No one will remove it!

*if you miss one

• It gives you

Honestly, autocorrect on my phone...

FWIW, OP, the mini pill worked wonderfully for me. Ten years and no unwanted pregnancies. There's less of a window of you miss one, but it's still 12 hours, so if you habitually take them in the morning or gives you all day to remember. Also, you can buy a MAP for about £25 at any pharmacy and keep it in your medicine cabinet in case you do miss one and have had sex recently enough for it to matter.

You poor thing, sounds like the coil was horrible. I won't have that either. We currently use condoms with a good mixture of abstinence combined with a reminder that he promised to get a vasectomy 😄

They're funded by the NHS for all contraception, as long term ones are cheaper, GP surgeries get more funding if women use long term contraceptives as an incentive to encourage GPs to use them. The real outcome is that once they're in, GPs don't want to remove them.
Which leads to women like me refusing to use them, and I'll be making sure my daughters don't try them.

When I finally got my implant removed ten years ago, I vowed to never use contraception that I wasn't in control of again.
Even without coronavirus they refuse to remove implants/coils due to the funding, I can't imagine that men would be treated like this.

No advice but this is awful that you can't get it removed. Hope you manage to find somewhere.

I removed mine. I was very lucky it didn't go horribly wrong and that it wasn't in too deep. Bit of a puckered scar. I wouldn't recommend it.

@vinotinto88 The lovely nurse I spoke to was sympathetic and said that they were having a meeting this week to get a timeline for 'other services' that they weren't offering at the moment, so that does look promising.
She said to try next week as something may have changed.. so maybe call a Sexual Health Clinic next week.

@vinotinto88 No luck at the GP and no luck with the Sexual Health clinic.
Apparently having daily migraines when I'm on my period (which is all the time because of the implant) isn't enough.. and instead they prescribed me the pill.
So now I have to go on two contraceptives simultaneously, wonderful.

I understand your frustration OP, I really do. It took me a while to be able to get mine out even before the pandemic even hit.

However, I feel like you’ve been given options but they maybe aren’t the one you want? You’ve said that there are private clinics who are willing to do it and you would go private, but it’s just your work hours stopping you? I don’t understand why you wouldn’t just book a day off or ‘go sick’ to have that appointment in a safe sterile environment but instead are considering removing it yourself where you are putting yourself at risk of permanent damage or infection?

The NHS are not going to remove it right now, that’s just a fact unfortunately. Your options are to have it out privately at one of the clinics who have offered it or to wait until things have settled down with the pandemic - which nobody knows how long that will be.

Trust me, you do not want to injure yourself or give yourself an infection and end up having to stay in hospital where none of your family can visit and you could be at risk of picking up something much worse.

Haven't rtft but I removed my implant from my arm myself. I had my son at 16, and 2 days after I was home from the hospital my midwife visited me with a nurse who put it in my arm. I was totally out of it and exhausted, I obviously consented but had no idea what it actually was or how it might affect me! It caused me all sorts of issues including really heavy bleeding. Then absolutely everybody I spoke to refused to remove it. I went to 3 sexual health clinics who apparently weren't allowed to do it, and my GP actually said to me 'well you wouldn't want another [DS name] just yet would you?!' and said I had to wait even longer before they'd consider removing it. It was horrific not being in control of my own body. I didn't stop bleeding for over 8 months. I just cut deep into my arm straight below where the implant was. (Trigger warning) I used to self harm before this so it really wasn't a big deal for me but the relief when it was out was so worth it. I still have the scar

@vinotinto88 not at all. I totally get it as I was constantly calling about my coil. It's an awful wait when you want something so bad. I understand my comments may have pissed some people off but it's not my view, it was just a medical explanation as to why they may be refusing x

I had the implant a few years back which caused horrendous side effects.

I struggled on for nearly 9 months because they kept saying give it more time etc....

In the end I told them if they didn't remove it, I would cut it out myself (I really meant it)

Anyway it took the doctor about 40 mins to get it out, there was a lot of rummaging around, they had to make the incision larger as it kept slipping out of reach. For this reason I would say no, please don't try and take it out yourself. You could get a really nasty infection.

I think if you just threaten to cut it out then you will be seen. Terrible that you have to resort to that bit what else can you do?

It would be irresponsible of them to remove your contraception.

Bull. A lot of people seem to buy this line that we're all basically children and it's up to those in authority to make sure we make good choices. We're adults, we are entitled to make our own decisions whether some medical professional agrees with them or not and no one has the right to force us to continue with medical treatment, including hormonal contraceptives, because they think it's best (unless we've been legally judged to be incapable of making an informed choice ourselves). How patronising.

Also, wasn't the message a few weeks ago that IVF treatments were allowed to resume? It's a bit silly in that case to deny contraceptive removal in case someone falls pregnant, wouldn't you say?

They wouldn't even discuss it, just said no.

I don't see how they can. You're allowed to refuse any treatment for any reason, presumably that includes refusing to continue ongoing treatment, whether they agree or not? I'd have thought that was a human rights issue, or at least clinical malpractice.

@vinotinto88
It was easy...no rooting around required. TMI alert You're supposed to check the strings every once in a while (which I will admit, requires a certain level of being comfortable with your body) located the strings easily, quick and gentle tug and it came right out. It's designed to do that, so I think unlikely to go wrong, once you can locate the strings.

@vinotinto88 I understand that. I'm currently on month 5 of trying. However when it comes to the NHS you wont be a priority. Its frustrating when to you it's important, but people's cancer treatments and fertility treatments have been cancelled. It would be irresponsible of them to remove your contraception. As a working health care profession I'm just explaining the reasoning behind it. It isnt a medical emergency, you are healthy and safe and that's what they will want to maintain. It took the NHS a year to find and remove my coil and what was without a pandemic. It ended up being 18 months out of date. Just give it a few weeks and try calling again, after the next boris update.

I was only a little bit joking. I mean, it's a small cut on your arm. Order a sterile scalpel, numbing cream and make sure neither of you are a 'faint at the sight of blood' person. Sterilise some tweezers to help with grabbing. If it goes tits up, lots of pressure and off to A&E. You could give yourself far worse injuries by having all manner of common household accidents.

I agree that it is out of order that this decision is out of your hands. But I also understand that face to face contact in surgeries is impossible in some cases right now. In my opinion, the best case scenario would to stop leading you on with this 'wait 2 weeks' nonsense and either say, we cant right now and this is the reason, or give you a timeline so you know where you stand.

I just read PP and it might have been harder to get out because if scar tissue from previous implants. That seems to ring a bell and makes a lot of sense!

I really do hope this is resolved for you soon.