Thankfully, we live in a time where there are many forms of contraception widely available. One of the newer forms which people may not be familiar with is the Intrauterine Contraceptive Device (IUD). I certainly wasn’t familiar with it before college, having never even heard about it until I was 19. Under the advice of my doctor after stopping the pill, I got a copper IUD in place and, unfortunately, in under 2 years, my body quite literally gave up on it.
The copper IUD is a T-shaped, plastic device – known as “the copper coil” – with a thin coil of copper curled around the stem. It is inserted into the uterus and can last up to ten years. Previously, I had bad experiences with the pill affecting my skin so I opted for a non-hormonal form of contraceptive. The IUD is made with copper because of the metal’s ability to act as a spermicide. There are other IUDs that can be used, such as the Mirena, which releases hormones into the uterus – but I cannot personally speak for the success of those. My experiences with a copper IUD were not very favourable. To be brutally honest, the insertion of the copper IUD was one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. The copper coil is a little bigger than it’s hormonal counterparts like the Mirena and is usually recommended for women who have had at least one childbirth and, as I had not experienced that, I probably was not the ideal candidate for it. These issues aside, I proceeded with it anyway as I believed it was the most suitable option for me at the time.
The first problem I had with the coil was one that I anticipated. The disclaimer that comes with this IUD is that it can make your period heavier and can take a few months of irregular bleeding for it to settle. It did exactly that and I essentially had a period that lasted for three months. From research I did online at the time, this seems to be common enough practice. However, the bleeding was so persistent, I was just about ready to get it taken out when it eventually stopped.
After the initial three months, I had very little complications with it. It didn’t cause any other problems until November 2019, when everything went downhill. For a few months I was subjected to constant bleeding and pretty bad pain, and I didn’t realise until a very lengthy and confusing trip to A&E in February 2020 that my body was rejecting the IUD after just over a year and a half after insertion.
My experience with the IUD was not a good one and I would not recommend it, and it seems that many women I have spoken to have had similar issues with it. Though I don’t want to go as far as to say that it’s an under-researched field, stranger things have happened than a lack of research into women’s sexual health.
