Podcast Host:
Lisa Hendrickson is a certified fertility awareness educator and holistic reproductive health practitioner with over 20 years of experience. As the host of the Fertility Friday Podcast and author of The Fifth Vital Sign, Lisa helps women and practitioners understand the menstrual cycle as a powerful diagnostic tool for fertility, hormone health, and overall well-being.
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Episode Overview:
In Episode 591 of the Fertility Friday Podcast, Lisa Hendrickson-Jack addresses the often-overlooked issue of pain during IUD insertion. She explores a new 2025 consensus statement from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG), which acknowledges the real pain that many women experience during this procedure. The episode discusses the inadequacy of current pain management practices and highlights the importance of healthcare professionals understanding and addressing pain management for women undergoing gynecological procedures. Lisa also provides a fertility awareness perspective on the timing of IUD insertion and practical considerations for women undergoing this procedure.
Listener Takeaways:
- Pain during IUD insertion is real, common, and often underestimated by healthcare professionals.
- ACOG’s new guidelines recommend local anesthetics like lidocaine for effective pain relief during IUD insertion.
- The lack of pain management during this procedure reflects broader issues of dismissing women’s pain in medical settings.
- Women should advocate for their own pain management options during procedures, including IUD insertion.
- The importance of considering cervical position and timing of insertion from a fertility awareness perspective.
Episode 591
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This is the Fertility Friday Podcast, episode number 591.
IUD, insertion pain. If you’ve been a long time listener to this podcast, you have
heard this topic come up time and time again. Maybe not so much in the recent
year, but I previously used to regularly record pill reality series episodes.
And in those episodes, I would interview real women, part of the Fertility Friday
community, who would share their personal experiences with hormonal birth control and
other types of birth control, including the hormonal and non -hormonal IUDs. This
phenomenon was something that I didn’t really know about so much until I started
interviewing women. And even still when I do the fan practitioner series and our
practitioners are sharing about their experiences using birth control or other methods,
this theme of IUD insertion pain just kept coming up over and over and over again.
And 100 % of the women that I’ve interviewed who have had an IUD placed did not
necessarily have an issue with pain, it’s really high. I would say it’s something
like 70 to 80%. And when they describe the pain, it is just excruciating and
bearable and it varies, of course. Some women continue to have dull aching and
discomfort for hours or even days after the procedure is done.
And this subject, I don’t know if it’s as controversial now, but there is some
controversy around it because there are many medical practitioners who actually don’t
believe that women have nerve endings in their cervix, and so they don’t even think
to offer any type of pain management to them. Well, in today’s episode,
we are covering A brand new paper, it literally came out in July,
2025. And the paper is essentially a consensus statement from the American College of
Obstetrics and Vagano Colleges. Now, this isn’t the first statement by them about
IUDs, but because it recently came out, I think it’s really important that we talk
about it and go through this whole situation. I would say debacle.
And so obviously this issue is coming up more and more. I think that would be what
prompted them to say something about it. But essentially there is this issue with
medical professionals not believing that women can feel anything in their cervix and
definitely not taking proactive measures to ensure that women who are having their
these placed are comfortable. And even just acknowledging that. So I’m gonna talk
about what the paper discusses. I’m gonna go through that. Now the paper doesn’t
only talk about IUD placements, that’s gonna be our focus today. They do talk about
other procedures that involve going in through the cervix and how they should be
managed. But I mean, it’s just wild to me that this is 2025. And it’s like,
We’re going to do something about this where women have been suffering and
experiencing just these painful experiences of insertion for so long and really does
like many things related to women’s health feel like it’s falling on deaf ears.
So for any practitioners who are listening to this episode, it’s also really useful
to get a hold of this paper. So you can head over to fertilityfriday .com /591.
of course, we will have the show notes there with the link to the paper so that
you can have a look at it. But essentially, this is important information for
practitioners and women to know alike because this also means that ACOG has
officially provided some direction and acknowledged this issue. And for anyone,
if you’re having resistance from a health practitioner around providing some sort of
pain management for this procedure, then you can ask for it. And now if you get
any pushback, you could literally like pull up the abstract or the full paper if
it’s available and show them, look, the recommendations have changed here. So with
that said, let’s go ahead and get into it.
So I will start with one of the kind of statements that this committee made right
off the bat. So according to them, quote, “There is an urgent need for healthcare
professionals to have a better understanding of pain management options and to not
underestimate the pain experienced by patients and for patients to have more autonomy
over pain control options during “in office procedures.” Well, duh,
I still think it’s amazing that we have to have a committee declare this, but we
will continue.
So they’re basically saying in more, you could say professional language that,
so I’ll read another couple of quotes here from the paper. They say, “The way pain
is understood and managed by healthcare professionals is also affected by systemic
racism and bias of how pain is experienced. Specific populations such as adolescents
and those with chronic pelvic pain, sexual violence or abuse and other pain
conditions may also have increased or decreased tolerance of pain and resistance to
pain medications. So, and then they also say something interesting which is health
care professionals should be cautious when extrapolating data on what works for one
procedure to another, or even their experience of maybe some patients have been fine
with this way and others haven’t. So they’re kind of, what they’re trying to say
is, look, we have to actually take this seriously. You have to be aware of the
fact that every patient isn’t the same. So for example, if you have a medical
professional and most of his clients potentially or most of his patients haven’t
complained, right? They might be under the impression that there’s really no problem.
But then how comfortable are your patients speaking up? How many women may be
experiencing some discomfort? Maybe not enough for them to kind of yell out and say
something. And being in the doctor’s office is often intimidating, even with a doctor
that you’ve known for your whole life, especially if they’re kind of default, is
that this procedure’s fine, it just takes a couple of minutes. Even if you
experience some discomfort, it’s not a big deal. Like how comfortable are your
patients even to say anything if you have that disposition? So they actually define
pain in the paper, which again is necessary and useful. So they say pain is a
highly subjective and personal experience for the individual patient. Again, duh,
but they have to actually say that they have to say that it’s not experienced in
the same way by everybody. And there’s all these factors that could increase how
sensitive a person is to pain and what their pain tolerance is. So pain is defined
as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with or resembling that
associated with actual or potential tissue damage. I think this is just indicative of
where we’re at, where they have to tell the professionals that pain is real and
that people experience it differently because they know, they know that this is an
issue that has been going on for some time, and they know that many health
professionals don’t really believe that women experience pain. And who knows? It could
just be that it’s easier for them to just go ahead and do the procedure real quick
and actually having to go through a process of assessment and strategizing around
pain management options for, quote, a simple procedure might just take too long.
I don’t even know. I would be really curious to see if there was a paper that
looked at the perceptions of medical professionals around pain related to cervical
procedures or procedures that involve inserting things into the cervix to access the
uterus or depending on what procedure is being done. I would be so interested and
if I find a paper like that, you know I’m going to be on here going through it
because I would be really interested as to like what is going on in your mind when
you are inserting something into a woman’s cervix and you don’t think that you just
don’t think that either it’s relevant or a useful use of your time to actually
think that maybe this could hurt. If we were inserting things into the penis,
obviously there would be like a whole conversation around it. But because it’s the
cervix, we just are somehow in La La Land. Okay, so that’s how they open the
paper. And I suppose that’s my comment on it, where, obviously, even they are
acknowledging that these many medical health professionals need education on what pain
is and how pain is experienced, and to literally be told that you can’t just assume
that something isn’t painful. You have to actually talk to your patients and find
out what their experience is and try to work with them to come to a solution for
how to manage it and they’ll just kind of again pull out a few more things that I
think are really useful. So it says right here, like black and white, pain
management may be perceived by healthcare professionals as unnecessary and in turn may
not be discussed with or offered to patients. Notably, despite patients reporting a
higher level of pain than clinicians expect, patients still report a high level of
satisfaction with office procedures. So they’re also kind of saying, like based on
the surveys that they’re quoting here, that the patients aren’t being offered health
professionals. So again, they know, they know what’s going on, they know it’s
happening. And enough women are complaining that this body of medical professionals,
this committee, is calling it out. So they know, they know the problem, they know
that it’s happening.
And they also define certain groups of women that may be experiencing more pain or
maybe more susceptible to pain. So they identify patients with a history of period
pain, specifically women who have never had children, they are kind of calling them
out and saying, okay, they may experience more pain. And so from a practical
standpoint, if you’ve never had a child vaginally, then the cervix is tighter,
smaller, even from the fertility awareness perspective. There are specific instructions
that we share with our practitioners when we teach about cervical position checking.
And you can feel, when you feel and palpate the cervix once a day to identify the
fertile window, you can feel how open the cervix is. And so before you’ve had
children, the cervix feels like the end of your nose. So if you were to just take
a moment right now and touch the end of your nose and just kind of palpate it,
typically that is how approximately the cervix feels when you touch it before you’ve
had children. And then during the fertile window, if you were to put your lips
together and touch your lips, you can’t stick your finger in it, but you can feel
a bit of an indent, you could say, and that is how the cervix feels before you’ve
had children. After you’ve had children, after a baby has gone through the vaginal
canal, obviously, then the cervix had to open to allow the baby to come out, the
cervix is never again as closed as it will be. So it’s always slightly dilated.
And so when you touch the cervix after you’ve had children outside of the fertile
window, it will feel firm, but you will feel a bit of an opening. And then once
you’re in the fertile window, it will feel a lot softer, and the opening will be
more pronounced.
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ahead and jump back into today’s episode.
So from the fertility awareness standpoint, we know that the cervix of a woman who’s
never had children, there’s just very little opening there, there’s little give
compared to a woman who’s had children. But again, they have to identify this
specifically. So they also go on to call out specific populations that may have
increased or decreased tolerance of pain resistance to pain medications. So people who
just even pain medications don’t really have the same effect. So they’re talking
about individual differences here. And then, of course, the women who have a history
of whether it’s pelvic pain or abuse may be more sensitive to pain in those areas.
Throughout the study, they also call out certain populations. So they’re saying that
certain medical health professionals may be less likely to offer women pain medication
or pain relief if they are black or if they are non -white or something like that.
So while I don’t have a study specifically on that today, we do know that many
health practitioners may have certain biases about certain populations and may just
assume that they may not even think about it for a certain population where they
might think about it for another. And a part of me would wonder if that might be
age -related as well. I wouldn’t be surprising to me if younger women, they just
kind of do these procedures and they just don’t really think about it, but maybe
older women who are closer in age to them, maybe they are more likely to offer
because they know who’s gonna complain about it more, right? Who has more agency to
actually say something about it. So lots of things to think about. So what they did
essentially to determine their recommendations. So the purpose of this consensus
statement is to offer evidence based recommendations for how to support pain
management effectively for a list of different procedures that involve essentially
inserting things into the cervix or in through the cervix. And so they looked at a
variety of studies over 24 years. So their search period was from the year 2000 to
2024. And they looked at studies that specifically measured interventions,
so a variety of different interventions of pain management and how effective that
they were. And they have a table, and so they went through, okay, well, what about
this? What about that? You know, what were the results of this study when they did,
when they use this type of pain management? What were the results of the study when
they use this other type of pain management? So they looked at it in a methodical,
evidence -based scientific way to determine what is actually working, what is not
working, what is more effective, what is less effective, and what is the takeaway?
How do we, based on all this data that we have, what are our recommendations? So
interestingly, the takeaway from all of this, like so far up to this point,
is that they did come to the conclusion that pain is actually real. Women actually
do experience pain during these gynecological procedures. They have concluded that it
is definitely, like as a fact, underestimated by many health professionals. And
there’s a problem, there’s a need for professionals to kind of come together and
sort this out. So, you know, by looking at all the different research and by kind
of examining this, they’re doing this. Now, I’m glad that this is happening. it is
necessary. It’s about time. I’m amazed that it’s 2025 and this is the consensus
statement that’s coming out at this point. But at the end of the day, this really
validates the concerns that so many women have that their problems, their concerns,
their complaints are falling on deaf ears. So if you’ve ever felt like a little
gaslighted, when you’re going into medical office and you’re talking about pain,
whether it’s related to the insertion of something into your cervix, or Whether it’s
just related to pain, pelvic pain, period -related pain, or that type of thing and
you’re not being taken seriously, this is a real phenomenon, obviously. If so many
medical professionals are coming out of medical schools ready to dismiss women’s pain
like this, then yes, it’s good that they came out with this consensus statement, but
my hope is that they’re actually changing the way that they’re teaching physicians
and other healthcare providers so that they’re not coming out with this bias against
listening to their patients and acknowledging their pain. It’s really interesting to
think about because then the problem is like how they’re taught about pain and pain
management, right? If so many of them are consistently dismissing women’s pain to the
point that they have to come up with a committee statement about it.
Okay, so when we look at the results, so they And their assessment, they assessed
all these different papers over the course of 24 years, so a really good period of
time to look at research around this. So of course, the results show that every
woman doesn’t experience this the same way. Obviously, every woman does not experience
intense pain with insertion. And they say what it says is that, quote, “There are
no reliable predictive factors that healthcare professionals can use to gauge an
individual’s potential for pain.” And I think That sentence is interesting because on
the one hand, they are saying that there are certain risk factors that predispose a
person to have more pain over another potentially. But they’re also acknowledging that
even somebody that doesn’t have any of those risk factors, like someone who has had
children or someone who never had a history of sexualized violence or never had any
period pain, it doesn’t mean that they’re not going to have pain. So they’re saying
ultimately, you can’t predict if someone is going to have pain or not, right? Like
get that thought out of your head type of thing. And what they also say is every
patient who has an IUD placed should receive thorough counseling about the potential
for pain associated with this procedure and should be provided with options to
mitigate potential pain. So I mean, again, duh, this is something that I’ve been
saying for years, like it’s just completely unreal. So we’re going to link some of
the previous period pain or not period pain. We’re going to link some of the
previous PIL reality series episodes that specifically are of women sharing their
stories with IUD placement so that you can hear for yourself. Like it’s just
astounding to me to the point that anytime anybody tells me that they had an IUD,
I would ask them about the pain because it’s just such a huge like prevalent
problem and to the point that it’s just like it’s unreal how many women have had
this painful experience and how common it is or let me flip the way I’m phrasing
that how rare it is that anyone’s offered pain so of everyone I’ve talked to over
the years it’s very very few that have ever been offered pain meds and if anything
the only thing they’re told is to take an ibuprofen or something a couple hours
before. But as we’ll discuss, that was one of the kind of strategies that was not
effective for local, ’cause it’s not like a generalized pain that they’re having.
It’s a very local specific pain. So how does taking ibuprofen help you when they
stick it in, right? So the specific recommendations for pain management with IUD
placement, I did find them to be interesting. And again, it is so helpful when you
have data that you can look at, because then you’re not just going based on your
limited experience. If you’re a health professional, you’re going based on what
actually happens when they look at different methods. Because an individual provider
could do only one or two of the four or five options that they present.
And because they’re not doing the other options, they might think that what they’re
doing is fine or something like that. So I think there’s a lot of potential for
the subjectivity bias when you are just looking at your own experience and not
necessarily looking at the data. So they found a couple of things that are really
useful. One of the things is that what they defined as most effective was the use
of local anesthetic agents, specifically lidocaine for pain management.
So they were looking at, and while it can still be uncomfortable, they were saying
that the way that it was defined this procedure is that they would essentially
inject a numbing agent into the tissues around the cervix at several points.
So when they say to use lidocaine as a local anesthetic agent, they’re saying to
actually put numbing there, kind of like when you go to the dentist and they put
numbing there before they do it. And that blocks the nerve pathways around the
cervix, reducing the cervical pain and cramping. And the consensus basically that they
came to was based on their research that was the most effective pharmacologic method
for reducing pain during IUD insertion. It only takes a few minutes to administer.
Of course, some patients are gonna feel some cramping from the injection, and it
wears off in about an hour or two. So that’s interesting. So we went from they
don’t have any nerve endings down there
to actually the research shows that the most effective way to consistently manage
this is to numb the area. Again, duh, we will continue though. So one of the
things that has also been used for the procedure is what they call cervical ripening
agents. So these are agents that then are associated with softening the cervix and
potentially opening it a bit. But what the research shows is that the studies that
they do using this method, it actually increases the pain and averse effects. So
while this is a common procedure, the research is saying, well, it doesn’t really
work that well. It actually makes it worse. And they say adverse effects of
misoprostol, so that would be the name of the cervical ripening agent that’s used
most commonly, include abdominal pain, diarrhea, low -grade fever and increased risk of
IUD expulsion. Again, this is why having data is so helpful because we can actually
see, okay, well, this is working better, this is not, what a concept, right?
And I’ll also share a quote related to NSAID. So getting back to the ibuprofen
strategy, which if you’re listening and you’ve had an IUD place, that was probably,
like, if you were told anything about pain management, I feel like you’re probably
told that, take some ibuprofen or take some Tylenol or something. So it says,
“Interestingly, available evidence does not support pre -procedural administration of
NSAIDs, so ibuprofen, as an effective intervention for reducing pain at time of IUD
insertion, despite evidence demonstrating their efficacy in managing pain during
endometrial biopsy, a seemingly similar procedure. So they’re saying even though it
seems to work with a different procedure, which would be the biopsy, it doesn’t seem
to be effective with IUD insertion specifically. And so, you know, the researchers
kind of clarify that obviously taking an ibuprofen typically is a low risk
intervention. So it’s not like it’s causing harm, but they’re saying it doesn’t work.
It doesn’t actually provide relief or the actual moment of insertion. So I’m broken
record here, ’cause it’s like, well, obviously, why would it? It obviously doesn’t do
anything for the actual moment of insertion. So here we have it.
The actual research is saying that if we wanna consistently and effectively control
pain, we actually need to numb the area.
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So I have something to say outside of all of this, just as a practical thing,
because I’ve had many women who’ve had this procedure tell me that doctors would
recommend to come when they’re during their period, because then the idea is that
the cervix is open a little bit, ’cause it has to be open a little bit to let
out the bleeding. But again, going back to the fertility awareness perspective,
for any woman who’s checked her cervix throughout her cycle, when is the time in
the cycle when the cervix is softest and most open,
even more so than on the period. Obviously it would be during the fertile window.
So I mean, I’m not saying that that’s gonna get rid of the pain altogether for
sure, but you can feel how hard and firm the cervix is outside of the window.
And if you’ve never had a child before, you can’t even feel an opening, right?
So if there was a practical time to even, even with the administration of pain
medication, if there was a practical time to go and get the IUD placed, I would
think it would be during the fertile window when you can actually feel how much
softer the cervix is and you can actually feel the indent of the opening. Again,
especially for women who’ve never had children. Now, I’m not saying that if you have
had children and the cervix is slightly dilated, but that even means that it would
be less painful. I don’t know. I think that it’s possible, and I’m sure that many
women would report that. But these are definitely things to think about. Even if you
had had children, if the cervix is slightly dilated, but you go during the fertile
window when you can actually feel that the cervix is softer and the opening is more
pronounced, I mean, even isn’t it from a practical standpoint, easier for the doctor
to locate the opening. And one of the questions that I have that I have not seen
research about, I would love to possibly because they’re not looking, is so women
are experiencing some of the stories I’ve heard. Women are experiencing extreme pain,
really severe cramping that lasts kind of all day, or even a few days after, like
really severe pain with insertion. Is there a possibility that that is damaging the
cervical cells. I mean, this IUD is going right into the cervical canal. And again,
when you have that base of fertility where there’s knowledge and anatomy, you
understand that the cervical canal, that is where we have our cervical crypts. And
our cervical crypts are these delicate cells that produce cervical fluid. And
anecdotally, I have seen women who have had IUDs placed and removed have limited
mucus post removal, at least for a time. And some might have used the hormonal IUD,
and that could be related to the hormonal situation there. Some have used a copper
IUD. But again, is it possible that if women are experiencing such extreme pain with
insertion, that there’s some tissue damage, I think it’s possible? And to what
extent? We have no idea, because they haven’t studied it. So I’ll just briefly
mention the other procedures that were looked at in this consensus statement.
So they were looking at pain management strategies for endometrial biopsy,
hysteroscopy, uterine aspiration, the LEAP procedure, so the procedure that’s typically
done to remove abnormal cervical cells, as well as cervical biopsy and colposcopy.
So they’re also looking at what type of pain medication would be appropriate for
these different procedures. So for the biopsy, they did also recommend the lidocaine,
so the local anesthetic, as well as for histaroscopy, uterine aspiration,
and the leap procedure. And only for the biopsy and colposcopy,
they said usually the pain is mild to moderate. And so they said the local
anesthesia may be used if it’s a deeper biopsy or if they’re doing multiple
biopsies. So generally the consensus was that they should be numbing the area for
these procedures. Like if you look at the kind of overall conclusion that they came
to, they’re saying like, “Look, the pain isn’t good.” And so we should actually be
doing that.
So huge, huge, I don’t even know what to say, like huge progress here or just a
wake -up call. So I hope that this is something that’s presented at medical
conferences to shift the practices of current doctors. But if you’re familiar with
the research around research, so what I mean by that is if you’re familiar with the
research on how long it takes research to actually get into medical offices. The
estimate is anything from 18 to 20 years plus. So on average,
it takes about 20 years for new research to actually trickle into your medical
doctor’s office. And I would wonder or speculate if the reason is because when you
have medical providers that are already out there doing their thing, they may be
more resistant to change. And so they may know it all already, right? Like, they
may know that women don’t have nerve endings down there, the procedure’s not only
takes a minute, it’s fine. So they may have their preconceived notions about it. So
the clinicians that are actually more likely to do the new stuff are the ones that
learn it as part of their education when they’re in medical school. Now,
again, that is just a speculation. And we all know that there’s exceptions to the
rule. Obviously, there are doctors out there who are aware of this pain issue, who
are actively supporting their clients by giving them the local anesthetic and having
conversations about pain management. Or this ACOG statement wouldn’t have happened. So
obviously, there are medical professionals out there who are aware of this and who
or a lot more sympathetic to their patients and what they’re actually saying, like
who are actually listening to their patients. But what we can gather from the actual
experiences of women who’ve had these procedures, and also this consensus statement is
that many medical professionals are not doing this. And it’s probably more likely
than not that if you need to have an IUD placed or one of those procedures that
you may not be offered pain medication, or they wouldn’t be making the consensus
statement, and they wouldn’t have worded it as strongly as they did. So just to
wrap this all up, what are the takeaways? What do we do? So ultimately, pain is
real and obviously underestimated, like, systemically underestimated.
So if you yourself need to have a procedure, it is worthwhile to make sure that
you advocate for yourself. That’s something that needs to happen. And it puts us in
a difficult position as women because I feel like advocacy is very difficult. It’s
one of the hardest things, especially when you’re just one person and you’re trying
to advocate for some change within this huge system. And especially when many
providers don’t look favorably to their patients, actually telling them what to do,
or even suggesting what they should do, because they’re the ones that know best,
right? But at the end of the day, that is something that unfortunately, you have to
be prepared for unless you want to experience a lot of unnecessary pain and
struggle. In terms of advocacy for pain management, it means you have to be vocal
about it. potentially, if you’re speaking to a provider who is not open to it or
is convinced that it’s fine, it’s a simple procedure, it only takes a second and
then it’ll be over, whatever. If that’s the pushback that you’re getting, then you
may need to find another provider. Like honestly, if you ask for pain support for
IUD insertion or one of these other procedures that involves the cervix and your
medical practitioner is telling you that you don’t need it, I feel like you possibly
need to find another. And that’s not easy either. It’s hard to find doctors. Many
people don’t have a primary doctor. And that’s a whole thing to just keep going
from person to person, but it is significant. And these are flags, right? It would
be like you go on a first date with someone and they’re not willing to like, like
you trip and fall and they’re just, and your knee is bleeding or something. And
they’re just like, yeah, just scrub it up, like brush it off. It can’t hurt that
much, right? Like, whoa, what is wrong with you? So another takeaway, of course,
is that the common strategy of giving somebody ibuprofen or Tylenol or whatever as
like a general thing. Like, oh, just take two Tylenol, you know, before you come.
And that doesn’t work. So collectively, the consensus was that that is not an
effective strategy. What they did conclude is that the local anesthetic, the
lidocaine, is what worked. So overwhelmingly, that strategy of actually injecting
anesthetic to the area was consistently the strategy that was most effective for
reducing pain for the IUD insertion as well as all of these other procedures.
So that was basically the recommendation that topped all the other recommendations.
The cervical ripening agents do not work and actually make it worse based on the
research. So that was one of their conclusions. And based on what they’re saying,
they’re saying healthcare practitioners, hey, listen to your patients. They’re saying
that everyone isn’t the same. And just because something works for one person doesn’t
mean it’s going to work for another. And you can’t tell by looking at somebody or
any of their traits if they’re going to experience pain or not. So there may be
some patients that fall into this more likely to experience pain category, but that
in and of itself doesn’t even tell you if they will or not, because it’s a very
individualized issue. So the takeaway from all of that is medical providers, stop
thinking that you know if someone’s going to experience pain or not, just give them
the pain options.
is huge. And I would say if you’re a woman’s health practitioner listening, it’s
important to be able to help your clients to advocate for themselves and to share
information like this with them so that they are more empowered. It’s often very
intimidating to be in front of your medical provider and you’re saying something and
they disagree with you. That puts you in a difficult position because they’re the
ones with the power. And if you disagree with them, sometimes it can create a very
difficult situation. No one likes to be called out, right? But at least if you
have, ’cause it’s like, oh, when did you look on Dr. Google? Well, it’s like,
actually no, there’s an ACOG statement that came out in July, 2025. And it
specifically states that providers should be providing different pain options for their
patients. And what they came to was that the local anesthetic was more effective
than the other options. And that was from a study of these interventions over the
course of nearly 25 years. They weren’t expecting that response, right? So at least
if you’re in the ring and you have to fight, it’s better to fight with data
because then it’s harder for you to be ignored. So that brings us to the end of
today’s episode. If you found this information to be compelling and you can think of
someone who needs to hear it, then I highly recommend sharing this with your
friends, with your colleagues. This is important information, we need to get it out
there. It’s obviously one of my long list of pet peeves of women having to have
these negative experiences, these painful experiences, their feelings and remarks and
just being ignored. So this is huge and I was really excited to share this
information with you today because I think it’s so important. So fertilityfriday .com
/591, if you want to share this information, you can also head over there. And like
I said, I’ll share some of my previous podcast episodes on this topic specifically,
just women sharing their experiences with their IUDs and with their contraceptives.
So we’ll share some of the past episodes on that. And of course, and we’ll also
link to this consensus statement paper so that you can have a look through it and
just see what their findings were. So with that said, I hope that you have a
wonderful week weekend whenever you’re tuning into the show. And of course, as
always, until next time, be well and happy charting. If you’re loving the podcast
and you’re ready to apply fertility awareness strategies in your women’s health
practice, then I know you’ll love our Fertility Awareness Mastery Mentorship. It’s a
nine month immersive experience that will completely transform the way you work with
clients, allowing you to not only teach fertility awareness, but to use the menstrual
cycle as a vital sign and diagnostic tool in your women’s health practice. Our next
class starts in January, 2026, so there’s still time to reserve your spot. There’s
no other program like this offered anywhere. Transform your practice in nine months.
Head over to friday .com /famlive to apply now. That’s fertilityfriday .com /famlive.
Resources Mentioned
- Pain Management for In-Office Uterine and Cervical Procedures: ACOG Clinical Consensus No. 9
- The Practitioner’s Guide to Optimizing Egg Quality
- Fertility Awareness Mastery Mentorship (FAMM) – Apply Now
- Listen to *Real Food for Fertility* free on Audible




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