Experiences of outpatient hysteroscopy and whether to have it without anaesthetic

I had one just to examine me, not to do any treatment through it.

I was terrified before it, had to get anti-diarrhoea tablets. During was bearable. I never got the option of a GA anyway.

Afterwards I had a stiff bum for 3 months!

I will really avoid having this test again, but I'm not reliant on the NHS so they can't penalise me for not undergoing a certain test/procedure, which I presume they can in the NHS.

I had this under local twice and each time had polyps removed and biopsies .
I found the procedure fine if a bit undignified, there was some pain when they numbed it but nothing awful.
I was fine afterwards both times and the second time I went back to work straight from the procedure. I had mild bleeding and cramping.
I wad really worried about having it done but I had a really positive experience

I had 10mg diazepam of my own and then gas and air. I can't remember much apart from a tiny bit of uncomfortableness. I'm so grateful to mumsnet threads as there is no way I'd have agreed to it with just the suggested paracetamol. It can be awful.

I had one earlier this year, I’m already on cocodamol for chronic pain so I took that beforehand and I was absolutely fine without even a local. I had some gas and air but that really helped more with my back pain from the position I was in. I had multiple polyps removed, biopsies and a mirena inserted with mine. I had quite a lot of bleeding afterwards but I was having that anyway, hence why I was having it done.

I honestly wish every woman could have an experience like mine, I was petrified going in to it as I’d heard of so many women suffering horribly with them. 😢

I've had two in the last 6 weeks. I took my painkillers before hand for the first but found it so painful the doctor had to give me a local anaesthetic, which made it bearable. The second was last week after the results of the biopsy from no 1 came back. I had to have several polyps removed, the lining of the womb removed and a mirena coil inserted to help prevent future problems. I insisted on a local anaesthetic at the outset. I still found it painful - giving birth to my 10lb+ child with only gas and air was less painful, but it was better. The cramping afterwards was unbelievable. I was advised to take the rest of the week off to rest and recover. I still have slight cramps but it is bearable now. If you have the option of a ga, I'd go for it, I didn't have the choice as I was on a 2week referral and the wait for ga is about 6 weeks here. I found it absolutely barbaric.

Edited for typo

Speaking as someone who finds smears agony (tilted uterus, stage 4 endometriosis) I wasn’t overjoyed when my GP couldn’t retrieve my Mirena, snapped the strings and after rummaging around for some time, admitted defeat and said I’d need to go to a local clinic to have it retrieved via hysteroscopy. The doctor who did it was a specialist and apparently very good but my god I was nervous. No GA was ever mentioned; iirc I’d been told to take the usual paracetamol but that was it, other than a nurse’s hand to hold.

I have to say, the doctor really was good - just as it was starting to feel very slightly painful, she managed to get hold of the elusive coil, and I could watch it happening on the monitor. If it had gone on any longer, though, I suspect I’d be reporting a different and much worse experience.

However, I’m a firm believer in medical procedures being as painless as possible, and tbh I still can’t quite get my head around the way women generally are expected to put up with frankly astonishing levels of agony as routine (that’s something you definitely encounter attempting to get a diagnosis of endometriosis, sadly).

When I had a hysteroscopy around 20 years ago, no pain relief was offered. I had it in a private hospital (on the NHS), too. It wasn't unbearably painful but it was deeply unpleasant. The dilating of the cervix caused by body to go into some kind of panic and it couldn't decide whether it wanted to pass out or vomit. They tilted the bed back so the blood rushed to my head. They said it wasn't uncommon for people to pass out. I've had quite few cervical procedures (biopsies, a large LLETZ, silver nitrate treatment, dozens of smears including with a intra-cervical brush). Many were more painful but none were as unpleasant as that hysteroscopy. I genuinely can't believe I was told that numbing or sedation are unnecessary - looking back I'm genuinely astounded that women were put through it with no pain relief or sedation.

Things are different now - they've realised they underestimated the pain involved in the newer, slimmer tools brought in in the 2000s. If I was given gas and air and a local anaesthetic (especially now I've had two kids), I think I'd avoid the GA. I wouldn't do it without gas and air, though. For me it wasn't the pain - I'd need to be high as all hell to risk feeling that faint, sick and vulnerable again - I've never felt worse

I had one recently, with a biopsy. It wasn’t agony, more uncomfortable and I found the whole thing a bit overwhelming. I think if I were to have one again I’d look for sedation

I had uterine polyp removal under local a few years ago. I mean it was pretty grim - sedation would made it more bearable. Thank goodness dh came to take me home as I was a bit shaken afterwards and def wasn’t up to driving.
The actually hysteroscopy to diagnose the polyps was really painful. The nurse said ‘we sometimes take out the polyp at this point but I can see you won’t be able to tolerate that’. No shit!

I had one done last year biopsy, polyps removal and merina and had it under GA privately as covered on DHs insurance and the private hospital only did them under GA...which I thought was interesting as I was on an NHS waiting list and that wasn't mentioned there

It’s so strange to me that we are all accepting the horror that was back street abortion but we just accept that women are still asked to go through procedures like this where they routinely pass out.

I passed out twice from Mirena insertions and had a GA for my hysteroscopy. But I had to argue very strongly for it!

Mine was agony - going from zero to what felt like full-blown labour pains. I was shouting with pain, so they had to move very quickly to get the biopsy done and get out. I had gas & air but it didn't touch the sides. I was fine afterwards (well, not fine, exactly, as I'd seen something very obviously cancerous on the camera), but if I ever needed another I would ask for GA. Luckily, as I have no cervix or uterus anymore, that won't be an issue.