Birth control is driving me up the wall.

Mirena tanked my libido, increased my anxiety, caused back pain, and resulted in a huge ruptured ovarian cyst that sent me to the ER. The above advice about not jumping to conclusions is good, but I found when I told two different gynos I suspected all my symptoms were caused by the Mirena, both told me the Mirena did not cause those types of side effects. After leaving an appointment in frustrated tears I resolved to just get the thing out already, doctors be damned. I did, and the side effects disappeared. The Internet is full of stories much worse than mine. I say get it out and try a Paragard after your body settles.

(Anecdotes, and all that...I'm on my second round of Mirena and have had no joint pain, or really anything after the spotting settled down after several months. I'm sure you can get anecdotes relating proximity of Mirena to anything you like.)

A quick search of the hypermobility forums found women having issues with different HBC causing different effects on their hypermobility. Read through some of those and see if it sounds like your symptoms. Hormones definitely play a role in ligament laxity. The only way you will know if the hormones cause this is to remove the IUD.

[I]t was clear various pills were making me feel awful (except Levora, which no one seems to be able to prescribe anymore) For what it's worth, Levora is a name for one version of a fairly generic monophasic pill; the same pill type also goes by "Portia" (and "Nordette" and a bunch of other names I forget). It's .15mg levonorgestrel and .03 mg ethinyl estradiol per pill. It is super common and I've never encountered a pharmacy or doctor who can't find it under some generic name or other. If you do not end up sticking with the Mirena, perhaps you could go in and request it by the ingredients/amounts, and the doctor can put in an appropriate prescription, and you can find out what name it is listed under in your area/your pharmacy. I should note - and I am not a doctor, mind, just someone who always reads up on the active components of medications - that the Mirena IUD releases levonorgestrel (one of the two chemicals present in Levora pills), and the Loestrin pills that disagreed with you contained ethinyl estradiol and norethindrone (neither of which are in the Mirena, and one of which is in Levora), and while the Mirena is progestin-only, both the good and bad oral contraceptives were estrogen and progestin. Oh, and Levora has a higher estrogen level than Loestrin, and Mirena should have a lower dose of progestin than the pills. I'm not sure I see a particularly consistent pattern here, in terms of a component of hormonal birth control explicitly and consistently causing your symptoms, and "joint and muscle pain" is certainly a less common negative HBC side effect than lost libido, fatigue, exacerbated anxiety or depression, etc. This isn't to say that the Mirena/HBC is definitely not at fault - you might be having an uncommon reaction, or be part of some subpopulation that is susceptible to a certain sort of weird side effect, and you might find that official side effects list be damned, getting rid of it makes a difference for you - but in your place, I would absolutely actively pursue other possibilities as well (including keeping a detailed health journal.) Your symptoms sound really miserable, and as https://ask.metafilter.com/281013/Birth-control-is-driving-me-up-the-wall#4074387, you don't want to risk missing the actual cause because you were overly focused on the HBC thing.

no libido, anxiety, insomnia I had all of these symptoms plus hypermobility/joint pain while on Depo Provera (another progestin-based contraceptive). I sprained/strained my knees, rolled my ankles, injured my hip joints, etc. too many times to count during the 10 years I was on it (thanks 99.9% of the doctors I saw for, you know, not mentioning any of these things could be related to the Depo). Going off Depo cured all of these symptoms for me. I'm still achy at times, but I've finally been able to use a physical therapy and yoga regime to re-strengthen the muscles needed to hold everything in its place (my back/hips were all kinds of messed up from 10 years of a suboptimal posture/gait). From what I understand, high levels of progesterone are associated with ligament laxity - this is one reason, in addition to swelling and weight gain, that pregnant women's shoe size may increase during and after pregnancy. Anecdotally, my feet shrank by half a size after going off Depo.

Another thing to consider is that mid 20s is the beginning of the likely onset range for a lot of autoimmune diseases. It really could be a coincidence.

This is totally anecdotal and I have no hard science to back it up, but my wife has noticed a lot of these kinds of complaints and a lot of them have cleared up since she had her Mirena removed.

Honestly, while it's possible that this is related to the Mirena, it's probably not. These symptoms sound worse than what you had on the pill. If it were the Mirena, they'd be less intense rather than more. It's a very very low amount of hormones compared to the pill. So, just following - a lower dose should have lower effects not higher ones. No one can tell you that it's not the Mirena, but it sounds unlikely. The reason I'm wanting you not to focus on it is because your symptoms are alarming and looking for more likely causes is probably a good plan. Especially if your doctor considered meningitis! So, try looking for information about your symptoms and leave the mirena out of your searches. Unfortunately, the way to get good treatment as a woman is often to come in with an idea of what it could be already.

I developed severe join pain in all my joints about 2 months after I had the Mirena inserted, my doctor told me it was coincidental and absolutely not connected to the Mirena. Like you, I read all the horror stories on the internet but I kept it in because I have fibroids and it did help that pain so I figured the trade off was worth it. I had the Mirena in for 5 years and the joint pain never went away, it was cyclical though and sometimes it was better than other times but often so bad I couldn't get out of bed. Sitting for any extended period became unbearable. I went to a host of doctors all who could find nothing wrong, they tested everything from Rheumatoid arthritis to Lyme disease. I had it removed 3 months ago and I have had no relief from the joint pain, not sure if I left it in too long or if, like the doctors have been telling me all along, it's not connected but if I had any other options for my fibroids I would have taken it out right away.