Mirena coil

[Cat_person]

Hi everyone, new here🙂

I'd say after two illnesses since last year (suspected Covid or bad flus) I've gone from mild to moderate cfs.

My periods have also taken a hit, causing me severe mood changes, fatigue/ crashes and heavy bleeding.

I am currently not on any birth control. My mum has dealt with bad pms in the past and she took the mirena so I'm going to try it.

There is a lot of horror stories on line and I wanted to know if anyone with CFS have had a good experience on it?

What are my other choices?

I suffer from migraines too so this cancels out birth control that triggers them.

Thank you all

[Iesgobdafydd]

Hi Cat_person, hopefully you'll get some more useful answers from others who actually have CFS - I'm in this forum because my daughter has CFS, not me, but I did use the Mirena coil on my doctor's advice after getting frequent heavy periods and some fatigue. It was a while ago now and a lot's happened since, but it didn't have any noticeable bad side effects for me, and it did lighten my bleeding a great deal. I don't remember it affecting the fatigue either way, I think the fatigue was part of a different long-term health condition I have. They took out a fibroid at the same time they put the coil in, and if I understood correctly that could have been causing the unusual bleeding, but also I was coming up to menopause age at the time and it might have been that.

Reading about most things you're bound to get a disproportionate number of horror stories, because people who've had a bad experience want to warn others. It's good to be aware of the worst that can happen, of course, but the doctors wouldn't prescribe these things if they weren't beneficial to a lot of people.

[Bevvy]

I am very long term with ME/CFS and had the Mirena coil fitted twice for heavy bleeding. I had no issues with it. Hope you get on ok with it and no reason that CFS will be affected and am sure being able to have less worry about periods will actually help you.

[StripySpoonie]

HiLate to reply but maybe it'll still help.

I've had ME/CFS since about 2006 after GF. I got a lot worse after getting covid in March 2020 and ended up having a sleep study done finding what would be a mild level of disturbance to most but with having huge fatigue prior to getting worse they agreed I had nothing to lose by trying a CPAP it's been a game changer in getting me nearly back to pre covid levels.

I always had dreadful periods and I had a mirena fitted in 2006 and renewed a couple of times. It warned it could take six months to adjust and in that time it was lighter but no real pattern anymore. Then six months to the day I stopped bleeding. I would spot a little only if I was unwell. I did gain weight but I always had with the pill too.

The reason I had it removed was I initially became unwell in 2005 whilst pregnant. It was only after years of back and forth I was diagnosed with Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder in 2019. It explained a lot. Hormones have a big impact on hypermobility and so unbeknown to me both pregnancy and the mirena had made those symptoms far worse.

Some that have an ME diagnosis are known to have an undiagnosed connective tissue disorder that can also cause bad periods. My only advice would be to make sure that's not a possibility first.

I hope that helps.

Karen