After making the decision that permanent birth control was the right decision for my life, I decided to make an appointment with my OB/GYN to talk about a tubal ligation. Only, when I got to his office, I was convinced that the Essure Procedure was just as effective and much less invasive. I was told that traditional tubals were rarely done anymore and that procedures like Essure were much more common. Although I expressed my concerns with putting a metal foreign object into my body, he told me that if he were to pick a procedure to do on one of his family memebers, he would choose Essure over a tubal. Since he had been my OB/GYN for over 20 years, I trusted his advice. And so we set the appointment for the procedure.
When I woke up from the anesthesia the day of the surgery, my mom was by my bedside to tell me that the procedure was unsuccessful. For some reason the coils would not stay properly within my fallopian tubes. Not only would they not stay, but he could not get them 100% removed, but reassured me that the coil remnants that remained would not cause me any problems.
Needless to say, I was allowed time to recover from the failed procedure, and then went trough the tubal ligation anyways.
Througout the next year, I would experience extremely sharp, stabbing pains in my sides, which would strike, last for about a minute, and then subside. I chalked it up to ovulation pains and never thought twice about them. But then, the pains started coming more frequently. And finally, this past summer, I found myself in my current situation. The pains in both of my sides were not going away. And on top of that, I was experiencing extreme bloat, back pain that felt like I was in constant back labor pain, spot bleading, headaches, and had a constant low grade temperature of around 100.5 F. I made an appointment with my OB/GYN who gave me an exam and then set up a sonogram. After the sonogram showed only a small cyst on my c-section scar, my OB/GYN was not convinced that this was a gynecological issue and I was referred to my family physician and a urologist. Even though my white blood cell count was through the roof which indicated my body was fighting off some kind of infection, His best guess was that I was passing a kidney stone. The urologist did an ultrasound and determined that my kidneys were fine and there were no kidney stones. With doctors twiddling their thumbs and me on the verge of admitting myself the to emergency room, my OB/GYN finally set me up for exploratory surgery where low and behold, he found the Essure coils burrowing through my fallopian tubes. The tubes were removed, and I have been recovering from surgery for the past couple of days.
I am beyond frustration. The past 3 months have been 3 of the most painful months of my life. To go over 90 consecutive days of constant pain does a number on both your body and your pysche. There were days I spent curled up in a ball on my bed crying my eyes out thinking I could not take another day without relief. And to know, that in the end, what was supposed to be a ‘less invasive’ procedure turned out to be a very painful experience in my life, when I could have just did the tubal ligation in the first place and have had no issues.
I urge all women to avoid permanent birth control options such as Essure that put your body at risk for further pain, infection and invasive removal of the device.