(no subject)

[calling-to-deep.livejournal.com]

New member, though I've been lurking for awhile.

Joined to bitch about my most recent experience, and I know my f-list wouldn't appreciate it.

I'm usually regular as clockwork, so I didn't expect any problems when I scheduled my gyn appointment. But stress from my living situation (I'm a student, living in a co-op type house), working on thesis, and moving made me a bit over a week late. So when I went to the gyno I told the nurse that my cycle was being weird this month and she said it was fine since it was the last day of my period. I was then told that since there was blood on the swab sticks (whoda thunk? blood? really? after I just told the woman I was on the rag) the lab might not be able to actually get good test results and I'd have to come back and get examined *again* with the medieval torture device. After the doc took samples. Grrrrr.

And I can't just say that since I know my partner is clean, and my previous partner was more than a year ago, that I don't need the chlamydia test and pap smear after all, because the med center has a policy of not prescribing IUDs until the patient has passed a full battery of STD tests. *And* since the IUD has to be inserted on the last day of my period, I get to go back twice in the next month. Yuck.

(And student health insurance doesn't cover any contraceptives at all. Grumble).

Bitchwhinemoan.

Comments

[ourika.livejournal.com]

Your student health center will insert IUDs? That's amazing. The Uni of AZ won't do IUDs at all. They won't even give referrals to doctors who will do IUDs. And while the student health services *does* cover contraceptives, it will not cover IUDs (not a surprise since they won't give you a way to get them!)

[calling-to-deep.livejournal.com]

Yup. Because it's not just student health - the university med center treats students and grad students and profs and just about everyone who has any business on the campus.

The doc tried to talk me out of getting an IUD, because apparently lots of younger women around here have lots of sex partners so there's always an STD risk, but really, it was the only option for me. The last thing I want to do to my body is pump it full of artificial hormones (ick. yuck.) and since i'm in a longterm monogamous relationship (and living in the same co-op) I don't want to deal with the fuss and bother of using a diaphragm *every* time we want to do anything.

[ourika.livejournal.com]

Uni of AZ "student" health center also treats all of those people. My housemate is a 32 year old grad student, and she couldn't even get a referral to a gyno to get an IUD if she paid for the IUD herself! (She was hoping to use the school insurance to at least cover the doctor's visit, but you've got to have a referal for that).

I've got a copper IUD, and I love it, but I'm getting it removed next week and having a Mirena put in. I had wanted to avoid hormonal interference, but it's a small amount and I was a heavy bleeder/cramper pre-IUD. It's unbearable now (and I've had it 2 1/2 years).