Hi everyone, my name is Patricia Rhodes. Early in 2000 my EX-husband decided we didn’t want to have to pay for yearly exams and birth control for me. I had been on Depo Provera birth control for 2 years, following the birth of our daughter. I didn’t like the side effects I was experiencing from the Depo, mainly weight gain, didn’t mind the lack of menstruation. He didn’t trust me to ‘remember’ to take a pill every day so he gave me the choice of Depo or sterilization. Well, after a couple years on the Depo and not liking it between the cost of the shots and my yearly exams he decided it was time to fix me for good. But I was too scared of going under the knife and couldn’t afford it. Then he heard an ad on the radio for a new, non surgical, permanent sterilization method being studied by Arizona Women’s Health Research that was looking for study participants. Hmm, permanent and free, he liked the sound of that so he made me go check it out, so reluctantly I did.
I really did not want to end my ability to have children, but he was an abusive sob that I didn’t think I’d ever manage to get away from so I figured what the hell, there was no way I was having anymore kids with that jerk so I signed up. That and there would be no living with him if I hadn’t. I asked on several occasions what they were made of because of my metal allergies. Gold, sterling silver and stainless steel are the only things that can touch my sensitive skin. After asking several times I finally got a response, I was told, ‘They’re 100% surgical stainless steel, with a coating that promotes scar tissue growth. It causes scar tissue to grow into them, completely blocking the tubes, providing permanent, irreversible sterilization.’
Okay, that sounded harmless enough I guess… Boy, was I ever wrong!
The procedure itself wasn’t too bad I guess. On October 10, 2000 I was put under conscious sedation, meaning I was laying there awake watching them being implanted on a monitor. The drugs they gave me for the sedation had me feeling kinda funny and chatty. Remember laying there saying, ‘Cool! Is that what my uterus looks like on the inside?’ I felt no pain during the procedure, halfway through I got an awful case of the hiccups. The anesthesiologist just chuckled and said, ‘Boy… There must have been something good in your cocktail.’
Didn’t think about till after Amanda said something, but I’m lucky if the hiccups those drugs gave me didn’t cause me to have a ruptured tube during insertion. And the hiccups wasn’t all they gave me. I was so fricken dizzy, light headed, nauseous, felt like I was going to die. I couldn’t walk to the truck, I had to be wheeled out and put in the truck. When we got back to the apartment I could barely walk. My ex was no help whatsoever! Had to make it up 2 flights of stairs to our third floor apartment and barely made it to the bed before I collapsed. I slept for about 6 hours after I got home, until my ex walked in and hit me and told me to wake up and go fix dinner because he was hungry.
After the drugs wore off the pain kicked in, OMG did the pain kick in! I was miserable and bled for over 6 months, until my body managed to somehow adjust to the new invaders it did not want. 3 months after placement I went in and had an HSG test to confirm blockage. 3 months later I was back in being tested for anything that could be causing my pain and prolonged bleeding. They checked me for UTI, STD’s, ruled out everything but refused to accept the coils could have been the issue. The bleeding they blamed on my having been on Depo Provera for 2 years prior. But, they had switched me to birth control pills and regulated my cycle before implanting the coils, so I didn’t believe that was the issue. As far as the pain, they couldn’t explain and just ignored it. Put no problems and well tolerated in my reports, which were both lies.
A few years later I did some digging and found that the ‘STOP’ devices had been approved and marketed less than 2 years after I had them implanted and had been renamed Essure. I also found out their actual material content, found the cause of my pain and all over body itching I had been suffering from since implantation, nickel! I was told they were 100% surgical stainless steel and they contain nickel! I was fuming! I called Arizona Women’s Health Research and gave them an earful. How was a product approved for consumer use less than halfway through a five year study. One that caused so many problems? They said that there were no complaints with the comfort of the devices and no pregnancies reported so they were approved. Bullshit! What about my complaints? What about my pain and suffering? What about the other women I had talked to sitting in the waiting room waiting for followup appts that had the same reactions I had? There were problems! There were complaints! They were just ignored and dismissed! And I’m pissed!
To date, since having Essure implanted I suffer from migraine headaches, stabbing hip pains in my right hip, thigh and knee, FULL body itching, painful twinges and tugging sensations in my lower abdomen/pelvis, muscle spasms, twitches and pain throughout my body (including my eyes), nerve pain issues, diagnosed with porphyria in 2008, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, and recently diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I have multiple drug sensitivities. I cannot take narcotics, steroids, several antibiotics, afraid of what anesthesia will do to me and am resistant to morphine and several other medications. I suffer in one way or another every single damn day of my life!
For the first time in my life the one thing I NEVER, EVER wanted to have to go through I’m going to have to go through to try to get my life back. I’m hoping and praying that I can have my first major surgery before the end of the year and have a total hysterectomy (except the ovaries) to get these damn things out of me.
Anyone reading this that may be considering getting them, DON’T! You may not have issues for a while, if lucky never at all, but it’s NOT worth the risk! Too many of us are suffering to risk it, these pieces of crap NEVER should have been approved and put on the market!