cannot believe how many stories I have read about mirena and hair...

Hello My name is Nicole Taylor. I am on my second mirena and am having just as much trouble out of it as the first one. I got the first mirena right after my little girl was bor back in January of 08. I had some of the most horrible side affects that one could ever imagine, I have had sever cramping, fluttering in my stomach, hair loss, sever weight gain, and really bad mood swings. Less than one year later it fell out in the shower and scared my cervix. I went on the depo shot and in my first 3 months of the shot i became pregnant and ended up loosing the baby at 3 months. I talked with my doctor several times about different options of birth control since i no longer trusted the iud or the depo. He then told me that my best bet would to go back on the mirena as that my body was already use to the fact that I have had the device in place before and that those crazy side effects would not come back. Well he was wrong. They have come back and are worse than ever. My breasts are getting sorer by the day to where I do not even wont to ware a bra. My hair is still falling out very badly, mood swings are outragious these days an d oh my gosh the cramping... I feel as if some one is taring me from the inside out. I have been trying to get to the doctor well another doctor to have it removed but my insurance will not pay for it. I am scared that something is really wrong with me and the mirena and do not know what to do. I have not even had my period in like 4 months but the pregnancy tests are showing up negative. I wont this thing out of me and i do not reccomend that anyone have the mirena put in. OH did i mention the headaches that never go away. I also think that something needs to be done to take the mirena off of the shelves so that no woman has to feel like this and these side effects.

Ok so here's my story. I went off the pill a couple of months ago, I was on Ocella (a generic for Yasmin). My Ob suggested that I try a progestin- only pill for a month to see how i tolerated that, because sometimes i get monthly headaches. I tried the POP, and my hair started falling out before I even had the mirena inserted. But, at first I didn't make the connection because I had recently colored my hair so attributed it to that. I've had the Mirena a few months now and have probably lost about 20% of my hair volume. If you understand how the combined pill works (any pill with Estrogen and Progestine) , it tricks your body into thinking you're pregnant, and so the pill acts like pregnancy and prolongs hair growth. That said, it seemed likely that going off the pill would trigger my hair loss, not necessarily the Mirena. I also had a scalp biopsy to rule out stress and genetics. Guess what? I was diagnosed with Androgenic Alopecia, which is genetic. My thought is, I may be genitically pre-dispositioned to Alopecia, but something triggered it. Had to be the hormones. So I am having the Mirena removed, because while it's supposed to be minimal progesterone, it's still an androgenic hormone and my system must be enough out of wack to have the hair loss side effect. It's important to note, all my hormone levels fell within the normal range, so the dermatologist that did the scalp biopsy said it couldn't be hormones, but I'm not buying it, since i had a lot more hair when i was on estrogen.

OMG i have also had all of the same side effects, especially the hair loss, I am going to have it removed next week. I am sick of it, and like you i agree that it is the mirena causing these problems no matter what the doctors say. I would love to be a part of a class action suit b/c i am absolutely convinced that MIrena is dangerous and needs to be taken off of the market. I have also had mine almost exactly the same amount of time that you have. Please feel free to email me with any info about this. My name is kelly and my email is kellycrangle@yahoo.com