I had a smear on Monday, but when I got home I noticed small amounts of blood when I wiped?

[dilemma01]

Is this normal, or is my result likely to come back unsatifactory? I know its common for the nurses to cut you slightly during the smear.

I always bleed for a couple of days, just spotting. It's all that hoking around. Perfectly normal

Oh good, cant remember from the last time, I dont want to have to go and do it again.

I was cut the time before last, there was even some blood on the slide. Results still came back fine.
So if it is just a small amount, and it has now stopped, then I would not worry

Its normal. I even had one doctors surgery who habitually handed out panty liners to put on whilst you got dressed again.

Normal in my experience

I usually bleed. My old surgery used to hand out panty liners

the new way the samples are processed cleans up much of any blood and other cells which can make it hard to read the sample. The unsatisfactory/unsuitable/inadequate rate has gone down from 10% to around 2-3%.
If you bled at the time of taking the sample, there's more chance these days that the lab should still be ok to read the sample.
The LBC ones are so much easier to look at than the old style preps, I would be seriously upset if we had to go back.

The applicator used to collect smears is different now. It resembles a small brush (old one used to be like a wooden spatula).

The brush is made from hard plastic, so I think this may cause more injury. The results we get from using this method are much more reliable.

Cheshirekitty - do you work in cytology too?