My name is Angela. I’m 33 years old. I had Essure placed a year or so after my daughter was born. I was given a Valium, Vicodin and a Tordol shot 1 hour before the procedure. When I was on the table, the OBGYN placed a local anesthesia shot into my cervix to numb the area. It was somewhat painful, but eventually everything was numb. During the procedure, everything went well until the placement of the 2nd coil. My fallopian tube had collapsed and would not let go of the chain like tool that spun around to place the coil itself. The essure rep had to step out of the room (with my lower half exposed and tools and camera hanging out of my vagina. nice!) and call the company to find out what to do. They had to take another tool (in the limited space they had in my partially dilated cervix) and cut the remainder of the ‘chain’ and leave it in my uterus where I was told it would ‘eventually’ pass. I remember placing my hand on my stomach and I could literally feel the doctor tugging on my ovary trying to get my tube to let go of the tool. I could feel my ovary being pulled through the skin on my stomach. I didn’t feel any pain, though. However, my body knew it had been through trauma. On the way out of the office, I remember suddenly feeling nauseated and dizzy and I laid down in the elevator on the floor on the way to the car. I could hardly walk. My husband had to pull the car up to the building. I shivered and whimpered all the way home. I will never forget that horrible experience. I had the test to confirm total tube bockage 3 months later. All appeared fine.
For a year or so, I didn’t notice any symptoms with the Essure implants except that I could feel when I was ovulating and I could tell which ovary I was ovulating from. I usually had to take IBU on those days. Also, the onset of my period was more brutal than usual. Now, several years later I have female cramping, horrible back aches, hip pain, weight gain, bloating, joint pain, fatigue, and headaches. The problems I can’t see are more serious health issues (thyroid and female hormone imbalances). I see an endocrinologist, neurologist, internist, GYN, ect. No one can tell me anything. All I know is this…I was healthy before I had Essure. I felt fine. Now, I see many others with the same symptoms as I have, with the same onset of problems and the makers of Essure want to deny any link in these complaints.It’s shameful. The pain and discomfort of our female organs alone is enough to warrant an investigation into this product. Essure is causing me undue pain. I was not told when receiving the doctor’s explanation of the procedure or on the website of Essure that constant pain was a side effect of this device. If they did their trials correctly, I have to believe that there are women out there that had the device placed during the trial that have these symptoms also. How could they have missed it? Was there not a long term follow up of these trials? The makers of Essure have let us down, as well as the FDA, for letting this torture device slip though without the proper research. What are they going to do to correct this? What are we going to do to make them correct this?