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.

I am trying to get you to understand what other women go through, but I am clearly flogging a dead horse. I 'pretended' nothing. I flagged the literal agony (no exaggeration) in strong terms deliberately, to highlight the need for better procedures during smears. My request for calm was a direct response to your hyberbole and the multiple exclamation marks you used. Did I use language such as 'dramatic scare story', 'smash a big fist through any good', accuse anyone of depriving children of their mother, or suggest that women should be silent about their pain? No. Did I use a single exclamation mark in my response to you? No.

And it's obvious you couldn't be bothered to read/digest my post properly, otherwise you'd have presumably taken in the fact that I was proposing something that would increase the number of smear tests taken, thereby decreasing instances of cervical cancer and subsequent deaths. It's hardly rocket science. But hey, you carry on invalidating other women's experiences, proposing that women's pain not be talked about, and trying to silence posters on this thread, if you really think that's a more effective way of getting more women to have smears. 🤷‍♀️

Also, I wasn't calling you 'Sandra', that wasn't the context at all. If you're going to carry on accusing other posters of all sorts, I suggest you at least do them the courtesy of reading their posts properly before jumping to react.

I am glad people are posting their experiences about pain and bad attitudes from HCPs as it has made me feel a lot less alone and like a freak.
Women sharing those personal experiences about pain are not putting off others from having smears. What is putting of women is the potential to be patronised by nurses and treated like they have something wrong with them for feeling pain. The blame is put on the woman laying on the table instead of the person at the foot of it.
Yet women on here are doing the same to each other. What happened to 'my body my choice'? It seems cervixes are fair game on here and everyone gets to have an opinion on everyone elses.
Making out like all women will eventually have cervical cancer one day and smear tests are what stop them. Scaring women into a test with a lie is not on either.
If lots of women are in pain then something about the procedure needs to change and there is nothing wrong with highlighting that.

I had a traumatic experience with one in my twenties.

For everyone it's not just 'go! it's nothing!'

Ask her. She's on this thread. Nobody really knows. Every figure is an estimate. I'm sure the practice nurse who bothered to participate in this thread - for no personal gain - won't have plucked the number out of thin air.

Obs and Gyn consultants are truly horrible. Arrogant, belittling and (in one case) surprisingly ignorant.

@user1493379562 Well done to the consultant who admits it's 'mainly' caused by sex. The NHS should be doing more to get the message across that the virus can spread in other ways. Some women will be stopping smears because they think they can't get HPV, but we can all get it. I'm living proof.

I appreciate this is all true and most cases of cervical cancer are caused by HPV. My concern is with the few who may fall through the cracks and develop cervical cancer without having HPV. I do feel this is corner cutting. I've also learned from this thread that you can do a HPV test at home, so sitting there legs akimbo for what many women find an embarrassing and uncomfortable test seems almost pointless if they aren't screening the sample fully.

I’ve always gone and actually had my first smear as a teenager as they do that in the US before you go on the pill. At most they were slightly uncomfortable though you do feel rather vulnerable but it’s a necessity and it never occurred to me to not go. But my last at about age 60 was so painful even the nurse suggested that it be the last one (I haven’t been sexually active since my DH passed away 15 years ago). Unless I have some symptoms I’m never doing that again.

It doesn't matter matter if you have only had sex with one man. If he had, had sex with another woman previous to you he could have picked up a HPV which can remain dormant for years and years. According to the consultant I worked for even nuns can get HPV! Maybe not all nuns are virgins when they take up their vows, who knows?

I think you will find nurses that specialise in any specialty have to do extensive training in the subject. When I worked in Colposcopy we had practice nurses who came into observe what happens to women with positive smear tests.so they could relate it to their patients if necessary They are not just nurses so please don't be so condescending. I would advise any women who experience difficulties with a nurse at a GP clinic go to a well woman or GUM clinic instead.

Yes, communication was and is an issue. Last time I went for a mammogram (Ireland) it was all very clearly explained in the booklet they gave me to read BUT I’m not sure it would clear to someone who had English as a second language or whose literacy was poor for whatever reason.

I had to scrape my friend off the ceiling a few years ago when she got her first HPV positive result at 40. Had to convince her that it didn’t mean her husband had cheated on her and how common it is. She said (her words) ‘they should make it clearer as she felt like an absolute slapper with an STI’

I
think it would be better to offer the self testing kits.

I HATE going for a smear - find it acutely embarrassing and get so worked up and anxious beforehand. I’ve had them regularly since I was 18 - am now 58 and due another but I don’t plan to make an appointment.

I was told my cervix looked perfectly healthy too … then the result came back with pre cancerous cells 🤔

But isn't she right to be suspicious? Unless that was her first ever HPV test? Sorry this may be my ignorance but it is sexually transmitted isn't it? How did she pick it up if not?

She could have had caught it decades ago. In the 3 years since her last negative test she’d had 3 bouts of bad covid , most likely knocking her immune system and flaring up a previous infection . HPV lies dormant and can come and go. I was negative and then positive after pregnancy , again something that knocks your immune system. I knew I already had it as I’d had cells removed 15 years prior. Menopause is another thing that can lower your immunity and cause a flare up.

Oh right, didn't realise it can come and go. In which case only testing for HPV at smear tests sounds dangerous. It all seems very confusing to me.

Is that deaths?

No screening programme is ever 100% going to catch every case, this newer testing programme will catch more, not fewer cases. Last I saw, Public Health Scotland were reporting NO cases of cancer in women who had been vaccinated against HPV. Obviously it's early days in both vaccinations and HPV-primary testing but everything points to this being the most effective route to go down because cervical cancer is so overwhelmingly caused by HPV.

I do agree that making women go through the full smear process when they're not routinely testing the samples is not great. They're already talking about rolling out at-home tests to certain groups though so I presume that's the way it'll go in the longer term for everyone, but we know the NHS don't change things quickly!

I think you mean well .Sadly your own experience is just that really .your own take on an intimate and sometimes traumatic test.Millions of women are tested and by the law of averages not all are going to have the same outcome.My own have been mixed .They are often uncomfortable and invasive .I dont think it is helpful to assume just because you had a good experience that we all will!

Re nuns, the study in Ghana tested 105 nuns and 25 of them were HPV pos. Don't know how many were high risk. Of these, 4 had abnormal cells, 2 of whom had further investigation. Both were OK. These results were much the same as in the general population. You might get a scattering of nuns having had sex, but you wouldn't expect as much infection as with other women. It strongly suggests there are other methods of transmission.

So lame that people are replying negatively. Well done OP - I’m 43 and I’m shy/lazy/have moved home. Buts no excuse, and I’ve been a heavy smoker all my life. I will book mine off the back of your thread - THANK YOU!!

You'll always get people responding negatively and looking for something to criticise, usually using clever language in an attempt to put down the rest of us. That's just another day in the MN office. The OP's resilient.

I actually just booked mine. Even making the phone call sends me into a spin. It’s not the test that bothers me , it’s knowing that once that test is done the anxiety of waiting for the result sets in ., then when the result is no doubt positive for HPV /dodgy cells again it’s then the wait for the colposcopy and then the sickening wait for the post man dropping the letter through the door starts again for this result . Repeat each year .

@User748937744 😂 Really glad they genuinely didn’t find any twigs or leaves! I started to wonder about your outdoor sexlife!!

They’re better than they used to be!! Thankfully!!