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.

She might well have been! I was pretty stunned she said that. It would have been one thing if she'd been asking for diagnostic purposes, which I originally assumed she must be, but nope, turned out it was her idea of small talk. I'd much rather have discussed the weather!

And potentially life saving for someone who doesn’t realise they may have the early stages of cancer. Which do you think is more important ?

I was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and have had a mastectomy. I have a full body scan (CT) every year and MRI every couple of years because the cancer has a high incidence of recurrence anywhere in the body. Which do you think poses the most risk ?

no. It’s really not. At all.

Your post makes no sense. The OP could have made her points without the stupid click- bait title.

Yes, she could. But many posters are here because of it.

They don't look at the cells if the swab is negative though so it makes no different.

You have no idea what the result would be if she'd picked something else.

It's about the gazillionth time there's been threads about smear tests. The "twigs and leaves" reference is bizarre.

The OP comes across as smug and self satisfied. The reference to "twigs and leaves" made me think of a brutal rape and murder case and I clicked on it wondering why someone would (be so stupid to refer to it) use it.

Very sorry to hear that. Clearly the cancer recurring poses the higher risk. Somebody suggested upthread that wedemand brain scans in case we get brain tumours so I was just looking up risks vs benefits stuff

Yes it kinda is.

Sex when aroused is completely different to a speculum in a medical setting and someone scraping your cervix. Alluding that a vagina is an open all hours for any situation because it was broken in by a penis during consented intercourse is grotesque.

If it wasn't so awful it would be funny. Reminds me of The Bridge. The swedish detective has been advised to make small talk, so out of the blue she announces 'I got my period today.'

Another one who says that gas and air does nothing. It just makes me vomit.

Also, PP saying a nurse was 'probably aspergic or something'. Really? Did you actually think before you went to the trouble of typing that?

😄😄

I thought I was the only one who had problems at the dentist - last time he apparently used 9 vials of anaesthetic and I still felt it! I have doubts about how well sedation or local anaesthetic would work for me

But it's hard to find a subject that doesn't have several threads.

Oh I hate smear tests and they definitely hurt!
I kind of try and move away from it as it’s going on 😂

I had to have Lletz treatment for abnormal cells though so will never miss one as much as I hate them.

I'm fed up of being badgered by my surgery into having one. Never had one, never will and wish they would leave me alone tbh. I don't need THREE reminders about it. If I wanted one I'd have one.

It used to be extremely painful and at times impossible to carry out the procedure both at the clinic and at my GPs so I empathise with you. I don't have children though so maybe that was one of the reasons it was so very, very painful and as I said before impossible sometimes.

OMG me too! And I thought I was the only one too. No one ever seems to believe me, except dentists/doctors who have the misfortune of trying to get me numb…

I wish I knew what caused it. It’s a big part of the reason (though not the whole reason) I have to have private dentistry.

Feeling your pain, literally!

I didn't understand it so I clicked on it but still don't know why they used that as title.

I thought it was a fake post by a weird man pretending to be a woman to get off on rhe replies lol.

Well I guess things have changed a lot since I had my 1st coil fitted. It was before I got married and before I had children. It felt queasy going in and that night I was in agony (this was the old copper coil). I had a hot water bottle on my front and one on my back and took pain killers. It was so bad I had made my mind up to go back to the Well woman clinic and get it taken out. I must have passed out and when I woke in the morning the pain was gone. I couldn't believe it! It certainly made my periods heavier but as a contraceptive it worked. Eventually I got married and when we decided to start a family and had it removed. They told us to be careful (use condoms) for the 1st month which we did. The following month I fell pregnant straight away. I had another one fitted six weeks after the birth of my baby. This time it was a copper 7 Not so bad this time and I kept it in until we decided to go for another child. Same experience I fell pregnant as soon as we stopped using condoms. After I had given birth I had another one fitted but said to my husband it was his turn next. I put up with the heavy periods for another two years until he had a vasectomy. Unfortunately over few years my periods got heavier and heavier so that I actually flooded each month. I saw a gynecologist who tried me on Mefenamic acid and another drug that I can't recall but they made no difference. I ended up having an endometrial ablation. Then a few years later had an prolapse and had a hysterectomy. It was while actually working in the gynecology dept I overheard the consultant telling a registrar that they had stopped that procedure because all the women ended up needing a hysterectomy and the go to thing now was to have the Marina coil fitted instead.

Have you read this thread? Lots of women saying it was not just a little painful but pure agony.
Please dont dismiss our experiences.

Yes, and many here to say how ridiculous it is to have a stupid title. There probably would have been an even better response to a more normal thread title 🤷‍♀️

Which procedure? The ablation? Any specific technique?