Doctors Finally Admit IUDs Hurt
  May 21, 2025 Greetings, Meteor readers, Last Friday, I had the immense pleasure of seeing Real Women Have Curves on Broadway. In a world where people are being violently rounded up and inhumanely detained, it was reinvigorating to watch a story so steeped in Latinx culture and the resilience of immigrant women. I laughed, I cried, I developed a crush on Claudia Mulet, and I vowed to be louder about the injustices of our anti-immigrant regime.  IF ALL THESE WOMEN DON’T GET TONYS, I WILL RIOT IN THE STREETS. (VIA GETTY IMAGES) In today’s non-musical-theater news, we explain the latest “discovery” about IUD insertion. Plus, a new law banning revenge porn is finally on the books. No soy de aquí, pero tu tampoco, Shannon Melero  WHAT’S GOING ONBetter late than never: The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has released new recommendations around cervical and uterine procedures, most notably IUD insertion. On the heels of similar guidance released by the CDC last year, ACOG has discovered not only that IUD insertion can be excruciatingly painful to patients, but that there is an “urgent need” for clinicians to offer pain management. Sorta like when Columbus discovered America. And by that, I mean many of us were already here. Women have been complaining about the pain caused by IUD insertions for years, and the people doing the inserting famously underestimate it; one study from 2014 found that while doctors were rating the pain of IUD insertion a 35 out of 100, patients ranked it at more like 65. This probably comes as no surprise to anyone who has either visited a gynecologist or been on the internet: Women’s pain, particularly around reproductive health, is often dismissed as either exaggerated or simply part and parcel of ✨being a woman✨. Think Serena Williams nearly dying in childbirth after her pain was ignored, or the women at the Yale fertility clinic who were unwittingly undergoing egg retrievals without pain relief and told their agony was normal. Unlike the CDC recommendation, ACOG also recommends pain management for a variety of procedures like endometrial biopsy, polypectomy, hysteroscopy, and certain kinds of imaging. And ACOG acknowledges structural inequities: “The way pain is understood and managed by health-care professionals is also affected by systemic racism and bias of how pain is experienced,” its findings note. “Historically, Black patients have received less analgesics than white patients, and women have received less attention to their pain than men undergoing similar procedures.” This change, of course, does not guarantee painless IUD insertions; there’s only so much lidocaine can do. But the guidance is important because it encourages doctors to have conversations they might have once deemed unnecessary, including ones around anxiety that patients might feel about undergoing some procedures (anxiety which ACOG suggests can be addressed with medication). As someone who was prescribed Xanax to make it through a dental procedure, I think it’s wild that stronger medications aren’t regularly offered when someone burrows a medical device up your cervix. So if you’ve got an appointment coming up, be vocal! We’ve already suffered enough–we deserve the good drugs. AND:
 REGINA VENTURA OUTSIDE OF THE COURTHOUSE. (GETTY IMAGES)
 CLARK AND REESE MEETING AT MID-COURT AHEAD OF THE GAME AND THE FOUL HEARD ROUND THE WORLD. (VIA GETTY IMAGES)
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