| I have one, get on fine with it, and don't have kids, BUT I also don't smoke or have the cyst you describe in your other post so you'd have to check out the smoking & hormone risks, preferably with your gynaecologist. One plus point is that it's supposed to protect the older woman from endometrial cancer though.
I was fitted with mine about 18 months ago to treat continuous menstruation due to a "unknown hormone imbalance" (read "we don't know what's causing this, have elimated all the obvious reasons and are now going to try anything to see if it helps as your womb defect rules out any surgical intervention other than a full hysterectomy").
The Mirena can be fitted to women without kids relatively easily by comparison with other IUD as it's more flexible. Having said this, any IUD is more difficult to fit in a woman without children. Mine was done under general anaesthetic at the same time as my third exploratory surgery (parts of Africa have seen fewer explorers :-( ), D&C and biopsies.
The hormone reservoir runs out after 5 years so you have to go back to the hospital then and get in replaced. The cervix is numbed but I don't know if they put you out completely or not.
The progesterone analogue used in the Mirena is the same as in the Depo shots however locally applied progesterone acts differently to that taken orally or sub-cutaneously so you may find your response to Mirena different despite it being the same active ingredient.
The manufacturer's web-site is very good by the way; plenty of useful information there.
One aspect that they don't cover is sex. Apologies for any embarrassment out there but this is one aspect NO help page ever helps with regarding IUD.
I was concerned prior to having the IUD fitted becuase I'd been told by a male colleague that the more well-endowed chap can feel the plastic wires left dangling in the vagina. I asked what he meant by "feel" and his response was "think cheesewire". Since then, a friend has, um, 'assisted me' in testing this out. Despite being a generously proportioned chap with piercings, there were no issues.
You are instructed to check that you can feel the wires once a week as it is just possible for them to ride up into the womb and that needs surgical intervention. Also, it is possible for the IUD to drop out. Both are rare events and a weekly check is unnecessarily frequent according to my family doctor. Although the wires are left long (to about 1 inch inside you when they're lying flat), you may sometimes feel they have disappeared when you check, especially if you have short fingers like me. In practise, you can usually find them bunched up behind the cervix.
Since I've been fitted, my continuous bleeding has stopped but I'm still erratic. My consultant warned me ahead of time that you really need to persist with the Merina for at least 6 months before deciding whether your post-fit cycle has settled down or not. Also, you may sometimes have break-through spotting but my experience is that this is minimal and very, very light.
Be warned that many sites discussing IUD of all kinds focus on the few who have horrendous issues with them as you'd be forgiven for wondering why any sensible woman would fit one having read some posts.
Fee
Edited by Orbilia 2006-08-14 9:31 AM
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Mirena IUD - any thoughts?
