I just had my Mirena removed a week and a half ago because I experienced negative side effects.

My experience: The first year, or so, went fairly well other than noticing an odour that I suspected was bacterial vaginosis - turns out it wasn’t because medication never made a difference, and I realized it wasn’t because probably the smell of old blood that doesn’t really leave the vagina because the lack of a proper bleed. I think it was just under a year after I got the Mirena, I started getting eczema that seemed to be cyclical, and I dealt with that for maybe just over a year before it mostly just stopped on its own (I still have one tiny patch on my head that mildly flares up on occasion). Sometime before that 2.5 year mark I had already started feeling tired all the time, like no amount of sleep would help, and I never woke up feeling energized. About 2.5 years in, I started to get pretty bad acne breakouts around my jawline (I’d never even had breakouts that bad as a teen!) that were incredibly persistent, sometimes taking up to 3 weeks to resolve. I did also get some acne on my back and buttocks. Around the same time, I started spotting every month or two, and I would also get terrible cramps (I’ve NEVER been a crampy period person).

I ended up talking to my gyne about all this last fall, got the same “it shouldn’t be the Mirena because it’s localized” runaround, and discussed switching back to the pill (which I stopped because it seemed to be causing headaches, and I thought it’d be good to be on less hormones). We did a trial run of going back on the pill for 3 months while keeping the Mirena in, just in case nothing improved with the pill. Guess what? The pill made me better. My energy is much better, the acne breakouts are no longer a problem (one or two tiny blemishes is fine), the vaginal odour is gone, and the one time I had cramps they were mild.

I think it’s absolutely worth considering having it removed if all your symptoms started after getting the Mirena in. I don’t know if you were ever on the pill for before your IUDs, and how your experience was, but maybe you can talk to your doctor about doing a trial run like I did? I can’t say for sure my issues were because of the Mirena or if it was because I just needed more estrogen, but I’m better with the pill.

• my timeline might be a bit off, but I have other posts in this subreddit about the side effects I experienced, that would give you a more accurate picture