I’m still in a bit of shock. I had my first Paraguard IUD placed in 2015 and was offered nothing for pain and just took the ibuprofen as instructed. And holy hell (as I’m sure many of you know) it was painful. Not the most pain I’ve ever felt in my life, but in my top 5 most painful experiences, definitely brought tears to my eyes and I have an extremely high pain tolerance, I don’t even want to imagine how it would have been if I had a lower pain tolerance. I went for my replacement this afternoon and was anxious all day leading up to it thinking about feeling that pain again. Took my ibuprofen, steeled myself when I was brought into the room. The nurse had me sign the consent and then said, “We offer lidocaine injections for your cervix for the insertion to help with the pain, are you interested in having that?” YES PLEASE. When the doc gave the injection there was mild cramping, nothing crazy, but even with it I was still expecting the worst. She was conversing with me some instead of talking me through it step by step so I wasn’t totally sure of where we were in the process, when she said “OK it’s in, just gonna trim the strings now!” HOLY SHIT. I had no idea she had even put it in because I felt basically nothing. I could have cried with relief. I didn’t even know until today that I would be offered lidocaine injections, but there’s no way I would ever get another one without it (though I’m hoping before this one’s life runs out to have my tubes removed anyway!). I HIGHLY encourage anyone to check with your doc if they’ll do this for you, and if they won’t, find someone who will. It was a complete night and day difference of experience.
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UGH so jealous!! I would drive several hours for an OBGYN that would do this. I have a low pain tolerance and the pain to get a copper IUD inserted was so horrible I ended up screaming at the nurse to stop. Still don’t have one!!
I went for my exam yesterday, first one in 10 years, and I told the dr how nervous I was because they have always been painful. she got so excited and said they have new tools, new ways to test and new softer speculums etc. There was pressure but I had no pain and she was done before I realized it. ( she had moving butterflies on the ceiling, lol) I am so glad I went! dont wait years between exams and dont be afraid to speak up or ask questions.
Doctors Urged to Treat Pain for IUD Insertion and Other Procedures
I’ve never had an IUD myself but used to work at a clinic that provided them and giving the lidocaine was standard procedure for us. I was shocked to know that most other facilities didn’t offer it! So glad to hear that it really does improve the experience for patients, and I hope with the CDC’s and ACOG’s new recommendations that it will one day be completely unacceptable to not provide that kind of pain management.
Finally
It’s infuriating that this isn’t standard! I had a dental apt yesterday and lido shots were done right after deciding on my treatment plan, even tough I had pretty shallow cavities. Can’t imagine dental without local anesthetic, and can’t fathom why gyn is still like this. Yes, lido shots hurt – that’s why you numb the shot site with a spray. Not rocket science. And very safe, since you won’t have the patient trying to get away mid procedure. Seriously, every gyn that minimizes their patients pain needs to be kicked in the head a couple times. Kids biting dentists made them get the message after all 😂
It would have been SO EASY for the obgyn who replaced my IUD last time to just give me a shot of lidocaine to the cervix. SO easy. She didn’t even suggest it.
I had to make three separate appointments, and this same woman tried three separate times, to insert the new IUD. It was so difficult to do because apparently my cervix has a curve to it, and because I WAS IN EXTREME PAIN EACH TIME to the point where I was sobbing and she felt we needed to stop and try again on a different day (without even suggesting any pain meds after the first time except “maybe take an Advil beforehand next time?”).
For the third appointment, she finally gave me some Vicodin to take beforehand, as well as pills that should have numbed me down there (she didn’t instruct me not to use the restroom after taking them and neither did the pharmacist, and I thought they’d have dissolved already, so they fell out before the appointment and therefore did absolutely nothing for pain management).
The Vicodin barely made a dent in the pain. I was so tired of making repeat appointments to be violated and in pain, I just told her to keep going until the IUD was set in place no matter how hard I cried. Her assistant held my hand and she got it done while I cried and whimpered.
She could have just given me a lidocaine injection. She never even thought to care about it. It pisses me off to no end that now that this is suggested by ACOG she might actually try to manage her patients’ pain in a reasonable manner, but she, a doctor, didn’t think of doing it on her own because it wasn’t important to her.
Fortunately she isn’t my assigned obgyn – he was on vacation and she was filling in. Strangely enough, despite my curved cervix, he had no problem whatsoever inserting my IUD the first time about eight years prior, and I had almost zero pain when he did it (other than strong cramps for a couple seconds).
My male obgyn inserted my second one under twilight sedation at my request. He said he’d never had a woman come in asking for it, but he was totally willing because he was a great doctor who believed me when I said my first insertion was so painful that I literally threw up halfway through it.
At the hospital, the two (women) nurses that prepped me were horrific and literally made fun of me to my face for it and said I was wasting resources. It made me so sad that they thought it was right to just accept that it was ok to suffer when there are ways to make it less damaging.
I got it out under sedation as well, through planned parenthood, and the doctor and nurses there were amazing and fantastic.
I had a very similar experience! First IUD in the mid 2010s, took a bunch of tylenol and almost passed out from the pain (although I am a little bitch baby with a low pain tolerance). For my second one a few years ago I asked for more pain management and they numbed my cervix with lidocaine. I certainly wouldn’t say I felt almost nothing, it still hurt for sure, but it was a different level entirely. Bee sting vs gunshot.
Last time I got an IUD I declined the lidocaine because the needle freaked me out. The OBGYN was a new resident so it was a pretty painful and prolonged process. I definitely missed out!
I’m so happy for you. It is long overdue to be the baseline standard of care.
Lidocaine injections are so incredibly painful for me yet also ineffective. (Anesthetic resistant redhead, causing me innumerable traumas, but hey my hairs pretty. )
I find a lidocaine injection much more painful than simple procedures like stitches or a biopsy. I often decline them because they hurt so much. I’m starting to think on top of being resistant, I might be mildly allergic.