My name is Betty Satterfield, in June of 2007 I had to have a D& C I was over 40 yrs old & thought that I wanted my tubes tied for permanent birth control. I was a very healthy white female with no health problems. The Dr that I saw told me that she had been trained in a new procedure called Essure. She assured me that it would be painless, no incisions in my abdomen & that I could go back to work the next day. I went to the outpatient surgery & had the procedure done. When I woke up there was an ID card with a number on it and a paper that looked like an insert with my chart for me to take home. They told me that there was a toll free hotline to call if I had any questions. This was the only information that I ever received about this, no video, no question answer session, no anything. Within 3 days I was in excruciating pain in my left side, abdomen, and radiating on over to my right side & back. I was also having discharge and bleeding. I went back to the Dr time after time, @ first she told me that I had an urinary tract infection, then a pelvic infection. I just kept getting worse, I was going to the Dr @ least 2 times a month. They did several sonograms & tests. In August when I called they told me that if I was hurting that bad then I needed to just go to the nearest Emergency room. I did not want to go to the nearest ER room because I knew that they would not know what to do about them. Instead I went to a clinic to see a female Dr. She sent me immediately for a CT scan to rule out anything else. It came back fine, but remnants of two metallic objects which they supposed were the problem. No one had told me that you could not have certain tests and x-rays because of these. They make the pictures unreadable or fuzzy. The Dr suggested that I follow up with the Ob-Gyn that originally put them in. I did. She stated that it could not be the implants, because I was hurting too high in my abdomen and I might as well look some where else for my problem. They insinuated that I was crazy. I did not know what to do. I was in a mess! I thought that maybe I could ‘tough it out’ maybe it was like a broken bone & would heal slowly. But this was never the case. I just kept bleeding, spotting, having discharge, pain unbearable and could not lie on either side to sleep. It was just like a knife stabbing constant pain. I called the Essure Hotline, it was not even the right telephone number on my ID card. It was a return line in case something happened that they were taken out. The lady that answered gave me another telephone number in California to call. The lady that answered there barely spoke English and supposedly could not understand what I was talking about, but she stated that no one else in the world had ever complained about them but me. I then called the family planning clinic @ our local Health Dept. and spoke to a nurse. She advised me to get to a Dr somewhere quick because she knew that it was serious. I went to our family Dr, she gave me more antibotics, estrogen, progesterone, and anything else that she could think of until I could see another Gynecologist. I had problems getting an appt because everywhere that I called they told me to go back to the one that put them in. I could not because she said that nothing was wrong with me! In December of 2007 I finally got to see a wonderful Gynecologist who believed me. I broke down on her and cried because I thought that maybe I was going crazy. She immediately found out that my body just could not and would not tolerate them. She gave me more antibotics and other meds to try as a last resort. They did not work. On January 16, 2008 I had to have a hysterectomy to remove them. That solved the problem immediately. My problems were this: I accumulated numerous Dr & medial bills, the Dr that put them in would not acknowledge anything was wrong because this was the first set that she put in and she wanted to be able to say that she could do this procedure, I almost died from this, I knew I wanted permanent birth control, but no one told me the risks, side effects, etc. In fact they never told me anything about them, I received the brochure & insert paper after the surgery. No one gave me an allergy test as the insert said to do before the implant, this might have saved the hysterectomy from being performed. I actually thought I might be going crazy because the Dr said nothing was wrong., the pain was unbearable, I had to miss a lot of work because of this. I had to take more prescription medication than I had my entire life, and then the Essure Company did nothing and actually informed me that I was WRONG! I have all of my original paperwork involving this awful experience because I knew other people would eventually have the same problem, but I never could get anyone to listen to me. I just hope & pray that these things are banned from use & that someone will listen to our stories. Thank you for taking time to read my story.