Mirena User Diagnosed with Pseudotumor Cerebri

Peoria, AZJess was recently diagnosed with pseudotumor cerebri but her neurologist didn’t give a conclusive explanation as to why she has this condition. Jess didn’t know at the time about the link between the Mirena IUD and this condition, which is also called Idiopathic intracranial hypertension or benign intracranial hypertension.



Jess, age 28, had the Mirena removed about eight months after it was implanted. She says it made her feel sick, like morning sickness, and it was painful during sex. Worse were the migraines. About a year after the IUD was removed, Jess had a nasty fall and hit her head. She began to have muscle spasms in her legs, like restless leg syndrome. More worrisome were seizure-like symptoms, strangely occurring most of the time after sex. She chalked it all up to the head injury, as did her neurologist.

Jess had a battery of tests with the neurologist. “He put needles in my legs to test for nerve damage and I had an eye pressure test,” says Jess. “When I got a migraine it felt like someone was punching me in my eyes. I also had two spinal taps and that was awful - they gave me the worst migraines ever. Apparently I was accumulating too much spinal fluid in my brain, which was putting too much pressure on my optic nerve. My neurologist prescribed medication and warned me that if I missed any of the treatment I would eventually go blind. When he diagnosed me with pseudotumor cerebri, I was pretty scared.”

After seeing the Mirena commercial, Jess did some research online and filed a complaint with LawyersandSettlements. “The more I think about the Mirena connection, the more sense it makes,” she adds. “It is too coincidental. But at the same time, I don’t have any expectations about filing a Mirena lawsuit because I also had the head injury.”

Unfortunately Jess no longer has health insurance, so she hasn’t seen her neurologist for a few months. Mirena could also be blamed for Jess losing her job. “I had a migraine at work and held my head on my desk just when my supervisor walked by and assumed I was asleep,” Jess explains. “I am only working part-time at my current job but I’m in the process of applying for state benefits.”

Jess is still on medication and lives with migraine, eye pain and nausea most mornings. “I’m trying to be pro-active and help myself. I’m working out and trying to live a healthy lifestyle. And I’m hopeful that an attorney can help me.”

Jess is one of more than 3,000 women in the United States alone claiming side effects, including perforation, migration, pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and, like Jess’s case, pseudotumor cerebri. It is believed that one in 1,000 women have suffered Mirena side effects, according to Newsweek (May 2014). Amazingly, this is an acceptable rate, according to clinicians, the FDA and of course, Bayer.

But the bigger argument is that Bayer should have done more to warn patients about worst-case-scenario side effects. Instead, dangerous Mirena side effects were just mentioned, in very small print, in the full prescribing information. And Bayer sold more Mirenas that way.