I had the Essure procedure on June 3, 2014. My doctor does the procedure at the hospital and puts the patients under anesthesia. So I was knocked out through the whole procedure. I am very happy that I was considering how painful it sounds from the women who were awake for it. The procedure was covered by my insurance fully because I had met my deductible and coinsurance for that policy year (7/1/2012 – 6/30/2013). Though I was asleep for the procedure, I was in a lot of pain I woke up. It was very uncomfortable and I had to use Vicodin to control the pain. I was unable to do much that day or the next and the pain decreased over the next few days. I had bleeding for several days. The overall experience was not as easy as the advertising leads you to believe. I don’t work right now, but had I been working I wouldn’t have been able to return to work the next day as was explained to me. Women should be aware of how uncomfortable the procedure is and that you could be in pain for a few days.
I went for the X-ray to confirm that my tubes were blocked on Sept. 9, 2013. The test hurt very badly when they injected the dye and I was in pain for most of it. I was not given results that day, but at a follow up appointment with my doctor. He told me that there was no scarring on either tube and the procedure had failed. My options at that point were to wait 3 more months and have the test again or have my tubes tied through surgery. He felt because there was no scarring at all that there was little chance that there would be scarring in three more months. He said this was the first time he had seen it happen where there was zero scarring. I had to pay close to $500 for the X-ray to determine if my tubes were tied because I was in a new insurance plan year. I was frustrated that I had to pay this for something that did not work at all.
I decided to proceed with getting my tubes tied through the tubal ligation. I had this procedure in Oct. 2013. The doctor did not remove the essure coils when I had this done. So they are still in place. And, once again, I had to pay almost $500 because now i was paying the coinsurance portion of my insurance policy.
I am currently having a lot of pelvic and vaginal pain. Sex is painful and I get bad pain when I am ovulating and worse cramps during my period than I ever had before. This has been going on for quite some time. I can’t say if it is essure related, but I will know more after I go for an ultrasound to determine the cause. Because my insurance plan changed as of May 1, 2014, I will once again need to pay a hefty price for this test. I am dreading that bill’s arrival.
I am very disappointed with the entire Essure experience. Had I just had the Tubal ligation done in the first place, I wouldn’t have paid a Penny out of pocket and would possibly not experiencing this pain. I feel lucky though, that I am not having such severe problems as many other women are experiencing and I hope that they all can find relief as soon as possible.