‘I wondered go on’
With three children and no plans for more, Napier woman Lauren Frank, 30, made an appointment to discuss sterilisation with her GP.
She had been using ‘‘the jab’’ for contraception, a threemonthly hormonal injection called Devo Provera.
Instead of a referral for sterilisation, Frank left the appointment with a long-acting reversible contraceptive (LARC) device, a Mirena.
Frank’s GP told her she was too young for sterilisation, and that the Mirena would last for five years.
Within days, Frank had developed a blinding migraine and a couple of weeks later she experienced the first of many panic attacks.
Anxiety came to consume her life, and the associated muscular pain was unbearable at times, she says. ‘‘Things just got so hard. At times I wondered how I would go on.’’
She reported the side-effects to her GP ‘‘almost weekly’’ but each time was told they would settle down.
Frank continued to suffer debilitating panic attacks. Eight weeks after having the Mirena fitted, she went back to her GP and demanded to have it removed.
But Frank says she continued to suffer anxiety for another two years. She is convinced the progesterone hormone released through the device caused an emotional imbalance, despite denials by most doctors.
Frank got in touch with after reading about Bayleigh Ward’s experience, which mirrored hers.
Ward wrote in October about the terrible anxiety she developed after having a Mirena put in during surgery to treat endometriosis.
When she asked to have the device removed, she said her doctor did not seem to believe it was the cause of her problems but removed it anyway.
When her health returned to normal after several months, she wrote about the experience to warn other women of the ‘‘dangers of Mirena’’.
Meanwhile, Frank started a new relationship last year, and became pregnant again.
– Cate Broughton