Smear test - is it normal to find leaves and twigs?

Agreed. And it's patronising.

I dread getting my reminder letter through. Been having them since my late teens and am now early 40's. I have always found them very uncomfortable/bordering painful and normally have to have at least 3 or 4 repeat visits before they get a sample they can test. They normally come back not enough cells collected. One year after 5 attempts I got sent to the gynecology dept at the hospital to get it done. Apparently they find it very difficult to find my cervix, yeah you don't say while they are repeated poking and prodding me...

Never had major issues with them prior to menopause, even though have tilted cervix. Had some low grade cell changes which were picked up and treated with brilliant NHS staff at my local hospital.

After menopause, atrophy set in and smears started to get very uncomfortable.

I'm on HRT patches/Estriol cream.

The last attempt was horrendous, nurse attempted three times. Insertion fine, but when she tried to open the speculum - felt like razor blades cutting into me.

She then made an uncomfortable/distressing situation even worse by asking me how I got a large bruise on my thigh, which I explained was result of sporting activity on my holiday the previous week.

I asked her to stop and got the hell out of there. I bought an at home HPV test which came back negative. I will be doing that again in future and will not have a cervical smear again, unless further examination is needed, if HPV is picked up on a test.

I like your intentions but your thread title reminded me of the horrible rape case in America a few years ago. Won’t go into details but it was really traumatic to read about. So for that reason YABU.

Anyone who has found smear tests painful, did you know you can ask for a smaller speculum? (Is that what it’s called?)
They use the bigger one by default but just let them know you want the size small.

Also, I always get a cake on the way home. I focus on what cake I’m going to have the entire time. Calories don’t count after a smear test - that’s actual science btw. Actual science. 😉🤫

It's easy to say when they're quick and painless. The fact that little is done to alleviate pain for women or even inform them as to why they find them painful will always be a barrier.

Makes you want to read it though! I did!...

I've read the work of Dr Margaret Mccartney and the results of the Raffle study and I won't have one done ever again as I was very low risk and was never told that. That situation has never changed so I've made an informed choice that I don't have them done.

Doesn’t pick up any now. They only test for HPV and do a follow up if that’s positive. Given that not all cancers are caused by HPV this is outrageous. Can’t see them doing a test on a man and not actually testing for the thing they want to know about.

I’ve been having mine since late teens, and while I didn’t like them and was uncomfortable they were never really painful… until now! I’m 50 and apparently it’s all a bit less easy to do now.

I have always known about my weirdly tilted cervix so hard to lay under pillows etc, I’ve also had to have more that usual because in my 20s I had the cells and had to have them yearly, then 2 years and now 5, of course this will be the last couple now as they stop them at 60 or 65 ( I can’t remember what nurse said now) but since august it’s been an nightmare. Tried 3 separate times, with 3 different nurses, the nurses been lovely and rather gentle but my insides are having none of it.. they just referred me to the hospital gynaecologist now despite the wonderful semi retired nurse Jo being very determined and never coming across anyone like me in her 50 odd years as a nurse, but even she had to accept defeat 😂

My smear test last month was really traumatic. I had had a chat with my DD aged 24 , telling her how they were not painful but just a wee bit uncomfortable. Well all I can say is that if it had been my first test I definitely would have been put off from having another one.Luckliy all my previous ones had been pain free, so I will continue to have them.

Well I’ve been having them regularly since I was first invited, several decades - and they are always excruciatingly painful, I can barely cope. But they’re essential, so I always go. Glad yours was ok OP, but you can’t think that they are painless for everyone.

The ironic thing about that is that Jade Goody did have regular smear tests and had abnormal cells removed several times. She still died of cancer.

Fairly negligible chance you will have HPV though and that’s all they test for, not cancer.

Love your title and I’m glad that for you it was trouble free. Sadly for many it is painful and invasive and triggers previous traumas. So yabu to assume that as it’s alright for you it’s alright for everyone. We need to recognize that for many it is not easy and do better at providing alternatives for women to access healthcare safely and on positive terms.

You are invited for smear tests until you are aged 64 and mammogram invites start between the age of 50-53, so if you’re reaching mammogram age then you will still be invited for smear tests for several more years.

I take you have never had a baby

after that, a smear test is easy than an eye test

Hate having smears as I’m bloody tight down there and just don’t like having cold, slimy, hard things inserted (yes, I know how that sounds!). I do go for them regularly though and never had a concerning result. The peace of mind is worth it for me. They still do a range of tests at the same time though, so it’s just part of my sexual health regime now.

As a couple of you have said above, I absolutely dreaded mine, i consider myself to have a pretty good pain threshold, yet having this done was by far the most painful thing i have ever experienced. Wouldn't have another one,

You can check out Japan. They have recently introduced smear testing because of pressure from the WHO. But their cervical cancer death rates were no worse than the UK or other countries that had screening all along.

I have been having smear tests since I was 18 and last Monday was the first one that was too painful to be completed. The nurse tried twice but then stopped the test. I am 47 so have quite a few as I have never missed one (my grandmother died of cervical cancer). The nurse thinks it is because I started HRT but needed to stop. I was prescribed a pessary and I will go back in a month.
Over the years some tests have been uncomfortable but one thing that helped was knowing that there are different sizes of speculum.

Yes according to the leaflet from the NHS mammography saves 1300 lives per year but 4000 women are diagnosed with “cancer” which would never have harmed them, so that’s mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and long life medication for a cancer that would never have been life threatening, let alone the psychological trauma, so many women will think their lives have been “saved” when they really haven’t, in fact the opposite.

My Nan died of embarrassment. She never had a smear because she was too embarrassed to go. Then when she started bleeding again in her late fifties after her periods had stopped when she was forty, she was still too embarrassed to go. It was only after she finally told my Mum, who pretty much frogmarched her into her GP that she was tested and it came back that she had cervical cancer. She made us promise to not make the same mistake she did and, although my smears are horrendous and sometimes have to be done at the hospital, I get them done.