My Experience Misoprostol Cytotec For Miscarriage

286 Replies
vaso - September 1

My daughter is going through the pill experience as we speak. Thank you for posting this/ I hope all is well with you. God Bless

 

vaso - September 1

Is she having an abortion or a miscarriage. Please don't use that word especially in this forum. Very tacky

 

lyn33 - September 4

I am contemplating taking misoprostol, i am in the process of my 2nd miscarriage, and i had my levels checked wed they were 400, then fri 360, then again today the levels went up to 407. my doctor said its possible to be ectopic and i may have to take this medicine or have a D&C. i am so confused and sad! i am having the levels checked again on tuesday, but i was wondering if anyone else had this issue with rising and falling hcg levels?? any help please??

 

tellulah - September 18

Thanks everyone for posting your stories. My info - Blighted ovum, no embryo visible, stopped growing around 5 weeks. I took natural methods to miscarry on my own - acupuncture, parsley juice, long runs, lot of coffee and morning glory seeds (which are very dangerous if not correctly prepared!) These efforts, or perhaps just nature, were successful and I began to miscarry (or abort? I know that word is politically sensitive but isn't a spontaneous abortion the correct term for that actual expulsion of of the embryo? I thought I had already miscarried at the point when the embryo stopped growing inside of me.) This happened very slowly, so I decided to take misoprostol since it seemed likely to be successful. I took the percoset, an hour before I took the misoprostol because it works better if you take it before the pain starts. I have had three surgeries in the past two years (for something else) and I wish they could give me morphine for this like they did for the surgeries it would have worked better. I took 4 tablets of misoprostol v____ally, had heavy cramping and some blood but no tissue. 6 hours later inserted 4 more tablets as directed. 5 hours later had heavy cramping again. Lots of blood and two soft lumps about the size of a ping pong pall each. More cramps and blood. After that it was like a heavy period for a while. Two days later the cramps returned and a piece of hardish tissue the size of my pinkie finger pa__sed. I read in another post that this second stage may have occurred as my uterus was contracting back to normal size. I will post again in three days after the ultrasound to let you know if the misoprostol was successful or if I need further treatment like a D&C.

 

onetiemyshoe - September 23

thanks for this forum, i went into misoprostol with a lot more information than i otherwise would have. I'm sharing mine here. to be updated. my ultrasound at 10 2/7 weeks shows baby at 9 3/7 weeks and no heartbeat. since i had been spotting bright red for the last week (not much mind you), it did not come as a total surprise. I chose misoprostol because i'm older and want to preserve as uch as fertility as i possibly can. I was given 4 misoprostol to be taken v____ally and vicodin. tablets are inserted at 5pm. for the next 2 hours mild contraction. then i walked around a bit, had dinner at 7 pm, when i pa__sed a clot, which included 3 of the tablets. Apparently i didnot insert them far enough. more bleeding by 10pm, but not heavy. by 1Am however, some clots pa__sed, of all shapes and alien appearances, one 3 inches across flat sponge thing i think is either placenta or sack, a few thick stringy bleed, none that i can tell is fetus though. after 1AM, very little bleeding till the morning. hardly any pain. Will see doc and request more misoprostol to be sure. but i suspect majority of tissue already pa__sed. Overall, a good experience even though my fetus is older. I'm sorry for everyone's loss and good luck to everyone and i hope to try again in a few few months.

 

tellulah - September 30

Hi, this is Tellulah agian, I posted my misoprostal experience on Sept 18th, 2010 and promised to say if my experience resulted in a complete miscarriage, but I still don't know. The doctor couldn't tell on her small ultrasound if everything was out and so she had me get another scan at a diagnostic center. I'm still waiting for those results. I will post the results when I get them so that someone else with a similar misoprostal experience might have a better idea if the drug worked or not. I wish I knew if everything is out! Not knowing if I will have to get surgery is driving me crazy.

 

CK11111 - September 30

I found this thread so helpful as I was dealing with my own miscarriage. I wanted to post what happened to me, just so women out there can read about the different experiences of misoprostol. I had 2 miscarriages this year. The first miscarriage, which was a blighted ovum, pa__sed naturally on it's own at about 11 weeks. I had very, VERY painful cramps for about 5 hours. I'm sure it doesn't compare to giving birth, but it came pretty close to contractions. I can feel myself "bearing" down, and also, had a strong urge to push. It was so painful, I was breaking out in a cold sweat. Then suddenly, the cramps just stopped. It was so weird! About a day later, the tissue about the size of 3 fingers put together pa__sed out. You couldn't miss it - I felt it slip out while going to the bathroom, and further, it actually "thunked" in the toilet. My husband and I fished it out. It was deep purple in color and surprisingly hard. I bled for about 1 week, which I would say was lighter than a normal period. Our second miscarriage was also a blighted ovum. This time, we found out earlier, at 6 weeks, and we didn't want to wait for it to pa__s naturally. (If the prior experience was any indication, we would have to wait for 3 more weeks, which I just couldn't take emotionally.) Therefore, we took the misoprostol prescribed to me. Our doctor gave us 4 pills to be inserted v____ally at the same time. After reading all the stories, my husband and I were super scared and freaked out! We had a bucket ready (for the vomit), our prescription pain killer on hand (Viocodin), and a heat pad for my stomach. I also had a light meal before beginning. Well, the strange thing is, the misoprostol induced miscarriage was WAY less painful than the natural miscarriage we had earlier in the year. After about 3 hours of inserting the misoprostol, I started having stomach pains. The best way I can describe it is that my stomach area felt "sour". I wouldn't describe it as cramps even, it was way less painful than that. I didn't even use any Viocodin, but managed with extra strength Tylenol and a heat pad. After a few ours of discomfort, I pa__sed something which I can only describe as a yellow, jello like sac attached to some tissue. The pains died down after I pa__sed it. The unfortunate thing was, about 2 days afterwards, the sour stomach feeling returned. On and off, for 2 more days, I felt not well and had mild cramps. Then 2 more days later (so about 1 week after the misoprostol administration), I pa__sed another tissue. It looked more similar to what I pa__sed during my first miscarriage. There has been no more pain after that, and through an ultrasound, we've confirmed that the pregnancy has pa__sed out completely. I bled moderately for about 1 1/2 weeks, and I'm not bleeding anymore. On the whole, the misoprostol experience, for me, was positive. It came nothing close to the horror stories I've read on the internet. I'm extremely sensitive to medication, but I had virtually no reaction to this - no vomiting, or even nausea. I had a headache, but that was about it. After reading many stories on the web, it's my unscientific, non-doctor opinion that v____al application of this drugs seems to induces less adverse reactions. Women who take this drug orally seem to suffer more side effects. Also, I think women whose pregnancies advanced more seem to have a more difficult time, then those of us whose pregnancies ended earlier on. Also, those women seem to bleed for a longer period afterwards. If you've decided to do this pill as a way to end your miscarriage, I highly, HIGHLY recommend you think of pain management before you begin. Even if you don't use it, get a prescription strength pain killer from your doctor. Second, if you are doing the v____al insertion of the pills, get yourself some latex finger cots or latex gloves (non-powdered kind). It's one of those logistical things that doesn't get discussed too often, but it really helped in getting the pill way in there. I don't think I could have done it with just my finger. Having a miscarriage is so hard, so if you are reading this and you're going through this, my heart goes out to you. If you decide to do the misoprostol, I hope you experience is a gentle one, I wish you the very best.

 

CK11111 - September 30

Oh, also wanted to say thank you to all of you who posted. I especially appreciated how many of you suggested popping the pain killer before you feel pain or just as the pain is starting. Even though it was just Tylenol, I popped it just as the pain was starting, and I think it greatly helped make the pain manageable.

 

mb323232 - October 8

Hi. I just wanted to share my experience with Misoprostol. It has been a "good" one so I hope it gives hope to stressed women who like me read this forum before taking the pills. I went for my first ultrasound at 12w6d and got told the baby had stopped growing at 6w4d! It was a terrible shock and I was so angry at my body for lying to me for the past 6 weeks. To make things worse, my obgyn said that surgery rooms were booked out for the following 2 weeks and I couldn't have a d&c. He wrote me a prescription for 4 misoprostol pills to take v____ally before bed that night. I was very stressed about it and half expected to end up at the hospital hemorrhaging. At 11pm, I convinced my reluctant husband to put the pills in as deep as he could as I really couldn't do it myself. In the end I think it helped making him feel more involved with the whole process. I actually was able to sleep for a little while. Then at 12:30am, I woke up freezing cold (it was a warm night!) and shaking. My husband went to get an extra cover and I took an Advil. It worked really well and I warmed up again when the Advil kicked in. I went back to sleep just as mild period cramps were starting. I got woken up by cramps through the night. They were stronger than period cramps but I wouldn't call them painful at all - just like pressure. I never felt the need to take anything stronger than Advil. Then at 4am I felt a rush of fluid coming out. I went to the bathroom and my pad was heavy with pink fluid. I changed it and went back to bed. I bled through the morning as if I was having a normal period. The cramps would come and go and were still fine. Then at 10:30am, I felt a clot come out. It looked like a rissole-shaped piece of liver (sorry for the visual!). I bled just a bit more heavily than a normal period for a couple of hours after that, then it slowed down. I had a shower at 3pm and was only spotting from that point onward. Here I am 2 weeks later, still spotting (very lightly). I just had an ultrasound with my obgyn this morning and he said everything was clear! I am now very happy that I didn't have a d&c as the misoprostol was a lot less invasive and I didn't need to worry about the risks involved with a d&c. My obgyn said to wait for two complete cycles before we try to conceive again so I'm now looking forward to that. I wish all the best to everyone and hope your experience is as good as mine.

 

mb323232 - October 19

I had to write again as my experience changed since last time. I thought it was all over when I wrote this last post. A week or so after I wrote it, a clear liquid/mucus started coming out. It smelled strange but I didn't worry too much about it - I was just happy I was no longer bleeding. Then 3 days ago, I started bleeding bright red blood again, same as when this all first started. I thought maybe this was my first period. Later that day, I started being feverish and shaking. Lots of people have the flu this time of year so again, I wasn't worried. I just took a couple of Advil and it helped. I took Advil through the night to stop the fever/shaking. I felt ok in the morning so my thoughts were more clear and I realised I might be having an infection from products left in my uterus that would have been undetected in the ultrasound 10 days earlier. I had all of the symptoms of an infection including fever, chills and stinky discharge. So I decided to go to the hospital even though I felt fine at the time - I thought there was no chance to take. At the hospital, the triage lady was very compa__sionate but couldn't help me avoid the long wait. I was still under the effect of the Advil so showed no fever. She said to come and see her straight away if my symptoms changed. An hour later, the fever and chills started again and I felt very sick. I went back waiting for the triage lady who was busy with another patient. I threw up waiting for her and could feel that I was bleeding A LOT. I became a very weak, shaking, bleeding mess. When she saw me she made me come in. I said I think I'm hemorrhaging. She asked me to take my pants off for her to check. When I turned around, she saw my pants were covered in blood and she said no need! She took my temperature and I had a fever of 105.4 F (40.8 C). I got put on a stretcher and got asked to undress and put a hospital gown on. When I took off my pants, two huge clots came out as well as a lot of blood. I got put on IV fluid, then they took samples off my cervix to confirm I had an infection, then I got 2 ultrasounds, which confirmed I still had products in my uterus. They sent me in for an emergency d&c and remember seeing about 6 people (doctors and nurses) there and I finally felt safe. I only remember waking up to the doctor telling me it's all done. Apparently there wasn't a huge amount left in my uterus but what was there was badly infected. They made me stay overnight to monitor my bleeding / fever / blood pressure as well as my reaction to the antibiotics. I was ok by morning and they let me go home. Now I'm on antibiotics for 7 days and hormones for 21 days. The hormones are supposed to help my uterus lining get better quicker and induce a period when I stop taking them. I've got an appointment for another ultrasound in a month's time which hopefully will be the end of this long ordeal! So my opinion on the Misoprostol pills changed a lot over the last few days. I now think I would have much rather have a d&c straight away then getting an infection and a hemorrhage requiring an emergency d&c after everything I had already been through. Take care everyone and this time I hope your experience is better than mine!

 

juniperberry - October 25

I am a week out from taking Cytotec to induce a missed miscarriage. The pregnancy stopped developing at 6 wks 5 days, but I didn't find out till my scan at 13 weeks. I had been spotting for about 10 days at that point. I am in the UK and mistoprosol is not the normal course at my facility. I was told I could wait or have a D&C. I waited another 2 weeks of spotting, some bleeding. I tried parsley, black and blue cohosh tinctures, which sometimes brought on bleeding (esp parsley) but still didn't cramp or pa__s the sac. I did some research and determined that I had a third choice, mistoprosol. Finally I convinced my provider to let me try medical abortion instead of surgical. I put 4 aspirin -like pills up near my cervix at 10 am. I waited 45 minutes, then went shopping in town and running errands until I started cramping around 1 pm. At home, cramps gradually got more intense and regular, like contractions, until I could only lie down by 3 pm. I started to bleed more heavily and to pa__s a sticky, stringy substance. I went to the bathroom where I bled heavily and pa__sed large, dark clots. I was lightheaded, dizzy, short of breath and nauseous, very surprised by the pain and strength of the contractions. I was given no pain medication and told to take tylenol, which did nothing. About an hour and a half into the intense cramps, after lying down and pa__sing out for a little while, I felt the need to go back to the toilet. I had more contractions, bled freely, and then in a big whoosh! my waters broke and I felt a golfball-sized something pa__s and plop into the toilet. I couldn't see anything for all the blood and just flushed it all. As soon as that pa__sed, my cramps immediately subsided and I knew I had completed the miscarriage. I rested and within 12 hours it was all over. I returned to the hospital in the morning and it was confirmed that the sac pa__sed and i only had some blood clots left, which I have pa__sed over the past week. I can't lie, some of the post-miscarriage discharge has been pretty gnarly and smelly. But now I'm only lightly spotting, less each day. For me cytotec pessary worked like a charm and ended a very long and drawn out miscarriage that needed to end. It was painful and intense, but empowering and quickly got over. I'm very glad I did this instead of the surgical route. My doctor told me they don't give it routinely for missed miscarriage because it has an 11.8% failure rate and because most women don't want the pain and bleeding. But he said it tends to work best on women like me, where bleeding had already begun and fetal demise established. I hope this is helpful; this was my only source for realistic information when I was going through the miscarriage at home. Good luck to everyone.

 

mb323232 - October 30

Hi juniperberry, I've read your post and I'm very glad the misoprostol worked well for you. However, you say that your post-miscarriage discharge has been smelly. Please tell your doctor ASAP if it's still the case as it could be an infection. I also had a smelly discharge (see my post above) and it got pretty bad for me because my infection wasn't treated on time. Might be nothing but better be on the safe side! Take care.

 

hyospe - November 1

I found out 4 days ago that I miscarried at 9 weeks. The sac continued growing but the baby did not. My doctor told me my options, and recommended the medication route for me. This is my first miscarriage,and I didn't know much about D&C but we opted to not do that since it costs and it's an actual procedure under anesthesia. I thought the pills would be more simple and quicker. Ohhh how wrong I was. I took the pills orally (I didn't know there was any other way, and that's what my doctor told me to do). 4, and then 2 and then 2 pills all within 8 hours. When the first round didn't make me pa__s the tissue, I had to repeat it and do another round the next day. With each round, I got chills (super cold and shivery), gas and diahrrea, cramps and bleeding. I pa__sed lots of clots and collected what I thought was tissue since my doctor told me to bring it in today after the weekend. When I took it in, he told me I had in fact NOT pa__sed the tissue yet. I was devastated! He was able to pull it out, but I had to take 4 more pills to get the rest of the bleeding done. All in all, this experience has been draining, emotionally and physically. If I ever have to go through this again, (oh how I hope not) I will definitely choose to do a D&C.

 

Stilltrying1010 - November 4

This was my first pregnancy and my first visit to see the doctor to see how the baby was doing. I was 11 weeks along so it was time to see or hear the heart beat. When the midwife couldn't find the heartbeat she decided to do a U/S when both the topical and trans v____al showed a sac but no baby my doc told me I had a anembryonic pregnancy. Needless to say I was heartbroke. This was my first pregnancy and me and my husband have been trying for over 3 years. When my doc went over the options I decided on takiing misoprostol. Now my husband is away doing training right now so I wanted something that I could do in the comfort of my own home. While at the doc's I was given 4 v____aly and then sent home. Within 4 hrs I noticed some bleeding. After 5 hrs I was pa__sing big clots and tissue while still bleeding alot. I have little cramping and have been taking motrin to make sure I don't feel much. As hard as it is doing this at home and dealing with the tissue and what not I still would choose this over a D&C. It's non invasive and you can cry all you want in the comfort of your own home and it has helped me with the process of coming to terms that I am no longer pregnant. I'm sorry for all of you who have had bad reactions to taking this but I would choose to do it again if I have to.

 

trio3333 - November 8

Hi, yesterday I had an induced miscarriage due to a blighted ovum at 6 1/2 weeks. My doctor presented me with three alternatives once it was confirmed there was no baby in the sac: D&C, wait for natural mc, or misoprostol to induce mc. I chose the latter, as I had two D&Cs for prior pregnancy losses and didn't want to be put under again, and I didn't see the point in playing a waiting game with the official end of this pregnancy. My doctor told me that the process is relatively easy for some women and more difficult for others; there had been instances where he'd met some of his patients at the emergency room--and by the time he got there the pain and bleeding had subsided. Reading some other stories online made me scared, but still firm in my decision to proceed with it. (Thank you to the women who took the time to write about more positive experiences-as positive as you can have during a pregnancy loss--they gave some comfort. That's a reason I'm writing.) My doctor inserted four tabs v____ally, and w/in 15 minutes of leaving his office I had light cramping, which he said was normal. I was almost back to my house when I started feeling very nauseous and the need to defecate. I started to feel faint and pulled to the side of the road, where I called my husband to come get me. I was disoriented, hot, and sweaty, and felt like I was going to pa__s out. I started to fear the worst: if this is how I was feeling half an hour in--when things weren't really going to start for a few hours--how awful was it going to get later??? I called my doctor who said this reaction was not normal--if it were normal they'd request that you have someone drive you home. He said it was a vasovagal response to everything that was going on physically, mentally, and emotionally. (Upon reading about it, he was right.) Once I got home and laid down on the couch, I was fine. It was like I'd come out of a dark tunnel and was in a totally different place. I ate, relaxed, had some cramping, and took Tylenol 3 that my doctor had prescribed. Throughout the day I experienced cramping like I'd have on the first day of my period (more intense), and it was tempered by the Tylenol w/codeine. When I got up I'd feel more cramping and get a little lightheaded, so I tried not to get up a lot. I simply relaxed, and my husband helped me when I needed anything. (I'd definitely have someone there to help you. I wouldn't have done this w/o someone there. A friend, someone.) About three hours in I pa__sed a bunch of blood when I used the restroom, like would happen on the first day of my period, and that happened a few other times through the day. That was it. My fears ultimately were unfounded. Without question I would choose this method again if I had to. I was prepared for it to be intense, and, aside from the incident on the road, which I think was just particular to me in the moment, it was pretty easy. Today it was confirmed that my uterus was clear. I'm having light cramping and spotting. My doctor said I could have more bleeding later. Good luck to everyone.

 

myfirstpregnancy - December 6

I just wanted to share my experience because reading every one else's really helped me to feel okay about deciding to use the medication instead of the d&c and prepare for what was going to happen. I had a missed miscarriage. This was our first pregnancy after about a year of trying, so when we went for our 7 week checkup and got an US it was really hard to find out that there was no heartbeat. After a week of blood tests to make sure and then a final US to confirm that our baby had died I decided that I would use this medicine to start the miscarriage because I was going to leave the country in a couple of weeks and didn't want to take of risk of having to go to the hospital there. I took the misoprostol using 4 tablets inserted v____ally, along with 1 tablet of tylenol with codeine. I started this at 1pm yesterday. At 5 I started to feel the cramping and took 2 more tylenol w codeine, by 5:30 the cramping was extremely painful. Now I definitely have a low threshold for pain, and I almost never get cramping for my period, so what is extremely painful for me may not be as bad for some others. It was hurting a lot, but more difficult was not knowing how long it was going to hurt. I would walk around and was breathing to relax myself. I also took 4 ibuprofen (which our paperwork said I could do) and it was still very painful. I found that walking around helped, and I had this feeling like I was constipated so I would sit on the toilet and rock back and forth and that actually helped also. By 7:30 it went almost right away from pain to no pain. I could feel that something had come out but I was so exhausted (plus I had all that codeine in me) I fell asleep for about an hour. When I woke up I felt absolutely fine. I went to the bathroom and pa__sed everything. From then on I haven't really had any cramping, just like I'm finishing up my period type bleeding. In the end I'm glad that I chose this instead of the surgery. It made me nervous even thinking about being in an office waiting for them to put me under and perform surgery on me. I am glad that I was able to go through this at home with my husband's help. Now I pray that I never have to experience this again. I pray for all of you as well. I never realized how emotionally painful something like this could be until now. The physical pain is gone, but I'm still grieving our first baby.

 

ADD A COMMENT:


You must log in to reply.

Are you New to the forum? Sign Up Here! Already a member? Please login below.

Forgot your password?
Need Help?
New to the forum?

Sign Up Here!


Already a member?
Please login below.





Forgot your password?
Need Help?