When I was 15, I started taking a birth control pill in hopes of regulating my hormones and giving me some relief from the hormonal migraines I got twice a month. I tried two different pills before I found one I prefered; it helped, but I would still get at least one migraine a month. All through middle and high school, I would miss days of school every month because my head hurt so badly, I’d throw up. When I started college, I went to see the campus Wellness Center for a migraine, and I ended up trying yet another birth control pill and some medication for my migraines that I hadn’t tried before. Again, I felt better, but not quite right. I would have shorter headaches, but I still got them consistently and found myself missing school and work frequently.
After several visits at the Wellness Center, the nurse practitioner asked if I would be interested in trying an IUD. The perks were not taking a pill daily and going years without being concerned with birth control. For me and my headaches, the IUD would deliver hormones consistently, which would lead to lighter periods and over time, possibly no more periods at all. I hoped that with no more periods, there would be no more headaches. So I told her I was interested.
I did some research and decided to go with the Skyla IUD, and I got it inserted in May 2017. Insertion was painful, to say the least. I spent over an hour in the Wellness Center with cold sweats, fighting the urge to vomit, while I experienced contractions since my body was trying to eject the device. After I made it back to my dorm room, I took a nap, and I woke up good as new. I was excited for my IUD and the promise of no periods and no migraines.
The first period I had on the IUD was much heavier than my periods on the pill, but that was to be expected. And I made it a month without a migraine! I loved my IUD so much I told everyone about it. As far as I was concerned, everyone needed one.
Things I didn’t like so much about the IUD, but I had expected, were not being able to use a tampon and increased acne. I justified the no tampon part because my periods were supposed to be so light I wouldn’t need more than a pantyliner. I dealt with the acne like everybody else does. I expected it to last a few months before my body balanced out to the new hormones in the IUD.
The adjustment period for the Skyla was 3-6 months, so when I reached the 6 month mark and still had relatively heavy periods, I was a bit disappointed, but I still had far fewer migraines over this time than I had in the past. However, I still was breaking out worse than I had ever been in my life, but I tried to be grateful that I had made it this far with clearer skin than most and wait for things to balance out again.
But months 7 and 8 came and my periods were rough. They lasted over a week (which is at least twice as long as a period I was used to), and I was back to having a migraine every two weeks. I was still breaking out, and I was having worse cramps than I had ever had. So I went back to the Wellness Center in January 2018 to talk about options with my headaches, and I ended by listing things wrong with the way my body was reacting to the IUD. I asked the nurse practitioner if there was hope of adjusting after the 6 month mark, and she said it wasn’t likely to change the way I wanted things to. She said the cramps I felt were likely small ovarian cysts and that the hormone used in the IUD is different than the pills I had been on, and it was not the type to help acne or the development of ovarian cysts.
So later that week, I got my IUD removed and went back on the pill. I think it was worth it for me to try another method of hormones to try to help out with my headaches, but this wasn’t the one for me.