Mum-of-four Peta Todd talks discusses how much control a woman really has over her body
THE coil is one of the most popular forms of contraception and I have many friends who are living their best lives after having one fitted.
But for some reason, my body has decided to have an extremely rare reaction to the hormone in the Mirena coil.
It has tipped itself into a frenzy of swelling, bruising and vision loss, among other things.
None of this was pleasant and since sharing on my social media I have had hundreds of messages from people saying they have experienced similar symptoms due to various contraceptives.
What has bothered me is how I have been dismissed as “hormonal” or “irrational” when I have presented myself to six different medical professionals in the NHS and private sector.
I was told it was “impossible” that it was the coil causing my reaction, that I must expect to feel a “little up and down” and that A&E was not somewhere to come because I wasn’t “getting on” with my contraceptive.
I wasn’t just not getting on with my coil – I couldn’t see properly, my face looked like I’d been in the Octagon with Conor McGregor and I was struggling to lift my left arm.
My body was asking for help in some pretty visible ways, yet still I was patted on the head, told to take some paracetamol and a nap.
I was not delusional or rude to medics but what I was describing was not a common reaction and I wanted to be heard and supported.
I had no control over something inside my body that was making me very ill and I had no way to make anybody listen.
If I had eaten something that had given me these symptoms or if I had fallen and injured myself and was unable to see, I would have been treated.
But because it was based around a “women’s issue” it was disregarded.
I was patronised as if my PMT was what was causing the issue and these side-effects were part of being a woman.
Reading the messages people sent me on Instagram, it seemed this was a trend.
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Women said they were steered towards anti-anxiety medication or told to sit it out when contraceptives were making them feel unwell.
Some were told it was not a pill, patch or coil making them lose their self-confidence or sex drive or developing rifts in their relationships.
I always thought of contraceptives as a choice a woman in charge of her own body could make, but when I needed help I was treated like a child who didn’t know what was good for her.
I was told that “hormones can be funny little things” when I was begging for help, but actually they weren’t very funny at all – they were pretty angry.