Mireva - lost strings!!! What do I do?

[walkthedinosaur]

Don't live in the UK so it's a bit complicated.

Came back to the UK in May to have my coil changed, absolutely no problems. I actually got around to checking for it the other night, can't find the strings anywhere, now I'm pretty convinced I'd know about it if it came out so I'm guessing it's still up there.

My question is can it wait till December until I come back to the UK again to get the nurse to check it out for me?

If I can't find the strings is it still effective? I really don't want any more babies.

I don't feel any different than I have in the last five years so I'm guessing it's still working but was just wondering in anyone else had had experience of this.

Hi, I think the advice is that if you can't feel the strings you have to assume it may have come out, so you can't assume it's in there and working. Up to you how much of a risk you want to take on getting pg, but if you don't want to risk it then I think you have to use other precautions in the meantime.

Is there no way of getting a nurse to check you out where you are?

If you cannot feel the strings, you need to get it checked out to ensure you are safe contraceptive wise.

If the nurse/doctor cannot see the threads you will need a transvaginal scan to make sure the coil is in the womb.

Wherabouts are you?

Thanks for your advice, looks like I've got to get this checked out. I'm in France, I just don't fancy going up to my doctor who's about 108 years old with this and explaining in my rubbish French, and to be honest DH works in the UK and I'm here with the two DC's and I work so actually finding the time or even the childcare to go and spend all day at the docs is a bit too difficult to consider. I'll just make sure we take extra precautions between now and when we come back to the UK at Christmas. I don't think it's dropped out though because I haven't had any periods or my cycle return to normal (I had the old one removed and this one put in in May), maybe this will be the incentive DH needs to go and get the snip, he's been "thinking" about it since DS2 was born nearly 5 years ago!

I wasn't happy with my coil and wanted it taken out. I had appt with nurse who "couldn't find it"!! this meant lots of panic on my part. She said it had either fallen out or popped up somewhere that it shouldnt have. She told me to go for a scan.

Anyway a little bit panicky by this I asked DH to see if he could feel strings and after a bit of rummaging (apologies for detail) he thought he could. I then went back to GP who found it and removed it.

This stopped the debilitatingly heavy periods and its been happy days since

Chances are its probably there, have you a partner who can 'help you look'?

It is very important that you get it checked out. I found out during my routine check up that mine had gone walkabout. After an internal scan and no joy, followed by and x-ray, it turned out to have perforated my uterus and it needed to be surgically removed!

I had no indicators that is wasn't doing it's thing either.