Insights symptoms and conditions

First of all, a big thanks to all of you who have shared your experiences. I am a biochemist, with a background in pharmaceutical research...I chose the Mirena IUD after careful consideration of it's active ingredient, Levonorgestrel. The side effect profile seemed pretty acceptable...until I started to experience nearly ALL of them...I am 33 years old and had the Mirena IUD placed in October of 2008 after the birth of my second child in June of 2008. The initial reaction was to be expected...cramping, a little spotting etc...nothing to be alarmed about. I still have yet to have a period (which I really don't miss so no problem there) I never gave a second thought to this until now...for the past month or so (coinciding with the weening process, since I have been nursing the entire time, I believe the side effects were not as noticeable) I have been experiencing the following (that may or may not be related to Mirena as my OBGYN has so adamantly pointed out, but after reviewing your posts I'm willing to bet they're connected) and are in order of occurrence: Major, but temporary, hair loss after 2 months or so; Major respiratory infection lingering over a month with difficulty breathing, tightness and pain in the chest at around 6 mos; And in the past month, several instances of motion-like sickness/ nausea, dizziness, blurred vision, major impatience/ mood swings, loss of appetite (pregnancy-like symptoms...yep, I was thinking man I'd be pretty pissed if I was that 0.01% pregnant statistic), and as of this past weekend, my first aurora migraine with tunnel vision and serious nausea and vomiting, to the point where I went to Urgent Care...who referred me to the ER...who wants to perform a battery of tests including a head CT. I have an appointment with a trusted GP tomorrow to discuss possible root causes...but it is to coincidental that so many women are experiencing these same symptoms! I am certainly leaning towards having this removed. CAN THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE HAD THIS REMOVED PLEASE RESPOND IF YOUR SYMPTOMS SIGNIFICANTLY IMPROVED OR WERE RESOLVED!!! THANK YOU!
These side effects seem to go well beyond a 5% rate of incidence according to all of you who have reported. I will investigate further and keep everyone posted. As someone who is highly experienced in the pharmaceutical industry, you bet your a$$ I'm going to get to the bottom of this! Good luck ladies!

hi - i've been on wellbutrin for a week, 100mg a day, and today i was supposed to up the dose...but my scalp has been itchy, and today, especially, i noticed A LOT of hair falling out. every time i ran my hand through my hair i'd get a handful. looks like other people experience this side effect, too, but do people get hair loss this soon after starting the drug? i don't want to keep taking it if this is going to be a permanent thing...also...the hair that you lose grow back...right? i'd appreciate any tips or insights. thanks!

I am about to start my fourth week of lo24 and I absolutely hate it. I am so nauseated and have a headache as we speak, which is why I decided to look at this site. I don't want to take this crap another day after reading all of you guy's posts. I guess I'll have to find another way for hormonal therapy, to get pregnant... in fact I feel like I'm pregnant right now..Thanks guys for all of you insights!!

Hi ladies,

I have had Mirena out for a week. I feel better. "Nyrek" posted yesterday about Bayer and the information on their website. here is the web address: ******
Scroll down and look for Mirena. Hit the first PDF for Product Monograph. She is absolutely right!
Quite upsetting to know that within 2 YEARS I may be able to get pregnant! I don't have that much time to spare. My little girl will be turning 5 at the end of May. It is now or never. I hope that I was able to get rid of much of the hormone from my body. I have been feeling way better. No crazy fatigue. Nothing. Some nausea (my period) and some joint pain but I had those before Mirena. Not as severe now. i have Fibromyalgia. Hopefully that goes away too.
There is a huge difference now compared to before. My body has been adjusting and coming back to its normal state. It is amazing! I am really ticked to have read that the hormone enters the bloodstream in 15 min. I thought it was a localized thing. It explains the extreme bloating and weight gain those weeks after insertion. Plus acne. Then I lost weight once the anxiety and depression set in. No wonder we are all messed up! Not cool at all!
If you all need my account for that class action suit, let me know. They make this thing out to be so wonderful when all it does is make you a walking wreck. Absolutely scary. It does work against pregnancy but at what cost?
One side effect that always got me was that I felt these spasms in my uterus, much like the ones I got when I was near the end of my pregnancy. It was crazy! At times I thought the thing had failed and I was truly pregnant. Anyone else had these weird spasms or cramping up? I still urinate a lot. Still feel some pressure down there but not like before. I still think it is my period as I'm at the end of the cycle. I have this bad feeling that although they say the hormones leave at half life, each woman reacts differently. While I felt relief on Day 1 of removal, others have taken longer. Just how long does it truly take? Especially when it has wreaked so much havoc in our bodies? I hope it does not affect my ability to conceive. That is definitely not nice!
Well, if anyone could let me know about the weird spasms, i would appreciate it! If any of you have had a baby after Mirena, how long did it take you to conceive???
As always, Good Luck, Ladies!

Oh my gosh, I am just shocked after reading these posts. I am taking my son off of Singulair immediatedly!!!! I knew I wasn't crazy!! My son was on Singulair for over 2 years and it was awful. He was so hyper and uncontrollable. He couldn't control his temper. He had headaches everyday. He was put on it due to severe allergies and asthma. He is on other medications as well as allergy shots. I kept telling the doctor that I think the singulair was causing his bad behavior problems. He was just so hard to handle. He couldn't sit still for anything. The teacher couldn't get him to sit still in his chair. It just wasn't normal behavior for him. The teacher even thought he had ADD!! I didn't accept that however. The doctor just thought I was crazy and told me that Singulair wouldn't cause those symptoms. She said it actually would work opposit that and cause him to be sleepy. Well I took him off of it anyways and he did get pretty sick. His asthma acted up ect. But he eventually felt better and his behavior improved drastically. He wasn't so hyper and he could actually sleep at night and wasn't so scared at night. Just within the last week he has been pretty sick due to allergy season, his asthma has been bad and the doctor told me to put him back on the Singulair. So I did he has been on it for four days now and he is HORRIBLE.. It was an instant change. My husband and I can't control him and he can't sleep at night and has headaches every day. I am so glad I found this sight. I am taking him off immediately.
Thank you all so much for your comments. This medicine should be outlawed. I don't care what the doctors say. By the way my son is 9 years old. I certainly had no idea that it has caused suicide. I am so sorry to you all that have experienced such horrible things. Come to think of it my son used to say he hated himself all of the time when he was on this medicine.
God Bless You All

I take 5 diff. drugs and am trying to figure out which side effect is associated with which drug. I have a really shotty memory now where I have lost perception of time. I thought I had spoken to my friend two weeks ago and I spoke to her two days ago. I read the news all day at work and can't remember any of it. This could be from the Ativan, Ambien, Geodon or Provigil that I am also taking, but I have no idea which or if its the combo of a few. I am on all of these drugs because i have Bipolar 1 disorder. I take 400 mg of Lamictal at night. Any insights? Thanks.

I've had my Mirena for about 15 and a half months and I am having it removed today at 2 o'clock. At first I had sharp pains when I would sit down and I felt like the cords were poking me and irritating me. My OB/GYN requires patients to come back one month after having it put in so he can check it and make sure it is still in place. At this visit he also trimmed the cords although he acted like he didn't believe me when I told him that I could feel them poking me when I sat down and that it hurt. At first I didn't notice any bad side effects, but I did have one good one: my periods stopped, but I still had occasional and sporadic spotting. I didn't think to look for any bad side effects because I got the device under the impression that it had no bad side effects. I thought it only had a rare complication of perforating the uterus, but since mine was in place at the one month check, I didn't think about anymore until I started thinking about having another baby recently. I went online to see if I had to have a doctor remove the Mirena or if I could do it myself, and I found out that it's best done by a professional because bad things can happen and then you'd have to go to the doctor anyway. Plus, I didn't want to hurt my chances of having another baby. While online I discovered this whole world of message boards where women were having a lot of the same problems I'd been having in recent months and they all blamed their Mirenas. Some claimed that their problems had gone away since having it removed. I never thought to link my circumstances to the Mirena, but when I saw how many women are having the exact same problems as me I knew that I needed to go ahead and get mine out ASAP. Here is a list of my side effects, and I've found other women have had them as well with Mirena: weight gain, bloated stomach, depression, short temper with husband and daughter, acne, low sex drive, spotting, cramps, constipation, and back pain. There may be more, but I can't remember them all right now. Some of them may not even be related to the device, but I've read of so many women with Mirena who are having or have had the same issues, so I suspect a link between my problems and Mirena. I hope this helps someone out there looking for answers. God Bless!

Overall I'm feeling much more positive, capable of doing things, better emotional assessment and judgement. One side effect, though, is my breathing. I feel a slight tightness in my chest, almost light wheezing, but not exactly, and I feel like I've got to cough lightly to clear my air passage. Has anyone experienced this? Any insights are appreciated.

I had mirena inserted 7 weeks after my daughter was born. The first 6 months were great. I have endometriosis, so I enjoyed the little to no period and no pain aspect of this contraception very much. But as of the last 6 months, I'm now having 2 periods a month, EXTREME abdominal pain, bloating so bad you can literally watch my low belly expand before your eyes, horrible headaches 3-5 days before each period, decreased sex drive, and I can't prove it, but I think it's making it hard for me to lose the rest of my baby weight. I work out 4-5 days a week, eat right and still...I'm about 14lbs heavier than I was pre-baby. My gyn acted surprised to hear any of this, saying it couldn't be the mirena. Am I just crazy?

hi abs528,
can you tell us what the reason was for your throat ache? I too had a very bad sore throat after i started taking yasmin , and now after being nearly 4 months off the pill, my throat still hurts sometimes. my doc thought it is related to acid reflux so made me do a upper GI series which turned out to be normal . then the GI specialist recommended that i take pepcid(high dosage) for a few months. but the sore throat seems to get worse 1-2 weeks before my periods i.e after 4 weeks but then i dont actually get the periods till about 6-7 weeks. my gynac is doing hormonal and thyroid tests but i havent got the results yet. one more doc i had seen sometime back said that mostly the sore throat is related to the hormone estrogen which causes bloating and swelling of my throat.
So all in all everyones confused about the exact reason for my throat ache and moreover nobody believes that yasmin trigerred it off :(((
any insights will be appreciated.
thanks all..

Hi all,

I have been on Yasmine for three days. And feeling sick in my stomach and vomit twice last night. I called my doctor she said I should continue with MIRENA.. I am so confused when I read all the reviews I don't want to take any BC anymore. But will it be ok if I stop now or will my system mess up should I endure this for a month and than stop? And I amgeting married in 8 weeks and don't want babies for atleast two years. Your insights will be appriciated so much! Thank you in advance...

My eight month old son was prescribed Omnicef for a double ear infection and possible strep throat. After one dose of the medication, he has had several bouts of rust-colored diarrhea which could be mistaken for blood. Since there is nothing in his diet that could turn his stool this color, I assumed it was the Omnicef. I called the pharmacist to see if there was a red dye in the medication, but he insisted that this was an abnormal occurrence. The pediatrician told us that it does contain a red dye. My son has been irritable, clingy, restless, and is displaying anxious behaviors. He is not sleeping well. I can only attribute it to the medication, as his ears and throat are getting much better. I still have another 6 days left of this; if it continues for another day, I will stop.

To those of you who are continuing to give/take this med, I have split the dose into two and this seems to be helping. I give it in the morning and evening after a full meal. The diarrhea is less frequent and less watery.

This website was the only thing verifying my experience. Thank you to everyone who has contributed their insights.

Wow, i am so glad i found this site. now i know im not the only one going through this. i have Cronh's and it is terrible! the drug makes the pain go away, which i am so greatful for, but the moon face and weight gain is so hard to deal with. im 18 and im college and let me tell you, no guy looks at me anymore. it's so hard on the self esteem and i really hope since im tapering off it that the moon face will go away. Does anyone know if my body will look how it used to? please email me at ****** if you have any insights or just want to talk. im currently at 20mg/day...when do the side-effects go away?