Sometime in 2008
I visit my family doctor at the time for an annual, which includes a PAP test. I mention to her that I have an overdue IUD that needs to come out, can she remove it while she is in there. I mention that I think the IUD is causing pain in my pelvic area. No problem she says.
During the examination, she informs me that she cannot see an IUD, it must have come out. I mention my strings were cut short, maybe that's why she can't see it. She assures me that even with short strings she would be able to see it if I had one and informs me that I must have lost it at some point.
So then, I ask if the IUD is gone, what is causing my pelvic pain?. You're a woman she says, pelvic pain is normal, I just have to live with it.
She's a well respected doctor, she must know what I am talking about so I leave it at that and just assume that whatever pain I have in my pelvic area is just a normal woman thing. After all there is all this talk about how menstrual pain is horrible, so it must be normal.
Fast forward 8 years
I visit my new family doctor. I had switch doctors in 2011 because of "personal incompatibilities". I didn't like her attitude.
My lab results show some blood in my urine. My doctor ordered a pelvic ultrasound to check out my bladder since the lab test indicate that I do not have a UTI, He's also checking my ovaries as I told him I'd like to make sure I don't have PCOS. He thinks it's unlikely as I never mentionned I had any pelvic pain.
During the ultrasound, the technician mentions my IUD. I am a little surprised it's still there. Later when I visit my doctor about the results of my ultrasound, he is angered that I never told him about having an IUD. He is even more angered when he finds out that I had not told him about it because my former doctor had led me to beleive that I no longer had one without ordering an ultrasound to confirm it was not there any longer. In his words: "You don't just leave it in there!" He asked me how long I have had the IUD (18 years) and when I had requested it be removed (after 10 years). He tells me that my ovaries are normal (no PCOS) and that I have fibroids. He refers me urgently to a gynocologist the have the "foreign object" removed from my body, expecting complications after so many years.
I meet the gynocologist, take a history. He doesn't have a copy of the ultrasound yet and requests it. He also asks why I had the IUD in for so long and was surprised that the doctor told me it was goine without ordering an ultrasound since the IUD was already overdue for removal. Told me I did the right thing by changing doctors.
He was able to remove the IUD without surgery, even though it had strated to become embeded. He was impressed that I did not react to the pain, since most women yelled out and sometimes sobbed when he removed an embeded IUD. I tell him I am used to pain.
At the end of my appointment, he gets a copy of my ultrasound, he calls me back in. He informs me that it showed I might have possible adenomyosis, an often painful condition. My uterus is twice the size it should be a tipped forward onto my bladder (Well that might very well eplain why I need to pee all the time!) He tells me maybe the swelling was caused by the overdue IUD and not in fact adenomyosis, he wants to do a second pelvic ultrasound and compare the two after my uterus has had a bit of a chance to heal from the IUD removal. If it's unchanged at that point, we would discuss further.
So for 8 years I may have indeed had cause for greater than average pelvic pain. For 8 years I had an OVERDUE copper IUD in my body! Is the IUD the cause for so much of the pain I have been in for the last 8 years? Lower back pain, IBS etc etc? If she was wrong about this, how many other things was she wrong about? How many things she told me were nothing to worry about without properly fully investigating, how many things she told me to toughen up about and just stop whining and deal with it? How many things I have been living with in silence that could have been treated but haven't been because I just don't want to bother the doctor with it?
I am waiting to have more information about what is going on with my body before I decide if I want to lodge a formal complaint against her. Maybe I am building a mountain out of a molehill after all.
Time will tell.
