My wife had Mirena inserted last year around May. Side effects w...

Just a postscipt.

Many of the posters report unsympathetic doctors who told us these side-effects CAN"T be from Mirena. This betrays a pathetic misunderstanding of statistics from these physicians. If a side-effect, say joint pain, is experienced by only .5% of women who have used Mirena, and 500,000 women have used the IUD, then that means that 2500! women WILL experience this side-effect. If the rate is 5% then it's 10 times that number! A very low side-effect rate does not mean the side-effect is impossible. In fact it means that it is certain to show up in some patients.

In the same vein, however, just because our families have experienced these side-effects with Mirena does not mean that no one should use this IUD. Women's who have had no problems with Mirena are not scouring the internet to find this site, and so they are unlikely to post here.

The moral of the story is that we need better informed doctors and patients, and more research into the side-effects of Mirena.

How do we prompt them to conduct this research? I agree this is very necessary. the manufacturers say there is no such research. Apparently once the participant reported side effects, the device was removed and they were terminated from the study. At least that's what I gathered. I would love to hear from those women.

I have had the Mirena fitted for 2 years now and so far I haven't had any ill effects. I first had it fitted 12 years ago after having my son, then I had bloating, acne and wasn't able to lose weight. I had it removed to have my daughter now aged 8. I had itput back in 2 years ago because a condom had burst and as my husband refused to have a vasectomy I felt this was the only option for me. The pill is not suitable for me. This time around the Mirena has been better, no acne no bloating and very light or non-existant periods. Obviously not all women will be so lucky, I had a blood clot from the pill 20 years ago and almost died, there will always be some who have adverse reactions, these MUST be looked into in detail and the findings reported so that we can make an informed choice.