Rachel Watson

�I didn’t know an IUD could cause this…�

I got my IUD inserted six years ago. The appointment took 20 minutes. The cramping lasted three days. But the odor and discharge that started a few months after that appointment has been with me for the last six years. Every gynecologist I've seen since then has told me the same thing. "Your tests are normal. Your IUD is in place. Everything looks healthy. This is just how some women's bodies respond." Like the IUD is doing its job and I'm supposed to be grateful and accept that I smell like this forever. I was 38 when I got it. I'm 44 now. We were done having kids and I wanted something that didn't involve a pill every day. In the beginning I thought my body would adjust. Like maybe it was just my system getting used to the device. Three months later I was still buying panty liners in bulk and checking myself in bathroom stalls at work. So I went back to my doctor. She said give it more time, your body needs to acclimate. Six months later, still there. She prescribed metronidazole. Worked for maybe ten days. Then I was back to square one. Over the next six years I tried everything. Flagyl, clindamycin, boric acid suppositories, every probiotic on the shelf at Whole Foods, pH-balancing washes, cotton underwear only, sleeping without underwear, cutting out sugar, cutting out dairy. I even tried vaginal steaming because I was that desperate. Nothing worked for more than a few weeks. Every time I'd bring it up with a new gynecologist, they'd suggest removing the IUD. But then what? Go back on the pill? Risk pregnancy with timing methods? My periods on the IUD are basically nonexistent and that alone has been life-changing. So I'd shrug and accept the smell as the trade-off. Like I picked the form of birth control that worked for my life and the price was smelling like something died inside me for six years. I've been married for 12 years. My husband has never said anything directly. But I know. I know because he stopped initiating around year three after I got the IUD. I know because when I initiate, there's this hesitation. Not rejection, just this tiny pause that tells me everything. I've built my entire life around managing this. I shower twice a day minimum. I keep spare underwear in my car, my desk at work, my gym bag. I plan vacations around access to private bathrooms. I've turned down promotions that would require more travel because I can't deal with the stress of managing this in airport bathrooms and hotels. I let my career plateau because of something a doctor put inside me six years ago. Last year I saw a new gynecologist because we moved states. I told her my whole history. She actually listened instead of just writing a prescription. She said most doctors don't connect IUDs to chronic odor issues because the IUD itself doesn't show up as a problem on standard panels. The device is in the right place. The strings look fine. The tests come back normal. But the IUD is a foreign object inside your body. And foreign objects are surfaces. Bacteria attach to surfaces. Once they attach, they multiply. And once they multiply, they build protective barriers around themselves called biofilms. She said imagine the kind of buildup that forms on a piece of jewelry you've worn for years. Same principle, just bacterial. Every treatment I'd tried for six years was killing the bacteria floating around in the open environment, while the real colony was sealed inside biofilm layered around the IUD itself. That's why nothing worked long-term. The antibiotics never reached what was actually producing the smell. She said you need something that breaks down the biofilm first. Then you need to repopulate the good bacteria in the same window before the biofilm rebuilds. Most gynecologists don't know about this because the research on biofilm-bacterial colonization around intrauterine devices only came out in the last few years. She recommended a supplement with bromelain, an enzyme from pineapple stems that dissolves biofilm, paired with Bacillus Coagulans, a spore-forming probiotic that actually survives stomach acid and reaches the microbiome alive. The product she mentioned was Flora+ from AllFemme. It was less than a dollar a day and had a 90-day money-back guarantee, so I ordered it thinking I've tried everything else, what's one more thing. Honestly, not really believing it. I'd stopped believing anything would work around year three. Three weeks in, I realized I hadn't changed my underwear at work in four days. I just forgot. I forgot because I didn't need to think about it. Six weeks in, my husband reached for me in bed and there was no hesitation. I didn't panic or make an excuse or suggest we take a shower first. I just said yes. It's been four months now. I'm not buying panty liners anymore. I'm not keeping spare underwear everywhere. I'm not checking myself in bathroom stalls. I'm just living. Like a normal person who doesn't have to build her entire life around managing something a doctor put inside her six years ago. I'm not saying this will work for everyone. But if you have an IUD and you've been dealing with odor or discharge that won't go away no matter what you try, and your doctors keep telling you everything looks fine so this must just be your new normal, it might not be normal. It might be biofilm. There might actually be something that works. Here's the site: https://try.allfeams.com/pages/vaginal-support I have three bottles in my cabinet right now because I never want to run out. Six years is long enough.