'The worst pain I’ve ever experienced': The women speaking out about the agony of IUD fittings

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From fainting and vomiting to haemorrhaging and being admitted to hospital, patients across the UK have told LBC their IUD insertions were far more painful than they were led to expect - with many saying they were offered little more than over-the-counter painkillers and left feeling dismissed, unheard and unprepared.

An IUD (intrauterine device), also called a copper coil, is a small plastic T-shape roughly the size of a 50p coin that is inserted into the womb by a doctor or nurse at a GP surgery or sexual health clinic. It is a non-hormonal form of contraception that stops pregnancy by releasing copper into the womb and can last between five to ten years.

The NHS website claims that most people have "some pain" when having their IUD fitted and recommends taking paracetamol or ibuprofen an hour before.

But one woman LBC spoke to described that advice as “insulting” given the severity of the pain she experienced during her fitting.

Lara, a student at Bristol University, has broken multiple bones, including her foot and all the bones in her arm and shoulder, and still thinks her IUD fitting was the worst pain she’d ever experienced.

She was offered the copper coil as a form of emergency contraception after the condom she was using broke.

Local anaesthetic doesn’t work on Lara so she found the fitting so incredibly uncomfortable and painful that she was “writhing in the chair”.

“I cried and was making disgraceful noises and gripping the nurse’s hand so tightly. I was just in so much shock at the pain.”

“The fact that they tell you to take two paracetamol is insulting given how painful it is. Even though the staff were really nice, it was in such a private area that I felt violated.”

Staff then gave Lara a “nappy-like” item to help with the bleeding and she went home in a taxi as she was too unwell to walk.

“I’d only had light periods and I was warned that the coil might make them heavier. Since I got it fitted, I suffered eight to nine days every month of heavy bleeding and the worst pain. I had to take days off work, I’d be lying in pain on the bathroom floor in agony.”

Lara ended up having her coil removed after 13 months due to the impact these newly-heavy and painful periods had on her life.

Lara said she feels “frustrated” at the “one size fits all approach” when it comes to contraception.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had an informative or productive conversation about my options. I don’t feel like I’ve been listened to or considered."

“Why isn’t there better care? I feel like what they tell you is so far from the truth."

She went on: “It’s just another thing in the long line of women not being listened to. 

She added that even though she found the staff “really lovely and caring” they are “working within a system that normalises pain".

“If the shoe was on the other foot, I do think things would be different for men. Something needs to change.”

‘Most intense pain I’ve ever felt'

Chloe, a constituency officer from Maidenhead, said she opted for the copper coil in order to avoid hormones after years being on the pill.

"I wasn't offered any painkillers or local anaesthetic when I turned up for my appointment. They said it'd be a really quick kind of procedure and when they put it in, it was the most intense pain that I've ever felt."

She said her heart rate dropped so low during her fitting that she wasn’t allowed to leave.

"They were really worried about me and didn't let me leave the clinic for an hour. They gave me some sweets and stuff to perk up my blood sugar. You could tell that they were really worried about me."

Chloe said she bled for roughly a week after the fitting.

"I had it in for maybe six months and it basically became dislodged. I was bleeding and I thought it was a period but it wasn’t."

She ended up going to A&E with cramps and severe haemorrhaging.

“They looked at it and they said that they're going to remove it. It had fallen out, they didn't even need to remove it. I was really worried about the pain, but it had basically dislodged so far that they just pulled it out."

She added that the dislodging was “really dangerous”.

“That could have been really, really unsafe to have that inside of me for that long and not really know the reason. 

"I had a really, really bad experience with it so I wouldn’t recommend the copper coil to anyone,” she warned.

‘Blown away'

Claudia, an account executive from Cheshire, says she is a strong advocate for the copper coil, having had several since she was a teenager.

But while she remains supportive of the contraceptive, her experiences of having it inserted has varied vastly - with one fitting carried out using local anaesthetic, and the rest without.

“The first one I went to, it was so painful. I was told to just take paracetamol two hours before, as many women are. The nurse held my hand and it was really, really painful.”

After it was fitted, she said intense period-like pain began almost immediately and she was “out for the count” for the next 12 hours.

“On one of the insertions I did have local anaesthetic and it was painless. I was blown away by it and just how much better it was. No pain at all.”

But when she tried to arrange local anaesthetic for a later fitting, she was told it was no longer available.

“They said that they don’t have any anaesthetic and they don’t do that anymore because so many women weren’t interested in it…”

Explaining what happened, Claudia said: “I obviously asked for local anaesthetic and made sure to go to a clinic that had local anaesthetic. But then when I was calling up and asking questions about the procedure and when I actually turned up on the day, they said that they don't have any anaesthetic and they don't do that anymore because so many women weren't interested in it.

“It was older women getting it and because they were so used to, you know, the pain of childbirth and things like that. They said they kind of decided to firm it which I thought was crazy because after experiencing how painful it is."

She reiterated: "I can't express how painful it is."

’Trauma'

Melissa, a PhD student from County Durham, ended up in A&E and was admitted to hospital with an infection following her IUD insertion.

She found the experience incredibly painful and felt a sharp shooting pain on her right-hand side when it was being fitted.

"I'd had a copper one before and the insertion really hurt but not to that extent. When I said that to the nurse she dismissed me and said it was fine and just to take paracetamol,” she said. "I then became really ill, was bleeding super heavily and being sick."

Melissa ended up having her coil removed because it had pierced the wall of her uterus.

“It was not in the right place AT ALL,” she explained. “If the nurse had just listened when I knew my own body and knew it wasn't normal I could have avoided all that trauma!”

‘Horrific'

Johanna, a musician from Sheffield, said her experience with her IUD was so bad she is willing to come off contraception altogether and risk pregnancy.

She suffers from vaginismus - a condition where the vagina suddenly tightens - so any kind of insertion is painful but wasn’t given any local anaesthetic or numbing agent during the procedure.

"I was told to take painkillers beforehand. The staff were slow and patient but I was still very uncomfortable and in a lot of pain. 

"Afterwards, I spent two full days in bed because I was in so much pain.

“From then on, I bled for three weeks every month, with the middle week being much heavier than my usual periods. I was passing out, I had to miss a lot of my university lectures and shifts at my job because some days the pain was so bad I couldn't get up, “Even when the pain wasn't there, I was so exhausted from the blood loss that I had no energy to do anything.”

She said her concerns with the coil were played down despite experiencing such fatigue and excessive blood loss.

"I wanted it taken out after a few months but they kept saying my body was getting used to it and it would settle down. It didn't, it stayed just as bad. I managed to get it removed after 9 months. 

"I didn't even care that the removal hurt because I was so thankful it was over. My cycle still isn't totally back to normal over two years on.”

Johanna has found her journey with birth control “horrific”.

"I've been off it all since then and I know I'm fully risking pregnancy but the stress of that is actually better than my other options.”

‘In tears'

Jadzia, a journalist from Kent, was left in tears due to the amount of pain she was in during her procedure. She described it as the "most intense shooting pain” she’d ever experienced.

She ended up fainting and had to be taken to a separate room at the GP. 

"They had to call someone to pick me up because I was unable to walk!” she said.

She wasn’t offered any drugs or aneasthetic for her fitting, just a numbing spray.

"I had a female doctor, which made me more comfortable with the procedure, but she said she was unable to offer me anything more than the spray.

She went on: "If it weren't for the fact I was desperate for the coil (as my period pains are so bad), I would have backed out. It took several attempts to insert and I was in tears due to the pain.

"I then fainted on the table and had to given ibuprofen and wait in a separate room as I was in so much pain I couldn't leave."

She admitted she hadn’t had any issues with her coil since the fitting over a year ago but acknowledged her fitting was a "bad experience”.

‘Invasive and uncomfortable'

Ruby, a charity worker from Leeds, had an IUD when she underwent LLETZ, a treatment to remove pre-cancerous cells from the cervix.

During a routine check-up a year later, she was told the strings to my IUD weren’t there.

"I’m now going to have to have an internal and external scan, as they don’t know if the strings have been cut during the treatment, or whether my IUD has been dislodged or not in the right position.

“Obviously, there’s a risk that I haven’t been protected from pregnancy. But if the strings have been cut, I wasn’t told about it during the treatment, and will have to have it recovered which sounds horrible also!

She said she wished she’d had better communication between departments and GPs.

“If I was due to be getting a treatment in which the IUD strings could be cut, I could’ve been advised to wait for my IUD insertion until after this, to avoid now having to have more appointments, all of which are pretty invasive and uncomfortable at best, and painful at worst!”

’No warning'

Emma, a senior research associate from Durham, said she received very little information about the procedure or the level of pain it could cause.

"The insertion was horrible, on reflection there wasnt really much explanation of what would happen or the potential pain. 

"I remember the nurse asking what I was doing later just before the procedure and I said going to work and she laughed and said I wouldn't be.

After the procedure she had to wait in the doctors for about 30 minutes after the insertion because she felt "so faint”.

“They gave me a cup of tea and biscuit. I couldn't drive home, which would have helped if I had been warned about it.

“Afterwards I was curled up on the sofa in so much pain for most the remainder of the day. I had no anaesthetic, I wasnt even told to take pain killers prior."

She then said she bled for about two days after with no warning.

‘Laughed out the door'

Lauren, a teacher from Newcastle, said she had a relatively painless fitting for her IUD but started constantly bleeding and having severe cramps after three months.

“When I went to the doctor to check-up I wasn’t offered a physical examination and was essentially laughed out of the door! It was a male doctor of course…"

She added her symptoms eventually eased and is now painfree in her seventh year of having an IUD, but admitted that the transitional period was a “journey”.

‘Incredulous'

Dr Louise Newson, a GP and author of The Power of Hormones, said she finds the lack of proper pain medication for women having IUDs fitted “incredulous” and pointed out the stark contrast in how pain is treated in men and women

“When I was a junior doctor and catheterised men, which is a really small flexible tube you put down their urethra, you would always put local anaesthetic in first.

"So why do a more invasive, painful procedure in a woman and not do local anaesthetic? It just seems madness to me.”

When asked why women’s pain is not taken as seriously, Dr Newson said women are “treated very differently” from men.

"Men get more painkillers, women get more mental health medications and diagnoses. So the women, the way that we're perceived when we're in pain is very different by healthcare professionals, and that's established in research

“This whole thing in women, it’s as if they're making it up, they've got a low pain threshold.

"Men in pain would get a lot more sympathy and a lot more painkilling drugs than a woman in pain who's often just a malingerer and a nuisance and often doesn't always get the same dose and the same amount of painkillers."

'More research'

Dr Rachel Hines, a women's health GP based at the Portland Hospital in London, has 20 years of experience fitting coils. She said copper coils are becoming more popular because as they're a non-hormonal form of contraception, but warned that fittings can vary significantly from person to person.

“I always tell people that it can be painful when they're fitted, because I think it's important to know that it can be. It’s a foreign body that’s being put inside. It isn't for everyone and it really varies. For some people it's absolutely fine, and others it can be very painful.”

She advised women need to be properly informed before a fitting so they understand what the procedure actually involves and what to expect afterwards.

“I think it's really important to counsel women so they know what to expect from the appointment, as in, whether to bring someone with them, what to actually expect, and knowing what happens when it's fitted.”

Dr Hines said women should also be warned that some patients can feel faint or even pass out during the procedure.

“It can just be that the reaction you get when it's being fitted”.

She said this is known as cervical or vasovagal shock, and advised eating beforehand to help reduce it from happening.

Dr Hines said some pain relief can help during fittings.

“There's evidence that some pain relief is helpful, not all is helpful, but certainly when you're fitting it, you can use a lidocaine, like a local anaesthetic spray or injection on the cervix, which is helpful in reducing the pain.”

“It's not being barbaric, it’s just that there isn't much evidence that it actually necessarily helps."

Asked whether women’s pain is treated differently to men’s, she said the issue highlighted the need for more research and better pain relief options.

“We need more research and more options for pain relief. So maybe if it was men having the procedures, there'd be more research and more options.”

Despite the issues of the copper coil, Dr Hines said it remain a highly effective long-term contraceptive option and is more than 99% effective at preventing pregnancy.