Women failing to attend smear tests

[guardianfree]

Women generally but young women in particular - 1 in 3 not attending.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/jos-cervical-cancer-trust-charity-smear-tests-terminal-illness-health-wellbeing-hospitals-a8171011.html

I know they're unpleasant (and often feel humiliating) but what can we do to reassure women that they can be life savers?

Perhaps one day men will campaign for better screening for prostate and testicular screening, and perhaps one day a universal screening will be rolled out for them too.

I believe someone has posted upthread that it is being.

Can you see how the initial pro women's rights associations might make ending or reducing screening a more difficult sell to some quarters, if it were to be subsequently felt that the programme wasn't worth the risks and/or resources trojan?

I saw posts about tests being more available. A bit like how smears were before the 1987 policy change. I wasn't aware of the men's campaign (and didn't spot the post which said who is/was leading it or contributing to it). I'll look back, but if you have ref (time of post) with that info at your fingertips, would you be kind and signpost me?

More innovative thinking like this might help: fortune.com/2017/10/04/vaginal-speculum-frog-design/

Lol at cervical smell testing!

Yes, Pramwanker, but there's a big 'if' in that.

And of course planning for amendment to programme is underway in the expectation of epidemiological change.

Yes of course there's an if. But you responded to my post about prevailing opinion and politics by describing how universal screening was brought in. It's therefore obviously the case that wider societal attitudes have had an impact on the availability of screening, and therefore that has the potential to continue. It's clear that a lot of women are quite attached to cervical screening and find reassurance from it. Sometimes without an understanding of the risks.

What doesn't help is it being done on a flat couch.

I found my colposcopies more comfortable than smears because I was in a gynea chair that tipped my pelvis into the correct position. And there were always two nurses, one to do the procedure and one to chat to.

I’m not 25 yet so they’re not offered ... but it’s difficult for many young women to get time off work ( insanely difficult to get a morning offf) so I think that effects it. Not senior enough and too dependant on their work.

Yes, there is some pretty low hanging fruit if the NHS want to increase uptake. There are women who want to access screening and can't, and that's a problem.

Interesting phrasing op, I don't consider I've failed at this at all

I would imagine the reduced take up is due to women doing more research and making more choices about their health which is a very good thing.

That said, some posters have said men wouldn't be subject to the same harassment, my understanding is that it will be heading that way.

I haven't reached their designated age for mammograms but my mother went once and said never again.

Is it true that smears only screen for HPV? It wouldn’t detect other cell changes not caused by HPV virus? So if you know there is no chance of you having HPV virus (I.e. both myself and DH were both virgins when we got together), there is no point in having a smear test??

You’re exactly right, the fact is that cervical cancer is sexually transmitted, though it is not often mentioned. If you are not sexually active or have only been with one person who was a virgin also, you do not need a smear.

Cervical cancer is not inheritable. Unfortunately, the more sexual partners you have, the more you are likely to have HPV and therefore cervical cancer.

Not quite because you can catch hpv from sexual contact that isn't full sex.

Not quite because you can catch hpv from sexual contact that isn't full sex.

I said if you are not sexually active you don’t need one. Sexually active means having sexual contact, so that is what i said

Cervical cancer is not inheritable. Is that 100% true or have they not found the link yet? I ask as my family has been badly affected by the BRCA1 gene for generations, as a child I can remember hearing that losing another aunt to ovarian cancer before she was 40 was bad luck. Now we know that isn't true, even in the late 90s we were given bad information about our chances of inheriting it, hence me having tests now.

I just want to ask what might be a daft question. I'm 50 and have had a few smear tests. Hate them and don't want to have them. Is it possible to find out if I have hpv? And if so, and I was found not to have it, could I then just get the vaccine? I'm not in the UK so under a slightly different health care regime.

"The level of anger and contempt this issue provokes against those not wishing to be screened genuinely is fascinating."

pramwanker

You weren't talking about any of the women on this thread?
OK that's an unusual conversational style, given the comments before your one. Maybe you could think about posting more clearly?

You can buy HPV testing kits online - not sure where though but they use them in the Netherlands.

Boots do the vaccine, but only up to age 45 (no explanation supplied).

Is there an element to this that when it comes to pain, it's a women's lot, especially gynaecological stuff?

Certainly pain management related to childbirth is pretty dodgy, if the many many awful stories on here are anything to go by, and in general it has been shown that women's pain is not taken as seriously, more likely to be downplayed / ignored than men's?

Women are "not supposed to make a fuss" are we. And when we have valid issues / complaints we are told not to make a fuss / don't be so silly etc

The reporting on this is a good example - external or serious issues are not mentioned - around work and time off, trying to work it out around irregular periods, childcare, various types of trauma or it just always being very painful. Instead they focus on messages which essentially say women lack confidence / are embarrassed which is much more pointing at individual women to sort themselves out and not be so silly, which is of course easier (doesn't mean money needs to be spent) and fits in with cultural ideas about women, especially young women, and how they're a bit silly, flighty, irresponsible, vain etc and let's have a campaign related to lipstick, that'll sort them out.

I am also not sure that reflecting back views that many women view their genitals as dirty (which is what this boils down to) is at all healthy.

I can easily see it affecting women who hadn't even thought about that. "Oh, most women won't go if they haven't waxed. I didn't know that"... and it starts a thought process that simply wasn't there before.

I wonder if it would be much more productive if a swab kit was sent to every woman of age, which they inserted themselves (long cotton bud) and sent back. Surely more women would do that?

Non invasive, painless, can be done in their own time

I think they have to physically scrape some cells off, hence the bleeding pain for lots of women..?

A swab would just get surface stuff so I'm not sure it would work.

The cells also go on a slide and then are looked at to check for changes, again not sure if this would be possible from swabs sent in.

In general the easier the better though and I don't know how much effort has gone into looking for alternatives I'm guessing not much.

I don't think I could find my own cervix to swab. I know the nurses never can!

I was ok going for my first one but it has been worse and worse every time. I have a night and tilted cervix and I have never had a smear without the practitioner taking at least three attempts. Usually leaving me legs akimbo in between to fetch something. I dread them and was nearly two years late for my last one.

Last time I had the doctor and she was lovely- I'm sure she thought I had sexual assault trauma from the way I was acting although it was just the fear of the test.

I feel I'd be more likely to go if they'd give me a Valium or something to take first. As it is I'm just going to get pissed before my next one.

I don't understand why they don't screen us all for hpv and offer the vaccine to those who don't have it. Surely that would be cheaper/easier in the long run?

I haven’t been for years.

I have to say i am put off by reading on here the countless pubic hair threads. So many saying it’s unhygenic and dirty, and they feel cleaner shaved. I have just read a thread about ftm transition where it seems stopping shaving is unfeminine and part of the transition.

One poster told a story of having a gynae exam with a young trainee dr, who described her “lack of self care” until her boss told her pubic hair on an adult woman was completely normal.

I don’t, and will never, shave or trim my pubic hair. Or my legs. So yes, i feel horrifically self conscious, in a way i didn’t 15 years ago before the norm was for a shaven pubis.

I must add, I am genuinely saddened that so many people say "it's painless and easy, why wouldn't you go".

I doubt anyone's ever bothered to collect information but I think when you get the truth out of anyone....well actually I don't know anyone who would call it easy or painless.