Polite Reminder: Get your smear tests done!

[cjt110]

Just that really.

I saw on the BBC news this morning a lady who had her smear test done a few weeks late. Fortunately, her cancer was caught early enough and she is almost 2 years into remission.

It made me wonder about when my last one was - I must call and check.

Also, the sad storyline playing out in Coronation Street at the moment with Sinead.

So... Off you go. Go check. Get it booked.

Bump

Go get checked!

Thankfully I get a text from my GP when I'm due a smear test. But yes, I agree, it's very important. Takes two minutes. A little bit uncomfortable temporarily maybe, but in the long term, it will save your life.

I will book mine. 6 months overdue.

I'm waiting for an appointment to have my smear done under sedation or general. My last smear was abnormal and I had to be put under general to have the loop done.

I've been to the hospital twice for them to try and do the smear and both times they couldn't. First time they just couldn't find my cervix and the second time the pain was unbearable he had to stop within about 5 seconds and I've had period like pains since.

They think the previous loop took too much of the cervix away which is causing the issue.

Now a mum to a 15 month DD I know I can never take the chance to not get it done whatever it takes.

The waiting time is variable across the country at present because there is a shortage of trained screening staff.
This is because of the introduction of Primary HPV testing by the end of next year. Fewer screening staff (in the lab who read the tests) will be needed, so they are leaving and finding other jobs (not surprisingly). Instead of about 50 labs, there will be 13 labs in England.
Hence the waiting time for results has gone up.
Some labs have been allowed to start doing Primary HPV testing now to help with the waiting times, so it is getting better.
There may be a blood test for HPV, however (1) some people find having blood taken very difficult and painful and (2) if the test is positive you then need to know what the HPV infection is doing and to do that you need to look at the cervical cells. Unfortunately there's not any easy answer to this.

Please do. Or to put it less politely - if you don't go for your smear test you are a fucking idiot!!!

My very lovely colleague died from cervical cancer aged 21 as she was too young for a smear test and her arsehole GP wouldn't refer her when she went to him complaining of constant bleeding. By the time she sought a second opinion it was too late.

It's not the most pleasant of tests I know, but it's not that bad. My appointment to get a cervical cap fitted was much worse! But it's far less fucking worse than radical surgery/a hysterectomy or dying of cancer. Please go. Get tested.

And blokes don't have the test for prostate cancer much easier. A doctor's finger up the bum won't be very pleasant for them either.

Can't we all just be grown up about this stuff and just get on with the diagnostic business?. Who the fuck wants to suffer or die from conditions we can identify early and treat?

Smear tests aren't a diagnostic tool. They are a screening tool for women who don't have any symptoms. If you actually have symptoms of cervical cancer then you need different tests.

I don't think blokes are screened for prostate cancer in the UK either .

Also what's with the assumption that if you don't have smear tests then you are going to automatically get cancer as a result? It's not a one or the other situation.

I'm not stupid either. I have autism and having a speculum stuck up there for a smear was agonizing. It took the nurse six attempts and I was crying out the whole time

I wish I could, mine must be a year overdue by now. They closed my local FPC and the fancy new sexual health clinic which ‘replaced’ it doesn’t do smears. The practice nurse at the GP’s is booked solid weeks in advance and they haven’t yet been able to offer me an appointment which doesn’t coincide with my period. The booking system won’t allow for dates past a certain point in the future and I don’t seem to be able to get in quickly enough to grab one before they’re all gone.

I am nervous, had a really bad experience with the practice nurse at my previous GP (which is why I’d been happily going to the FPC for years) so I do tend to put it out of my mind for a while after the latest failed attempt to book an appointment so I’m probably not helping myself, it’s just shit that they’ve closed the one place I felt comfortable going.

Please do. Or to put it less politely - if you don't go for your smear test you are a fucking idiot!!!

My very lovely colleague died from cervical cancer aged 21 as she was too young for a smear test and her arsehole GP wouldn't refer her when she went to him complaining of constant bleeding. By the time she sought a second opinion it was too late.

I’m not a “fucking idiot”. I’veade a reasoned, evidence based decision that my personal risk of developing cervical cancer is very low so it’s not worth the risk of over treatment.

What happened to your colleague was tragic and I’m sorry for your loss. She needed referring to gynaecologist for diagnostic tests, not a standard screening smear.

PlantsArePeopleToo I know where you're coming from. But, like you said, it can help as a screening tool that could save thousands of lives.

That doesn't sound pleasant what happened to you though

Well tbf if the GP didn't refer her to a gynecologist then yes he's an arsehole. Bit if he simply refused her a smear test then he wasn't because a smear test wouldn't be appropriate for someone with symptoms.

Im going for LLETZ treatment next week.
I’ve gone from HPV related non cancerous changes, to precancerous cells in 12 months.
Go go go.

I am due a smear but ten months after a terrible birth injury I can’t face it. And I have symptoms. I cry when I think about it but the fear has me gripped. I don’t know what to do.

If you have symptoms you need to see your gp to discuss them nohuffle. That’s really important. You don’t have to have a smear done there and then. You don’t need a regular screening tool. If you’ve got symptoms you need investigations. If you’ve got a young baby, do it for them. They need their mum around.

What symptoms do you have? They might just be related to your birth injury rather than anything that necessarily needs investigating. The key thing is to chat to your doctor. You’re in control if anything else they suggest doing in terms of tests.

What tests would they give instead of the smear?
I don’t want to list symptoms for everyone to call me an arse for not going. I still ha e night terrors over the birth and well up just sitting on the toilet sometimes so the thought of anything going in there is killing me. I struggle with even the idea of entering a gp office ☹️
Thank you for replying.

I found this thread while in tears worrying

You’re not an arse. Being scared to go is totally understandable.

How would you feel about a telephone appointment with your gp? It’s important to discuss with them what’s going on so they can advise you on what might need to happen to find out if anything untoward is going on.

Do you have any follow up at gynae? That could be a place to seek advice.

It takes at least ten years from first exposure to hpv to develop cervical cancer, so those few weeks wouldn't have made a difference

And as others have said, a smear isn't an appropriate test for irregular bleeding.

nohufflefucksgiven (love your name btw!) I had serious birth injuries too but seem to have avoided too much emotional scarring, which I think is down to the amazing care I received in labour - really sorry to hear you’re struggling. It’s hard enough just navigating the physical side. It sounds like you could do with some help processing the trauma if that’s not something you’ve done already. Your health visitor or gp should be able to advise you. I found it really helpful going over my labour notes with my gynaecologist - like I had more ownership over my experience if that makes sense - so you could ask about this if you think it might be helpful.

As I said upthread the nurse who did my last smear was brilliant, put me at ease and advised me on how to lie so she could get the sample quickly and painlessly despite my tattered insides.

I think see your GP about what sounds like possibly PTSD, and your gynae symptoms, so you can work out how to sort both. Good luck

I do think women should get fully informed of the smear test and it’s limitations - there’s no evidence it saves 1000s of lives. Cell changes happen all the time so if you get tested and it’s abnormal, you could then be normal again 6 months later. But in that time if you go on to have invasive procedures to check you could be doing yourself a lot of emotional and physical damage (it’s known to cause pre-term births).

I did post links upthread with more information if people read them.

I’m not against the smear but I am against the overdone propaganda to have it as there’s no evidence whatsoever that any less women have died since it came into play. And if it’s that super shouldn’t we have it more than every three years? What if I get tested on year 1, develop cancer with no symptoms 6 months later, then don’t get tested again until year 3? Nobody can do anything about that.

It’s screening, not diagnostic. And screening isn’t necessarily a good thing. It’s already been found that the mammograms used for screening cause more harm than good.

0.65% women will get cervical cancer.

We have to screen 1000 women for 35 years to save 10.

That’s the facts. And of course those 10 lives are very valuable but in the meantime 1000s of women who could just as easily die from any other cancer or disease or being hit by a bus or an asthma attack are guilted and pushed and bullied into having what can for many be a horrendous and traumatic experience. It does hurt for many and it doesn’t take a few seconds.

I for one am pretty fed up with everyone spouting the campaign lines and ‘war time’ style propaganda without taking time to do their own research.

The Daily Mail claimed the smear ‘saves 1000s of lives’....the NHS website itself says they cannot back up this claim.

Go to Margaret McCartney’s website or better still read her book The Patient Paradox which is short and only a couple of quid as download.

And fgs with the jokes when people like me have said how dreadful the smears are and how we’ve been abused. Bully for you if it’s all easy but there are a huge number of us who go through hell for them and essentially for nothing as such an incredibly small proportion of women get it - far more will die of breast cancer.

Prostrate cancer is more common so why aren’t they shaming men and telling them they’ll leave their kids fatherless unless they submit up testing?!

It’s financially motivated at its core and I hope with the new blood test etc there will be a change to it but please, do all your research before you spout it saves lives. There’s no real evidence of that.

Should also add that women who find abnormal cells and get them lasered off then assume it saved them when those cells could have returned to normal so the great many women who assume it did something for them may actually be misinformed. To me, that sucks.