u/Tired-Time

I have a traumatic backstory with my first mirena IUD placement. It took two tries, and a combined total of 60 minutes to place. I have a small and Very tilted cervix/uterus that makes things difficult.

So for my next one I went in with my list of demands: paracervical block, anti-anxiety meds, and most importantly to me, ultrasound guided.

My OBGYN enthusiastically agreed to my list. The day of the appointment, I have a resident physician that is going to place it with his attending. This was fine, I knew that my original doctor wasn’t going to be the one placing it. We talk through everything, he tells me about risk of perforation but that with the ultrasound it’ll be much smaller a risk, yay!

They give me lorazepam and tell me they’ll be back in 15 for placement. Well, 40 minutes later, resident and attending are back, and the drugs have fully set in. They tell me they are Not going to do the ultrasound “unless they have to”. It’s not framed as a question of if I want it, it’s a statement. At this point i’m not in the right mindset to advocate for myself, I just let it happen.

It took multiple tries, they had to manually dilate me up to a size 6 Denniston dilator, and by the time it was in I was crying uncontrollably.

I don’t know if the ultrasound would have made it quicker, but it would have given me peace of mind, and the last second change of plans would not have increased my anxiety. I couldn’t stop crying afterwards, I felt violated. I hate that my medical consent was disregarded at the last second while I was under the influence and unable to advocate for myself.

Do I reach out to the clinic’s patient advocate to start the process of filing a complaint?

Hello! Here is my ferritin history:

Dec 5, 2024: Ferritin 8 - felt terrible

1/15/25: iron sucrose (Venofer) infusion

1/30/25: iron sucrose (Venofer) infusion

April 9 2025: Ferritin 52 - felt okay

November 19 2025: Ferritin 31 - felt bad

12/22/25: iron sucrose (Venofer) infusion

February 9 2026: Ferritin 87 - Finally feel good!

July 10 2026: Ferritin 40 - Feeling the chronic fatigue start to come back

My CBC’s come back normal or mostly normal, it’s just ferritin.

My doctors are seeming to lean towards the root cause simply being my period. I have an average period, medium flow of about 3-4 days. I am scheduled to get a Mirena IUD in August.

I don’t absorb iron well when taking the pills. They gave me stomach aches no matter what I did and did not stop my ferritin from dropping, so I have stopped taking them.

Blood in stool test was negative. Gastro refused to test me for h. pylori and said a colonoscopy was unnecessary.

Questions:

1. should I keep perusing gastro in the meantime before I see if this IUD sorts things out, or should I see if the IUD fixes everything and if not, go down the gastro route.

2. Any other things I can look into?

Thanks!

I am interested in making macrame tapestries using alpha patterns! I was wondering if anyone has had any success using larger string.

As much as I love the teeny tiny mini macrame that embroidery thread makes, I’d like to make larger projects (i.e. 1ft x 1ft) without spending ten thousand years if possible 😄

If anyone’s attempted anything like this, please let me know your experience!

When I got my first IUD it caused 15-20 day spotting periods once a month for about a year and a half. I was a naive college student so I just accepted this fate.

I’m getting another Mirena after being off it for 2 years because of iron deficiency reasons. My OBGYN recommended taking 3 months of low dose estrogen birth control no placebo pills for three months after IUD insertion to stop the bleeding and hopefully give my body a second to sort stuff out so the ridiculously inconsistent periods/spotting at the beginning doesn’t happen again.

Does anyone have experience with having both at the same time? I’ve never taken oral birth control before, just the IUD, so I’m curious if anyone has any anecdotes of their personal experience.

I (F) broke up with my girlfriend of two years in January, both late 20’s, and we wanted to try and stay friends. But something that really shocked me and totally put me off is how much aphobia came out once we were no longer in a relationship.

For context I identify as ace spec, somewhere around demisexual. The label is a helpful for me to explain why I don’t experience sexual attraction towards new partners for a few months until it clicks (or doesn’t).

Incident 1: We saw each other a few days after the breakup (NOT my idea, she wanted to talk) and at one point she starts going on about how the “life I want” sounds so lonely and isolated, but if it’s what I truly want, then she’ll support me (?) and went on about how my roommate/my best friend is going to find a romantic partner one day and move out, leaving me all alone with no one to support me.

Incident 2: She says that she thinks she’s taking the breakup harder than me because I don’t experience romantic emotions as strongly as her (????) because i’m asexual. Cool cool cool so because I’m ace spec apparently I don’t experience emotions as strongly as allosexual people do.

Me being ace spec was NOT the reason we broke up by the way. Yeah she’s more on the very high libido side of the spectrum while i’m more middle of the road, but it was a very slight incompatibility.

These comments are ridiculous for many reasons, mostly being that it’s straight up aphobia and shitty, condescending things to say to someone. But also! These comments couldn’t be farther from the truth! I am so fortunate in my life with the amount of support and love I have around me from my friends, family, mentors, roommates, none of which require romance or sex to be intimate, supportive and literally everything I need in life.

Overall I think it’s coming from a place of insecurity. She’s more the amatanormative type who finds most of their self worth and emotional support needs through their romantic partner. The breakup was sad and devastating for me too, but I think she’s jealous that months later i’m back up on my feet and chilling. She recognizes i’m emotionally stable rn in part because i’m ace spec and don’t subscribe to the same traditional values as her, and it’s prompted weird, straight up acephobic comments about my sexuality.

Right now we are currently no contact, I need space and am enforcing that boundary at the moment.

QUESTION: Anyone have any advice for vetting potential romantic partners for aphobia. I was with her for two years! And I didn’t see this side of her once! She was mean to me about a lot of other stuff too post-breakup, so maybe she’s simply taking every opportunity to be rude bc she’s pissed. Eugh.