit sperm from reaching or fertilizing your egg
* Make the lining of your uterus thin

Mirena may stop the release of your egg from your ovary, but this is not the way it works in most cases. Most likely the above actions work together to prevent pregnancy. Like other forms of birth control, Mirena is not 100% effective."

http://www.mirena-us.com/what_is_mir...rena_works.jsp

[Toolip]

Originally Posted by tatermom

"There is no single explanation for how Mirena works. Mirena may:

* Thicken cervical mucus to prevent sperm from entering your uterus
* Inhibit sperm from reaching or fertilizing your egg
* Make the lining of your uterus thin

[/url]

BCP's do all those things too. curious... I know Mirena says that their hormonal effects are more "localized" than pills but I (and the hcp's I've spoken with) are kind of doubtful about that.

[SubliminalDarkness]

I've had a Mirena for three years, and I'm perfectly happy with it.

[turtle2who]

My cousin is on her second mirena- 8 years and counting. She loves it. Has had no period since she got it- no cramping no weight gain- nothing. I am thinking about it but nervous.

[Lohagrace]

Ive had mirena for 3 years now and i LOVE it. i don't have a period (its very light spotting) and i'm not pregnant and i've seen no side effects. I think the risks are low--if you are one of the few who cant tolerate it, just have it removed. Unlike depo-provera you can reverse it instantly. My midwife showed me the amounts of hormone in each form of BC; depo is 40,000 units, the pill is 10,000 units the mini pill 4000 and mirena is 40....those aren't the right numbers but you get the idea. The amount of hormones in mirena is a FRACTION of the pill. you can do a blood test and they wont find it in your blood the way you would with a pill.

that said, i used to have paraguard and it totally was horrible. I used to feel like i was going to bleed to death each month. the cramping and bleeding on it was terrible. i hated it. it was like my normal period x 10000000 each month.

[WifeofAnt]

Mirena does have the hormones like Depo Provera except that when you get Depo you have to be injected with enough hormone to shut the babymaking process down for 3 months.  The pill is similar but to a smaller effect.  You have to take enough for the entire day at once so your levels spike and drop off again.  The lowest amount of hormone still has to be enough to keep you from getting pregnant.  Mirena can give you a lower average level of hormones because it releases it as you need it.

The risks of tubal pregnancy are where the numbers get skewed.  While you have Mirena you can have up to a 50% chance of having an ectopic pregnancy if you get pregnant.  HOWEVER, "less than 8 in 1000 women become pregnant over the course of the five years using Mirena."  FIVE YEARS!  You have a 99.96% chance of NOT having an ectopic pregnancy if you keep Mirena for the entire 5 years.  If those ectopic pregnancies are divided equally between all 5 years you have a greater than 99.99% chance.  Estimates of ectopic pregnancy when the IUD is not used are (as I'm finding) between 1 in 40 and 1 in 250.  With 85% of women becoming pregnant in a year without using any contraception, the best you're looking at is 3.4 in 1000 women with an ectopic pregnancy per year.  You'd be 34 times as likely to have an ectopic pregnancy without Mirena than with it!!  It just doesn't seem like it with all of the other normal pregnancies thrown in.

[Shiloh]

Mine fell out so it wasn't that effective :)
I was lucky I didn't get pregnant.

But I bled nasty for three months almost every day, then it stopped.

I developed ovarian cysts, I'll never get another one.

[sleepingbeauty]

I was toying with this but after reading this thread I'm glad I didn't want this to begin with!  I hate hormonal birth control.  Especialyl if it is going to poke through my uterus, make me blled even heavier and with more pain than I already do. Screw that.

[DoubleDouble]

Originally Posted by Dixielane 

I have read that if you get preggo on it, the pregnancy will almost always miscarry. Basically a pregnancy would most likely be doomed if I have an IUD and fall pregnant, since the pregnancy cant implant well enough.

That's what happened to my mom (with a pre-Mirena IUD, obviuosly.)

Hormonal part of Mirena is not a selling point for me either. I had huge side effects with all the hormonal birth control types that I tried, and at least with the pills I could quit in two months and not have the insertion pain to begin with.

[LindyGirl]

I had a Mirena for four years and was very happy with it overall. No method of BC is entirely without side effects, and the main one I encountered was occasionally being able to feel a poke or a pinch in my uterus when it moved around. AF was HUGELY diminished -- like two-three days of spotting each month, which I can't complain about.

My understanding is that Mirena has lower doses of hormones than some other methods because the hormones are localized to the reproductive organs and don't have to go through the digestive system.

[jojojojojo]

Originally Posted by mckittre 

Or, as in my case, the Mirena can disappear entirely.

I got one at my 6 week post partum visit, and thought I was covered. When my son was 15 months old, I discovered I was unexpectedly 11 weeks pregnant! Everything is going fine, and I'm expecting the new one in December. Not very effective as birth control, though.

No sign of Mirena, so it probably fell out without me noticing? There's a small chance that it perforated my uterus and is floating around inside me somewhere, but I can't check (has to be an X ray) until the baby is born, so I'm trying not to worry about it.

I don't think my story is usual, though!

It's not as rare as you think. I'm pregnant right now, same situation -- and the doctors I told didn't sound all too shocked about it.

[Dandy Lion]

My mirena went through my uterus and I had to have it surgically removed from my abdomen. I had it put in at 8 weeks pp, and was breastfeeding.