This article was originally featured on Undark.
A couple years ago, Aggie Steiner and Simran Singh were having lunch with other medical students, all women, at Western Michigan University when the group started swapping horror stories about intrauterine devices, or IUDs. The roughly quarter-sized, T-shaped contraceptive device sits in the uterus, where it prevents pregnancies with close to 100 percent effectiveness for years.
Some women feel little discomfort when a provider inserts the IUD through the cervix—the muscular tunnel at the base of the womb—and places it at the top of the uterus. For others, though, the experience is excruciating. And many patients report that the standard advice given in American clinics—take an over-the-counter painkiller like Tylenol or Advil—doesn’t help at all.
That day at lunch, when someone pointed out that it’s possible to get IUDs under sedation, at least half the group let out a collective gasp, Singh recalled. The medical students had been through preclinical courses on reproduction and contraception, but many of them didn’t realize it was even an option to reduce the pain of IUD placement. If medical students don’t know it’s an option, then it’s likely that the general public doesn’t know, Singh said. “And at that point we’re doing them a disservice.”
Both Steiner and Singh are in the final year of medical school and plan to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology after they graduate in May. On their clinical rotations, they saw that many patients undergoing IUD insertions and other routine gynecological procedures were extremely uncomfortable. “Women cry,” said Steiner. “Women hold onto the exam table so hard that you can see their knuckles are white.” Pain control or sedation was often available, just not offered.
It’s no secret that some office procedures involving the cervix and the uterus can be painful. Thousands of women have shared agonizing on
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