My essure nightmare started after having my 3rd child in 2005. I remember being in the hospital and having a doctor from my ob gyn’s office recommend the procedure to me instead of tubal ligation, so I could avoid the recovery and invasiveness. I had known I wanted to have my ‘tubes tied’ before I was even pregnant with our third child. My husband and I had always wanted 3 kids and having the procedure that was easier seemed to make sense to a busy mom. After the procedure is when the easy way turned into a long and grueling few years.
I noticed after essure,my menstrual cycles were longer, heavier bleeding ( and by heavy I mean doubling two pads at once just to get through an hour), intense cramps, crazy fatigue, anemia, migraines and mood swings. I thought it was genetics at first. My mom had always had heavy periods and so I had just drawn the crappy genetics card. Then I started developing a horrible discharge, I thought it was an infection so I treated it over the counter with meds and assumed it would go away. I ended up going to the ER at least 3 times. Every time I was met with the same response, this looks like a STD. So everytime I would have the STD tests done knowing full well it was not the cause. It was humiliating. I could barely keep clothing on or sleep because of the swelling and pain.
I went to my gynecologist again extremely desperate. I told her everything that was going on again. They ended up diagnosing it as Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, so I took the prescribed antibiotics. I remember the doctor calling me and telling me in a surprised voice that I did not have an STD. Duh. I ended up back in the ER, on my birthday, unable to sit, pee or even lie comfortably. The doctor on call was the doctor that delivered my daughter (there were so many docs in the practice it was hard to keep them all straight). She was surprised by what she saw and said she really could not believe how inflamed I was nor how I was walking around. After discussing things we traced all the problems back to the essure device. So after another bag of antibiotics, creams that didn’t work and the promise that she was going to refer me to their surgeon, for removal of the device, I left depressed and still in pain.
The surgeon who called me really was fantastic. He was very forthcoming and helped me tremendously. He told me he would not have recommended the essure and he had removed 3 of the devices previously with no issue. During the surgery one of my fallopian tubes had been perforated, so it had to be removed. Too make a long story short I went through another year and a half of procedures trying to fix what was all started by two tiny spring like devices. It culminated with me having a partial hysterectomy at 30, becoming depressed through the whole nightmare and having to go on antidepressants. I feel like I missed out on a lot in those years, all because I chose the simple procedure. It put a strain on me physically, mentally and I was exhausted. The strain on my marriage was crazy, we went from having the healthy sex life of young parents to painful sex maybe once every 6 months. I’m grateful that my family is strong still, but I feel disgusted thinking that another woman might have opted for the easy approach and had to go through what I did.