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

[User748937744]

Ok, clickbait title - for a reason!

I am in my 40s and had my first smear test today. It was so fine and so quick and so painless and so straightforward and I wish I’d been brave enough to go for all the many years I’ve ignored the invitations!

Aibu to tell as many people as I can who might also never have gone to just do it?

I’ll happily go back next time I’m called.

I only went today because I’ve had some symptoms that were concerning.

It was so built up as something embarrassing and possibly painful in my head and it just wasn’t either.

Please, please go. You can always say you’re nervous and would like to be seen by someone really understanding.

Is it still flying over people's heads? How many people are reading this comments? 100 women? 200? Maybe a 1000? And how many of them see those comments and decide never to have a smear test they would very likely have had no issue with because of it! How many might die? I never see an ounce of decency in those posts where the poster says that their experience is rare and that women should absolutely be tested! Not one! They paint it black and refuse to damage limitate! And you wonder why it makes me mad! Go and visit an oncology unit and have a think about it!

or there might be something that HCPs don't bother doing that will make it more bearable.
Numbing gel.

If it helps anyone, i had years of really painful smears, till one nurse said I have a very tilted cervix and to bunch my fists under my back to lift my hips up (like butterfly bridge for any yoga people). Transformed.

There's no decency in the posts! Nobody ends the comments encouraging women to still have smears because most women cope with it just fine! Go to a oncology unit or ask Jade Goodies kids who grew up without her if I'm being dramatic! A woman that reads comments like that could end up dead!

Thanks this is really helpful. I'm 46 have had no previous issues and been in a monogamous relationship for more than 25 years. I'm going to do a bit more looking into things but I really can't see any point in putting myself through the hassle rather than just doing an HPV swab.

I had pre cancerous cells aged 23, detected through a smear test. Mine would have turned to cancer. 23 years old, 23! So I’d probably have been dead by 30 had I not been for smear tests. I’m very thankful we have them. I would encourage everyone to be tested. Yes everyone has different experiences, ranging from nothing to excruciating. Personally, I’d choose excruciating over dying every time 🤷‍♀️

So women who are experiencing literal agony every time they go for a smear should stay silent? Presumably because they're just being ninnies and dramatic attention seekers, everyone knows it's just a moment of mild discomfort, get over yourself Sandra.

Or, alternatively, we could calmly introduce into the narrative the information that 'smears are painful for some women. If you experience pain, tell the clinician straight away, he/she will help you.' And then fucking CHANGE the narrative around women's pain during smears, and CHANGE how clinicians approach them, so that said clinician actually does help, is trained to know what to do for those of us who struggle with smears - different size speculum, different position, whatever's needed - and doesn't lose patience, rush the patient, sneer, 'other' the patient if they are built differently down there (as has happened to me), or imply the patient is just being a big ol' baby and needs to woman up.

Then perhaps we'd have a shot at win-win, with more women attending for smears and fewer opting out. More lives saved. Or, you know, women could just carry on shaming other women over their pain. Whatever. 🤷‍♀️

I guess I should also have added that women shouldn’t ignore symptoms either
whether or not they have had a smear.

Thanks for this op - I have been putting it off. Will book!

FFS if you read my previous posts I've mentioned what helped me. It also helped me knowing that other people find smears traumatic. If I thought everyone else breezed through them I'd think there was something wrong with me. So please take your fucking dramatics and maybe do something useful like suggest how women who are traumatised can find ways to cope with the smear, rather than visit a fucking oncology unit.

💛

All of this, said so much more eloquently than I could

Women likely share that smears are painful because we mostly hear "don't be frightened to get smears, they're painless, you just need to relax"... like we're just being silly. It's very annoying.

I have attended every single smear test I've been invited to, and I have excellent pain tolerance and control of my breathing, but they are VERY painful for me. Yes they're worth doing, but women are allowed to share their experiences! Lying that they're painless for all women doesn't help. Sharing experiences and strategies for reducing pain does!

This thread reminds me of threads where someone is talking about their awful mother and people pile in to say “at least you have a mother, mine has died”.

Quite clearly the op had good intentions starting this thread to encourage women who have never been, to go. I expect this thread has had the absolute opposite effect.

She wasn’t denying anyone’s experience. Or trying to silence women. She was telling us about her experience which is just as valid as anyone else’s.

bloody stupid title though op 😬

Such dramatics. As I’ve said above, Jade Goody had repeated smears. She said in an interview that she ignored one letter saying she needed yet more cells from her cervix removed - the fourth time she had been required to have this. This was then twisted to make it sounds like she never went for smears. She did. She was having severe symptoms for four years with bleeding and passing out from pain and repeatedly sought medical help and was fobbed off. All the while the cancer was growing. The sheer arrogance of the NHS to try to use her story as some sort of lesson for women who don’t have smear tests. It’s a textbook of failure.

This 1000%.

But the comments online aren't calm are they! Look at your awful use of words "women in literal agony" ? What have you achieved by posting such an extreme statement? Except terrifying women out of smears! You don't need to post extreme scare mongering. You write in your first comment that women are in literal agony for every smear test and then pretended to be level headed in your next paragraph? Too late you've already done the damage! My smears hurt but it's a few minutes and needs to be done and most women will cope just fine with it.

For those experiencing pain like I have, you speak to the nurse doing it! You don't go online and deliberately put other women off!
And don't make fake names up for me! You don't sound big or clever doing it!

But these comments will stop women having smears and the result will be the same! An avoidable loss of life! So many horrible women on here calling cancer "dramatics"! It's not dramatics to the families picking up the pieces after a woman dies and leaves kids and a bereft husband and parents behind.

She's making women realise that they're not alone if they find it agonising.

As for speaking to the nurse, don't make me laugh. I'm sure there are some who would actually care but there's even an HCP on this thread saying 'A few moments of being uncomfortable could save your life!' and minimising what some women go through. Surely she should be acknowledging that many women find it very painful and offering the benefit of her experience.

Some attitudes seem to be keeping silent about the pain, repeat the party line that it's totally painless for all to trick more women into making an uninformed decision!

Jade Goody had many many symptoms of cervical cancer. She chose not to attend an appointment advising her that further cells required removing. I'm not sure how over the years this has been morphed into a narrative that she never had a smear test in her life.

Jade's death was a tragedy and bought attention to cervical cancer. It should also have bought attention throughout the NHS about cervical screening, how it is handled, WHY people choose not to attend (and whether that is simply because they can't be bothered - I suspect not!) and making changes to manage the pain some women experience. Instead they chose to plaster a message around that it's painless, and leave women who experience severe pain and bleeding to feel they were just not tough enough/deformed down there.

I was told that my cervix looked perfectly healthy and that being able to see it clearly was also really helpful for the medical team. Just my experience/what I was told.

Thank you for posting this. I sincerely hope it’s as straightforward for you as it was for me. Please do tell them that you’re nervous (if you are)!

I wonder if anyone is ever referred as a result of something visual? I have certainly never heard of it but I guess it's possible.

It feels like they're doing less testing, but from what I've read, it's not actually for cost-cutting purposes - HPV primary testing is more sensitive, catching significantly more cases of pre-cancerous cells than traditional cytology alone, and allows detection earlier. Cell changes without HPV are no longer considered as high-risk for cancer. You're also much less likely to go on to develop cancer in the next 5 years after a negative HPV test, than you are in the 3 years after negative cytology.

Yes it has nothing to do with corner cutting