I finally got around to getting my 3-month-post-IUD-insertion checkup at PP (Dear PP, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…).
There’s some pre-menstrual discharge for about four days before my period, I still bleed for 7 days, but only two of those are freaky. The cramps aren’t fun, particularly for somebody who never really had any menstrual cramps before and used to laugh and point at other women who ran for a heating pad once a month and popped Motrin like candy.
Oh, karma’s a bitch.
But I don’t have to worry about taking a pill. My appetite and hence, my waistline, have not gone wild. I don’t have to worry about picking up or paying for pills (and I don’t have to worry about a pharmacist not giving them to me).
Best of all, there’s non of that agonizing depression that draped a gray guaze between the part of my brain that wanted to do things and the part of my brain that actually did them. Just getting out of bed, basic functioning, grocery shopping, was really, really tough.
And did I mention that my sex drive’s back? Oh, sex drive, how I have missed you, let me count the ways…
I’m not going to recommend the IUD, because it’s got its own set of problems. Since I haven’t had a kid, my IUD is a tight fit, which means I mostly sleep on my right side now because when I do get a dull aching pain, it’s usually on the left side (my gyno says this is pretty normal. Any pain that’s manageable with Motrin is pretty normal). And when I’m on my period, it’s a pinching pain, usually but not always on the left side. Not happy, but manageable.
And, of course, there’s the blood issue. I’ve successfully managed to get up, go to work, hit the gym, and get home no problem while bleeding like a sacrificial lamb, so it’s not crippling or anything, but it’s not a “Yay! Fun!” sort of thing, and the first time you have those heavy days, it’s pretty freaky.
So if you’re not good with blood and pain, you’ll need to find another option.
But if you’re good with blood and pain and looking for something besides the pill, something you can put in and not worry about or pay for month-to-month, and you’re looking to keep your waistline and your sex drive (after the first month. The first month is a bitch. You really don’t want anyone to even touch you for, like, the first week), then it’s certainly an option.
I’m told that it should further settle down over the next year, and hopefully the periods will get a little lighter and/or last fewer days. Pretty much every month that goes by, there’s less pain during the period and a longer window where I don’t feel anything at all, really, except an occasional fluttering.
So I’m back to functioning, but it wasn’t a pleasant trip.
It’s pretty much what all the literature says it is: hell for the first month, and settling in for the next two, so that after your third period, you’re pretty well situated.
If you’re going to do it, make it a month where you don’t have a lot of shit to do.
That was a crappy month.
