Sex & Romance
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Scared about IUD
Hi gals. I'm getting the ParaGard IUD put in tomorrow and I'm quite nervous. I've read everything online from it not hurting at all, to someone else who said getting it put in was like a strong labor pain.
I've never had kids so I'm going in tomorrow on the 5th day of my period. I have interstitial cystitis so I experience a lot of "down there" pain and I guess that's why I'm pretty stressed about the procedure. I know what its like to have unbearable pain down below. I don't want anything worse.
How can I relax during it? Should I take ibuprofen beforehand, will that help? Haha I'm really nervous! Please reassure me. Thanks guys 
Re: Scared about IUD
I have an IUD (non-hormonal) and not a lot of pain tolerance. For me, it felt like really bad cramping spreading throughout my abdomen. I had bad cramping the rest of the day and took some drugs (advil, maybe) and lay on the couch with a heating pad for the rest of the day. Day 2 was some cramping, but not as bad. But it's going to feel different for everyone. Can't tell you what labour pain feel like as I've never had kids either. I've also rarely had cramps, so I thought they sucked pretty bad. It hurt enough that I told DH that he could go in for a snip after this came out cos I wasn't doing it again, but not so bad that I remember much of it now a year later.
Take an advil or similar before hand and find something that relaxes you. For me, it was DH (FI at the time) coming into the appointment with me to hold my hand during the procedure. I said if I had to go through it, he had to be there with me. I love mine, so I hope it goes well for you
I have Mirena which is slightly larger and it's painful, but not unbearable.
I have no pain tolerance, no children, and I've had two installed and lived through it.
The first one DH did go and hold my hand and drive me. The second I had to tough it out alone. I thought I was changing jobs and losing insurance, took a work in appt, and it was pretty rough driving myself home.
I got Paragard in May of this year without having any children before. I passed out while the dr was "dilating" my cervix (I can't remember the exact term but basically opening it up a little bit to allow the IUD to go in, a problem women with previous pregnancies don't have). Dr. explained people can have a reaction to the stimulation to the cervix which drops the blood pressure which is why I passed out.
Otherwise, he put it in while I was passed out so I don't remember that, but I didn't feel too bad afterwards. I went to an award ceremony for work the same day and just wore a panty liner to ensure I didn't bleed (some people have spotting). I had a few twinges of pain about 2 days out, just a cramp that went away after about 10 seconds. I have more cramps with my periods but nothing I didn't have before I was on BCP.
Would I do it again? Yes. Definitely.
It's SO awesome to not have to think about BC for 10 years! Sex can be spur of the moment (I made H use condoms even when I was on the pill) and you can fully enjoy yourself.
Just an update, it went really well. The worst pain felt like a strong cramp, but mostly it was weird and uncomfortable. I've been cramping for a couple days now but nothing severe. I am very happy I finally did this!
I asked the doctor if I could just chat with her while she did it so that I didn't focus on the pain, so I just babbled about random stuff lol, I was very thankful she let me do that because it relaxed me.
I've had no kids, and I went in for my paraguard on day 5 or 6 of my period. For the insertion I had 800mg of ibprofen an hour before I went in. The insertion itself was mostly what people say here. It sucked, but it wasn't unbearable, I felt 2 very strong cramping sensations, then it was fine, just mildly sore. My mistake was I went ahead and went to work the same day. I'm a massage therapist and my jobs pretty physical, and about an hour after I got in to work I was DONE. I think I popped 5 more ibprofen that day and still felt like crap, went home and sat in a hot tub for an hour. The worst part of the insertion was the horrible cramps I had for 2 days afterwards, and I spotted on and off for the rest of the month until my next period, so I had to wear panty liners every day
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I don't know what you'd call my pain tolerance, but from what i've heard my normal cramps before the iud were pretty mild in comparison to what they are now, so that was one big change I had to get used to!
My periods were not longer or heavier like some have said, but they did change. Instead of my usual mild cramps 1-2 days, period 4-5 days, done, I cramped like HELL for about 6 days before my period even started. Once it started they got a bit more bearable, period 4-5 days, done. so the actual time I had to wear something for my period was the same, but the cramping went from 1-2 days to about 10 days. I felt like I was cramping half the month! That lasted 3 months.
(I also tended to start cramping during orgasms for the first couple months, which was weird)
After that, things calmed down. I had no cramping at all leading up to it last month (thank god), but the first day or two of my actual period, I had the icky strong cramps again, like they were the first couple days after I had the insertion, and that was all. It takes 6 months to a year for your uterus to finally give up and stop trying to get rid of it, so Its been progressively better.
I'm glad it went well and wasn't as bad as you were thinking! I was nervous beforehand too!