In a random 24-hour period this week dozens of women have described their nausea, breast tenderness, anxiety, hurting joints, fatigue, inability to exercise, sore neck, weight gain, depression, infertility, mood swings, bleeding and psoriasis which they are convinced is the fault of their hormonal intrauterine devices (IUD).

This is not an unusual level of activity in the many private Facebook groups where thousands of Australian women gather every day to share stories and advice about their IUDs.

A few weeks earlier one woman asked whether she should remove the device from her cervix herself and was assured by others in the group it was fine as long as she kept her hands and fingernails clean.



A quick search revealed many in the group claimed they had ripped out their IUDs, or asked their husbands to, some even triumphantly posting pictures of the devices they say almost ruined their lives.

One of the groups welcomes its more than 7,000 members with a pinned post that assures them they are not alone and that healthcare professionals might dismiss their side effects but they must fight for their right to healthcare.

Most women in these groups have the Mirena, a popular brand of hormonal IUD which is inserted into your uterus where it releases a small amount of progestin (a synthetic version of the naturally-occurring hormone, progesterone) which thickens the cervical mucus, making it a hostile environment for sperm so they can't reach the egg.

There have been around a million Mirenas inserted over the past 10 years in Australia and while there have been just 754 adverse effect reports to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, of which 205 were pregnancy-related reports, these Facebook groups are constant streams of horror stories.

Australia’s major hospital, healthcare and family planning organisations are united in calling for increased access to IUDs and last year when a Queensland woman nearly bled to death after her Mirena perforated her uterus, Australian doctors defended the devices and as they did when the ABC aired a segment on the possible adverse side effects of the devices.

BuzzFeed News asked five Australian reproductive healthcare specialists to respond to some of the most common concerns voiced by women in these groups.

Self removal