So I am going to take a few moments to vent about my life. I am a little mad at 8 or so medical professionals that I have been dealing with for nearly 5 years now. It will get personal and maybe gross to some of the men who are faint of heart. In September nearly a year after Maxwell was born, Jared and I decided we weren't ready to have anymore kids but he wasn't ready to make a permanent decision. We are rather fertile people considering we were pregnant 4 times in the first 5 years of our marriage. Only 3 resulted in children if you are counting. During that 5 years we tried several different birth control methods, different pills (which all made me fat and sick), depo provera which was the absolute worst. Obviously none of our birth control methods worked since we had 3 children during that time. After much research and questioning the doctors during my last pregnancy and the year following Maxwell's birth, I decided to get an IUD. Obviously it has been effective since I have not been pregnant, but it had way more effects than my doctors and nurse practitioners allowed me to believe possible. I straight out asked if an IUD would affect my hormones and I was given a complete no. The first month I had the IUD I gained 20 inexplicable pounds. In a month. It was insane. I also have hypothyroidism and the symptoms I was experiencing could have all related to that except that my thyroid hormone levels were all fine. I got tested for diabetes several times and a few other things and nothing was found to be wrong. I was 27 at the time and was told that maybe it was just age. I asked my regular doctor if it could have been the IUD since that was the only thing that had changed before the weight gain and he said no. In December when I had my IUD follow-up I asked my obstetric n.p. if the IUD could be causing the issues I was having and she said absolutely not. She also clearly stated that the hormone effects of an IUD were extremely minor. I started having issues with fatigue and periods of extreme weight gain. I have been struggling with hives and eczema and was even sent to an allergist only to find out that my allergies weren't that extreme and the allergist did not believe allergies were causing my hives and eczema. I switched doctors since the one office was not listening to me at all. The next doctor listened until he couldn't figure anything out. He did state a few years ago that my symptoms were like menopause and if I wasn't so young he would think that was the problem. You would think such a statement would have led him to do hormone testing. It's just a simple blood draw and I get my blood drawn every few months anyway. And then this last year I have been getting UTIs, 4 in 10 months. On a whim and more because of my vanity, I asked the n.p. who has been helping manage my thyroid for the last year to check my hormone levels. I was thinking maybe my testosterone was too high or maybe I had PCOS like one of my sisters. Everything came back normal except for my progesterone which was extremely low. And this is when I found out that an IUD can shut down your ovaries and because of that your body doesn't produce progesterone. Low progesterone at this point can explain everything I have been complaining about for nearly 5 years. I don't understand why hormone testing isn't a basic part of a woman's health care plan. So many issues can be resolved or explained through something so simple. I would have felt a lot less crazy if someone could have told me that my ovaries were not functioning, my body was acting like it was menopausal, and I didn't have enough progesterone. I am not anti IUDs. They very well may be the best option, but if you get one insist on regular hormone testing and do not trust anyone who tells you that your mysterious issues that showed up after getting the IUD cannot possibly be caused by the IUD. I am going to start taking bio-identical progesterone and so I apologize ahead of time if I am totally insane during the days we spend together this summer. I am hoping that it just helps me feel better. I have gotten so used to accepting the fog that I have been trapped in for so long that it will be weird if this actually helps clear things up for me. I have termed my condition IUD induced menopause.