Watching Mylene:Miscarriage and Me on the BBC tonight is cutting me deeply. The following is deeply personal but I think my story and those of many more women needs to be heard.
I was in hospital for the third time for investigation into continuous bleeding in my forties (2x 18 months of being told to wait a bit longer to see if it stops by itself by numerous GPs). The female gynaecologist came to see me after the surgery to say they still didn’t know what was causing it. She then added that I have a very rare birth defect that would mean I’d never carry a child to term and that it wasn’t suitable for resectioning. She then walked away. That was it. No follow up for me to ask questions. No sympathy (my notes stated I wanted to avoid a hysterectomy as I hadn’t given up on wanting a child). No counselling. No explanation as to why the previous two male gynaecologists hadn’t told me.
To this day, I still have no diagnosis, am still listening to consultants guessing as to the cause of the bleeding and speculating that it shouldn’t re start once I have my existing Mirena IUS removed as I’m now post menopausal (now in my 60s). I’d heard the same when I ended up having emergency investigative surgery during COVID lock down two for further bleeding. I was a year overdue having the IUS replaced thanks to GPs ignoring the advice of not one but four consultant gynaecologists. Conclusion? The implant had run out of progesterone. No **** Sherlock!
‘Treatments’ leading to use of the Mirena are best described as medieval.
I’m currently waiting for day surgery to remove my current IUS with no intent to replace it and yet another consultant talking about hysterectomy like it was having your toenails cut.
So here I am, just another statistic on how truly appalling female specific medicine and research is.
