Contraceptive implant

It will affect everyone diferently, it isn't possible to judge how it will affect you by a poll of other people. But one good thing about the contraceptive implant is that if you don't like the effects you personally experience, then (unlike depo or the pill) you can have it taken out.

I've never had the implant, but I have a mirena coil which is just fantastic. Its worth trying a few different types of contraception (I've been through condoms, various pills, contraceptive patches, depo and now the coil) because there will be something that works best for you, and that you can live with. Not all of them will be great, but if the implant isn't your thing, you can have it taken out and try something else

When i got mine they told me a third of girls periods got heavier, a third stayed the same and a third got lighter/stopped with the implant.

For me, I had my implant put in a year and a half ago and since then have had maybe one or two light periods that lasted about two days? but none within the last year, which has been so good!

I think its different for everyone but i would advise that if you do get it, you stick with it for a bit to see how it is...when i got mine put in a bled for over two weeks i think and thought it was going to be awful but since that ended its been great!

No other real side effects apart from occasionally i can be more emotional, but thats not often.

Yeah that's the statistic I heard.

I, stupidly, have my implant appointment booked for 10 days before I go on holiday... Did not think that one through. Not that I'm a big swimmer, so it's not a big deal, really.

Context:
Naturally, used to get extremely heavy and painful/nauseating periods, which were reasonably long-lasting (4 days proper bleeding, couple of days tail-off), and came every 4 weeks-ish.

Then went on microgynon. Withdrawal bleeds still quite heavy, but nowhere near as painful as natural periods had been. Duration a little less than before (2-3 days proper bleed). However, often took pills continuously to avoid having any periods.

Implant:

0-3 Months:
I had a long period of continuous and then almost-continuous bleeding. But this was light, and not painful - a nuisance more than anything.

3-6 months:
Annoyed by semi-continuous bleeding - Took microgynon (in the normal way) in addition to the implant to have regular periods. These were as when I was just taking MG, but much lighter and not painful at all.

6-12 months:
Gradually weaned off the microgynon use. After this had v irregular bleeding about 50% of the time, extremely light and painless as before, with occassional more "proper" period like bleeding.

12 months onwards:
Irregular/continuous light bleeding gradually became less and less frequent, and more regular period-like bleeds began.

Periods are now quite normal-good: moderate flow, shorter duration (proper for around 3 days, then slight tail-off) actually hardly ever painful at all, slight discomfort. Actually come round less often than before, now every 5-6 weeks. Can be slightly unpredictable.


I'm 3 years in now, so about to get it replaced. It was (as you can see) rather a lot of bother, but I don't regret it, because even though periods were intially very irregular/continuous, even during that time, the relief from pain/nausea was amazing for me, and also it is such a reliable contraceptive. And now I have periods which are much much better than before in terms of frequency, duration, flow and comfort.


NOTE: Best way to cope with periods is a mooncup! Seriously, no problem with swimming or pretty much anything then.

That's fantastic! Thanks!
Glad to see that the majority of people's 'mega periods' after getting the implant were light/spotting.

And I already use the mooncup - I just don't swim much any way so it's not a big deal!

I think it's worth it. If you have too much bleeding, you can always use a pill as well (I didn't just do that randomnly, it was on consultation with the doc!)

My personal experience of the implant was basically continuous heavy bleeding for about 6 months or so straight - they did try putting me on the pill microgynon but it barely made any difference, needless to say I got it removed after that because I was in college at the time and aside from feeling constantly gross because of the bleeding, as you can imagine, the amount of blood I was losing was making me very tired, I found it even harder to concentrate then usual etc and was fine a few days after it got taken out. I get the same to a degree (really greasy skin, on and off bleeding, too heavy for me to consider it spotting, mood swings etc) if I take my current pill loestrin 30 for more than 3 months in a row without any breaks, I do however have PCOS, so I think my body is maybe just a bit super sensitive when it comes to hormones - when I was on just microgynon alone, I was having bad headaches, mood swings, irregular bleeding, bad skin etc even after 3 months, until I switched pills. Different things work different on different people, especially true for women and hormones because ours can have so many different factors that can affect the way we can handle them.