CDC Agrees the Searing, Mind-Numbing, Vomit-Inducing Pain of Getting an IUD Is Maybe Too Much Pain

An IUD can be a fantastic and effective form of birth control, but getting an IUD can be such a painful experience that it makes you wonder if birthing quintuplets while sitting on a chainsaw might be a more enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. And over the last few years, as the IUD has grown in popularity alongside TikTok, more women have been posting about their traumatic experiences on social media. Regardless, the pain management recommendation remained the same: Take some ibuprofen before and after, and “take it easy” the next day. Until now!

Despite the above, physicians continued to be accused of not taking their patients’ pain seriously—one study of 200 women from 2014 found that while patients ranked the IUD insertion pain a 65 out of 100, physicians said it was at most a 35. “Unless you’re living under a rock, you’re aware of the issue,” Dr. Beverly Gray, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University, told the New York Times. “Women’s pain and women’s experiences have been downplayed throughout medicine.” So, it took at least a decade, and an infinite (probably) number of women saying how getting an IUD feels like a spiked, burning knife tearing through their cervix but, finally, the government paid attention. (Posting works?!) On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a new set of guidelines for doctors, seemingly in the hopes of making IUD insertion more like a regular, slightly uncomfortable out-patient procedure and less like a medieval torture technique.

The guidance states that pain management should be a “shared decision making” process and that physicians need to counsel their patients about options before the procedure. Most importantly, it states that more pain relief options need to be made available, including lidocaine shots, and anesthetic gels, creams, and sprays. The guidance also emphasizes that this is meant to “remove unnecessary medical barriers to accessing and using contraception” and that “equitable access to the full range of contraceptive methods” is an “essential component of high-quality sexual and reproductive health care.” Nice.

I can say from experience that this is huge news! Especially since my experience was pretty much as seamless and uncomplicated as it gets, yet the pain was still Very Bad. The nurse practitioner who inserted mine was someone I know and have trusted with my healthcare for years; she was quick, communicative, and efficient; aside from some very mild cramps the next day, I had no issues afterward; and if I chose to get an IUD inserted again, I would have her do it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, none of that canceled out the five seconds when my eyesight went black and I felt my soul try to leave my body for good. It’s quick, but fuck, it hurts.

“It’s good when the public stamps its foot sometimes,” Dr. Eve Espey told the NYT. (Posting works.) I’ll end this by saying that if you’re considering an IUD, I would still recommend getting one if you think it’s right for you…especially now that your doctor might actually give you some fucking pain relief options.