Miscarriage with Mirena?

I conceived my son last July (2006) and, after he was born (2007), I had a Mirena placed. The doctor discussed all the "side effects" and I understood that it was possible to have irregular bleeding. However, my period never returned. Two and a half weeks ago I began bleeding again (brown in color) and bright red more recently. The bleeding was accompanied by lower back pain, abdominal cramps, shoulder pain and fatigue. This afternoon, a small, grey-purple "glob" tinged with blood came out of me. It was about six inches in length and tough even though it appeared gel-like and the bleeding and cramps have become increasingly worse. If I have had a miscarriage, would a home pregnancy test still pick up on hormones so I can positively tell the doctor what's going on? I'm planning to call my OBGYN tomorrow morning because there's nothing she can do right now, but I don't want to look like a jackass if this wasn't actually a miscarriage....

I called my doctor yesterday and they have scheduled an ultrasound for tomorrow morning. Because of privacy issues, they can't get into too much detail over the phone so I was told that, "They are concerned about the placement of my IUD and this is standard procedure when something like this happens." Now, if I just knew what "something like this" means, I'd feel a lot better.

hey hun if i were you i would, go to urgent care to get checked out. I would be safe then sorry. Please go see somone or call your adivie nurse.

I can't answer that for you. I have MIRENA in too, so maybe I should know something more, I should have read the fine print better. But anyways I just wanted to tell you that you are NOT going to look like a jack***! I would be worried if that kind of glob came out of me! You aren't expected to be an expert on these things. That is what the OBGyn is for!

If you're miscarrying, then yes, a pregnancy test would still give you a positive read. That said, I highly, highly doubt that you are miscarrying. The failure rate of IUDs is microscopic. The tissue that came out just sounds like a chunk of uterine lining. The only thing that seems strange is that you didn't have any bleeding for over a year. Even if you're not having a miscarriage, it's probably still a good idea to call up your doctor. It's really probably nothing to be worried about though! Good luck!

"If I have had a miscarriage, would a home pregnancy test still pick up on hormones so I can positively tell the doctor what's going on?"

Yes, if you were pregnant and if you had enough hCG -- the "pregnancy hormone" -- in your system to give a positive result, traces of it will remain.

It sounds like a good first step for you to figure out what's going on. :)

I, too, had this same experience after having the Mirena IUD in for 16 months. I had an almost two-week period of bleeding bright red blood (after having just occasional periods lasting 1-2 days of very little blood for the previous year). We had just moved and I thought maybe stress had brought this on. At the same time I had low back pain and intermittent abdominal crampiness. About three weeks after that episode I passed a greyish, 3-inch, bean-shaped sac with a tough membrane and a small amount of blood on it. I went to the doctor two days later and they told me that my Beta-HCG was negative and therefore I had not been pregnant and it was not a miscarriage. However, I have three friends who are nurses who all agree that there is nothing else this could have been and that the actual miscarriage had happened at the time I was bleeding, theredfore the HCG was not positive anymore. I did not keep the material I had passed, so therefore I could not show it to the physician.

It would be good to know if any other women have had this happen to them.