Am I jumping the gun on Mirena?

I am so sorry. You are 100% right, no birth control is worth feeling suicidal! Some women have really bad psychological effects from hormonal birth control and unfortunately you are one of them.

May I offer: please don't throw out Natural Family Planning altogether. If you have the strength to be totally celibate, for goodness sake, NFP would offer you plenty of opportunity for sex.

Most people who get pregnant while using NFP do so because: 1) they have sex on a night when they know they really shouldn't or 2) they have sex too close to ovulation. So for couples who have a serious reason to postpone, there are a number of ways that you can make NFP (which is already 99% effective) even more effective. You can have an early cut-off of sex before you enter your fertile period or you can abstain completely in the first part of your cycle and only have sex after ovulation when you know you are "safe".

Let me explain a little of the science behind NFP (it is NOT the same as the rhythm method and is growing in popularity). It's something to consider. I think you and your husband will really regret giving up your sex life completely when you have other alternatives.

NFP is using a woman's natural signs of fertility to determine if she is in a fertile or infertile part of her cycle. A woman's fertile window is 5-6 days long. This is because sperm, under good circumstances, can live for up to 5 days. A woman's egg can only survive for about 12-24 hours. And once she has ovulated, she will not ovulate again in a cycle (with the rare exception of double ovulation - like for fraternal twins - and ovulation always takes place within 24 hours; all NFP rules take this into consideration).

So, how does a woman know if she is fertile? The menstrual cycle is dominated by 2 hormones: estrogen and progesterone. Before ovulation, when estrogen starts to kick in, the body starts to produce a special kind of cervical mucus that sort of resembles egg-whites. Her cervix also changes in its position, openness, and firmness. After ovulation, the body triggers a production of progesterone. This hormone makes the cervical mucus dry up, causes the cervix to lower and close, and causes a woman's temperature to rise.

A woman using NFP watches the changes in her mucus, cervix and temperature and from that knowledge knows which part of the cycle she is in. If she is fertile (close to ovulation) and doesn't want to get pregnant, then she will refrain from having sex. If it is before ovulation she can use special rules to know which days are safe for sex. After ovulation there is no chance of another ovulation so she can have sex at any time.

If you are interested in learning NFP, I would strongly suggest that you take a class. Especially coming off of hormonal birth control because there are some special rules used in these cases. There are lots of NFP organizations out there. Google any of them and you can see if any teachers are in your area: The Couple to Couple League, Marquette, Creighton, Billings Ovulation Method, Northwest Family Services, Family of the Americas. You can also go to nfpandmore.org and download their free booklet on learning NFP. Toni Weschler also has a book "Taking Charge of your Fertility" and it's a great resource. I hope you will reconsider NFP because I think it's a really good solution for you.

I'm having the same problem as you my mirena was inserted back in march it's now 7 months and I think my problem it's getting worse, so I'm planning to have it remove, also since march i haven't had my period, nothing at all, that sounds great but I gain about 25 lbs. so I don't want to wait until it gets worse.

Have you tried the copper coil? It's what I use because it has nor hormones in. My periods are longer, heavier and slightly more painful, but it is a small price to pay.

You are not alone with mirena. I was contemplating getting it implanted because I am sick of my periods, but after finding this I am not so bothered:

http://community.homeandhealthtv.co.uk/eve/forums/...

You may want to look into the paragard iud, instead of mirena. Unlike mirena, paragard does not use hormones. It has copper in it which naturally prevents pregnancy and can last up to 10 years.

If you are somehow medically predisposed to these side effects just ask your OB/GYN if it would conflict with your meds if they also gave you some anti-depressants. I know most ppl don't like to take a lot of pills but its that yourcelibacyy. Personally i'd take the pills.