Women failing to attend smear tests

Rogue, when I started reading your post, I thought you were going to say you were in the US! Why 16 btw?

I urge everyone to get this done it's literally a life saving procedure that takes literally around 30 seconds

30 seconds? Even ignoring the hour it will take me to get to the clinic and the time waiting, plus the hour back again, it still takes at leats 15 minutes just in the room.

RogueBiscuit great post.

The fact that normal standard check-ups in USA involve a vaginal rummage in america is just, wow.

I really think that there are some very old very dodgy ideas about women and their bodies and especially about their reproductive / sexual organs that have somehow carried through to modern day, probably because no-one has questioned them. Well I mean lots of women have questioned them, but not men, so it didn't matter.

30 seconds? Have you rtft?

Yeah I've had stacks and I'd say about 2 have been absolutely fine and the rest have been uncomfortable, painful, taking a while etc

I also don't like it when they make personal comments about your bits.
One said to me "Oooh your vagina slopes back a lot how does that work with sex then?" and a friend had the women comment on the colour.

www.theguardian.com/society/2003/may/22/genderissues.publichealth

In order to save one life from cervical cancer, the research found, 1,000 women would need to be screened for 35 years. Worse, the researchers suggested that testing might do "more harm than good": women born after 1960, they found, have a 40 per cent chance of having a smear test labelled abnormal at some point in their lives

This public debate has really left me feeling yuck. There's the idea that women absolutely must submit to these tests and that women's bodies are public property. I remember being bullied into having a horrible examination and smear test at 16 for no reason. And it's carried on ever since. At antenatal clinic years ago I would have a doctor rummaging around in my vagina at every single visit. Or no pill unless you submitted to an internal. No pain relief in labour unless you submit to an internal. No job in some cases unless you submit to an internal by some dirty old male doctor.

And it's even worse in the US where girls as young as 12 are routinely having gyno exams. I dread to think how many times I've been unnecessary examined like this and I didn't consent to any of it. I'm still alive and my vagina didn't kill me.

What this article shows is that when women say NO it's not respected at all.It's not ok to bully women into intimate examinations. Women don't have to justify why they don't want them. This is about consent, not a very rare cancer.

Snap @itshappening

your an adult pull up your big girl pants

Could you be a little more patronising, condescending, unsympathetic and just generally dismissive please?

I think you might have missed the rest of the thread and the comments of lots of big girls who have pants but just don't want to do as they are told and drop them.

It has never taken less than 10 minutes for me and the worse was about 25 whilst she went off for different speculums and eventually a more experienced nurse. Your experience is not universal.

I am not sure why the procedure is described by a pp as taking literally 30 seconds, or by the NHS as usually not camusing any pain. Don't get me wrong, a longer procedure and pain are not good reasons not to go, but they are reality for many surely.

Mine have always taken ages and been very painful both during and to a lesser extent afterwards. They have taken ages with nurses fetching alternative speculums, and one time going to fetch a doctor as she just could not do it. Even the doctor struggled. I don't know why but it is always the same. And it really hurts!

I don't know

People read it all and say you must

There is no exception etc just you must

Almost sounds like they want women restrained and have it done to them if they won't stop being so silly oh and won't you think of the children?

Meanwhile as PP mentioned women are dying due to hopeless treatment of heart attack as we don't show the "proper" symptoms ie like a man, and not a squeak.

If women could keep our big girl pants pulled up then there probably wouldn't be so much of an issue

'I was reading this yesterday on Facebook and ladies were commenting but it's just sooo embarrassing and I've even had kids, but I just can't get over the embarrassment" - your an adult pull up your big girl pants and just get over the uncomfortable 30 seconds or so it takes.'

You do realise that it's more than just embarrassing for many women, having read this thread, surely, given that plenty of women have shared how painful they find smears and/or hard to attend because they are survivors of rape/sexual abuse?

In the past, over zealous screening led to lots of women having investigations and ? treatments that they didn't need

My understanding is that if your cervix has been mucked around with (had bits cut out etc) you are more at risk of "incompetent cervix) which is in turn a risk for miscarriage

So, that's not trivial, at all.

I might google to try and find some more.

Also, incompetent cervix? Is any part of a man's body called incompetent like this?

I was reading this yesterday on Facebook and ladies were commenting but it's just sooo embarrassing and I've even had kids, but I just can't get over the embarrassment" - your an adult pull up your big girl pants and just get over the uncomfortable 30 seconds or so it takes.

I'm 26 and have had my smears done since I was 20.

I urge everyone to get this done it's literally a life saving procedure that takes literally around 30 seconds.

My aunt had cervical cancer and to save her life he had to have everything removed she was only late 20s and she didn't have a chance to have kids ect, she was just planning them them.

My mum then had same problem and had everything removed around 3 years ago now.

Please please please have these done ladies its literally saved 2 of my family members lives.

'I don't mind smear tests. ln my view a small price to pay for the sake of my health and to be around for my children. I've also had abnornal cells in the past so I would never ever turn down an appointment. I've had other internal examinations related to pregnancies and a smear test was not much different.'

I don't, either, but you know, I realise they might be very painful and traumatic for others. That requires ability to realise that one's personal experience is just that, and does not define universal experience.

I think HCPs know Xeno. I just don’t think they care.

I don't mind smear tests. ln my view a small price to pay for the sake of my health and to be around for my children. I've also had abnornal cells in the past so I would never ever turn down an appointment. I've had other internal examinations related to pregnancies and a smear test was not much different.

'If I'm feeling stressed I just ask my husband to shout repeatedly into my face "RELAX". It works wonders, you should all try it. Perhaps I'll suggest it gets rolled out as a national programme. It would save a fortune on mental health care.'

Works wonders on flashbacks, when, like the person can't even hear you because they're not their in their mind. Or when you've been stabbed in the chest like that poor woman and your lungs are full of blood. Deffo.

You'd think with all the #MeToo stuff and everything that people would be able to get their heads round the fact that enormous numbers of women have been victims of sexual violence, wouldn't you?

The fact of it is that society doesn’t want to admit the true scale of sexual violence against women, and how that relates to medical care.

Very few HCPs care in my experience.

This is a beautifully written blog on the matter.

Smear tests and being a survivor

"more women die of heart disease than breast cancer but there is no national screening for that"

The over-40 national screening covers heart disease risk factors. Well, that's the case for England, no idea if the devolved regions do the same.

Why is it that national screening programs are only for breast and cervical cancer, what about all the other female cancers we could get, why no screening for those? more women die of heart disease than breast cancer but there is no national screening for that. Maybe someone with better knowledge can enlighten me?

If I'm feeling stressed I just ask my husband to shout repeatedly into my face "RELAX". It works wonders, you should all try it. Perhaps I'll suggest it gets rolled out as a national programme. It would save a fortune on mental health care.