Sammiejane - if I say I have found information or evidence which demonstrates something, then I have, and it does. Doctors especially GPs do not have the answer to everything and many have not read as widely about menopause as some women on this forum. Although we are all considered equal on this forum, without wishing to reveal any personal information, some of us have the sort of background that means we can understand and make sense of some of the plethora of confusing information out there and interpret its meaning where we can on this forum, for the benefit of others who may not have the same sort of background. If you read my posts you will see that where I am uncertain I say things like "as far as I know" or "so I've read" or "I'm not sure exactly but I seem to remember reading" ....etc especially if I really can't remember where I've read it or point to the source of the info.
I understand your wanting to put ultimate faith in doctors but they are fallible and in this case - if this is what the doctor said - it is misleading. It's all in the context - which in this case as I said - is contraception vs the Mirena coil.
You may want to look at this paper here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2770406/Here is an extract of a relevant sentence from this paper:
"The systemic absorption of levonorgestrel may have the potential to cause hormonal side effects. The LNG-IUS releases 20 μg per day of levonorgestrel and so drug-related adverse events are less frequent than with the oral preparations of progesterone, which result in higher serum concentrations."
Im this case - like I said, I looked it up in the past and posted it. The information is freely available.
Here is the info I prepared from a previous post on this:
"For anyone that wants to look up the data and info that I quoted the SPCs (detailed product info) are here:
https://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/medicine/28672/SPC/Jaydess+13.5+mg+intrauterine+delivery+systemhttp://www.medicines.org.uk/emc/medicine/1829/spc/mirena/You can see that from the start the Jaydess contains approx a quarter of the total amount of levonorgestrel that the Mirena has (13.5 mg vs 52 mg).
Mirena delivers Levonorgestrel initially at 20 mcg per 24 hours, reducing to 10 mcg after 5 years and extrapolated to be approx 12 mcg after 4 years (when it is recommended to be renewed for HRT purposes).
Jaydess delivers 13.5 mcg per day initially reducing to 5 mcg after 3 years.
Systemic concentrations with Mirena are approx: 276 pg/ml after 1 yr, 196 pg/ml after 2 yrs and 177 pg/ml after 3 years. With Jaydess the data give 162 pg/ml after 7 days and 59 pg/ml after 3 yrs - so much lower, but there is a wide variability in these levels amongst the women measured. All this info is from the Summary of Product Characteristics (SPC) on the web and possibly the company website (I looked it all up but then I closed the tabs - hope I noted it down correctly!)."
Posted on this thread:
http://www.menopausematters.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,33744.msg541447.html#msg541447Personal experience like Perinowpost also adds to this - but the trials evidence is the first port of call. Not everyone will experience side effects from the known systemic absorption.
I suggest the relevant information and references is printed off to show the doctor.
Hurdity x
