Being referred for a colposcopy =( Terrified.

[secretstar07979.livejournal.com]

Hey VPers, I'm just looking for some reassurance basically...

 

I live in the UK and we're not entitled to smear tests on the NHS until age 25 here. I decided it was time for me to have my first smear test (age 22) so paid to have 1 done privately.

The results came back mildly abnormal. I waited 3 months before having a repeat smear, and this time the results have come back as mildly-moderately abnormal and I'm being referred to have a colposcopy.

I am absolutely terrified. The nurse explained that this is a preventitive treatment and that I am not sick. However, I feel so unattractive and feel as though I am sick, just for having the 2 'abnormal' smears. Have any of you had colposcopys? Should I be scared? Does laser treatment hurt etc? Any advice/stories are welcome. xxx

Comments

[roomsixteen.livejournal.com]

You aren't alone :) Definitely don't feel sick or unattractive. Many many women have abnormal paps sometime in their life. It doesn't make you a bad person. Apparently abnormal paps can be caused by a lot of things and they usually resolve with time (and no treatment if that is how you want it to be).

I had a colposcopy last fall, I was pretty nervous about it because I didn't know what to expect/was fearful of the results. But it honestly didn't hurt as much as I thought it would, I just felt cramping and had cramping for a few hours afterward. The dr did want me to have a loop electrosurgical excision procedure (leep, not sure if they are called the same in the UK). I didn't want to have that, so I had a second opinion and decided to wait it out. Just remember that you don't HAVE to do something you don't want to.

Wish you the best of luck!

[calculatorhater.livejournal.com]

Don't be terrified. I was told to get a colpo after I had a mildly abnormal (ASCUS) pap as well. While it's normal to be nervous, please remember that an abnormal pap isn't uncommon and definitely doesn't mean there's anything serious going on.

I actually just had my colpo last week. For me, it was not bad at all. There is a little bit of uncomfortableness when he went to swab my cervix, but nothing major. It just caused me a little cramping the next couple days - nothing I needed to even take an ibprofen for. Basically he took a large microscope and took a closer look at my cervix. There is a solution he put on my cervix to show any abnormalties. In my case, I did not have to have a biopsy since he saw nothing wrong. Whatever it was that caused my abnormal pap, went away. After the doctor looked at my cervix and saw no areas of concern, he swabbed with a brush looking thing further up in an area he couldn't see and had that tested just to be safe. My tests came back yesterday - everything was normal.

I'm not sure what a biopsy feels like or any experience with that but I'm sure there will be ladies here that would be able to fill you in on that.

That was my experience. I hope that helps. Let me know if you have questions!

[judyisapunk.livejournal.com]

I had one done a couple months ago, for the most part it wasn't too bad. It's almost just like a pap, but then they swabbed vinegar around to show any abnormal cells. That stung a little. If they don't see any abnormal cells I think that's about all they do. For me they did find abnormal cells so they took 3 biopsies, they felt like really bad period type cramps. If you're worried about pain, I would suggest asking your care provider if you can take some Ibuprofen before your appointment. I felt pretty "crampy" for about 4 days afterwards, but I've heard lots of different recovery times from different people. Then a week ago I had the LEEP procedure, that was a whole nother story! Now I probably have to have a "cone" procedure. Good luck and feel free to ask any more questions you may have ;)

[queensugar.livejournal.com]

I can promise you that you are neither sick, nor unattractive. Millions of women have had colposcopies; it's a very useful health care tool that, together with pap testing, has turned cervical cancer into one of the least common cancers in women.

For what it's worth, though age guidelines elsewhere are different, the decision in some parts of the UK to go with age 25 to start pap testing is based on valid medical evidence that it produces good outcomes for women's health. There's much debate about standard age guidelines for pap testing, but don't fear that you almost missed the boat, okay?

[eunicemcgee.livejournal.com]

Even moderately abnormal smear results are more likely than not to clear up on their own, without intervention. You definitely needn't be scared. Colposcopies just help give you additional information to a smear test - it can be useful to see the actual state of the cervix, in addition to the cells collected during a pap. I've heard that they can be a bit uncomfortable, so you may want to remember to take some sort of pain med beforehand to prevent that. Good luck with everything!

Thanks!

[secretstar07979.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the advice VPers, that's made me feel a little better.

Would they know if I actually already had cancer from the pap tests alone? I asked the nurse if she would be able to tell if there was anything seriously wrong with my cervix during the pap test, and she said she would have a really good look. She said my cervix was quite a deep red colour but that it didn't look like inflammation or anything to be concerned about - more likely that I had a good blood flow to the area and it's my natural colour. She said there was nothing unhealthy looking about it and that if she saw a pic of my cervix in a textbook she would say it was 'normal.'

My biggest fear is firstly that I will be diagnosed with cancer during this colposcopy and have to go through rigourous, painful treatments. My next biggest fear is that even if I don't have cancer, they will want to cut/freeze/burn away abnormal cells, and this will lead to me not having a normal sex life for a long time. It has already affected my sex life - since my first abnormal smear, I have been reluctant to have regular sex with my long-term boyfriend in fear of it either hurting or making my 'condition' worse.

I used to have a very active and enjoyable sex life - didn't need much 'warming-up' and certainly never thought twice about a quickie in the middle of the night etc. Now my boyfriend is lucky to get sex a couple of times a month, with lube, with me being very cautious. It's ridiculous and I hate being like this but I simply haven't been in the mood and now feel less confident than before.

After you had colposcopies, did it take v.long until you could go back to normal sex lives?

Re: Thanks!

[atalanta0jess.livejournal.com]

I have had several colposcopies (three, I think?) and a LEEP procedure, where they use a little electrical current to cut away part of the cervix. I think I can address some of your fears here.

Firstly, the chances of them discovering you have cancer are practically nil. Cervical cancer takes many YEARS to develop. Additionally, although the pap test is just a screening tool, remember that your results came back mildly/moderately abnormal. That is certainly not indicative that you'll have high grade changes. Its highly possible that based on the results of your colpo, the doctor will simply want to retest you in a few months. If they do find higher grade changes, that still doesn't mean you have cancer - it just means those changes are less likely to get better on their own and they likely will want to remove them. I really don't think that fears of having cancer need to be anywhere even remotely near your radar screen...you're just not at the point where that is a concern, nor are you likely to be at that point in the future, so long as you get the proper care.

With regards to the sex issue, none of the procedures that you are likely to have will be what I would refer to as rigorous, or will interfere with your sex life for all that long.

My experience with my colposcopies was quite easy, truth be told. I took some ibuprophen before hand, and they were not even painful. They just felt kind of strange. After a colposcopy, you'll want to abstain from penetrative sex for a week, although you're free to participate in other types of sex. You will have a kind of gross (IMO) discharge for a few days from the solution that they use to stop the bleeding. And truth be told, last time I went in my doctor tossed a casual "avoid intercourse for a few days" at me. I think it really depends on how long you have discharge or bleeding for.

IF (and that's a big if, at this point) you go on to have further treatment, that is not likely to be all that terrible. LEEP procedures are quite common, and that's what I had. That was slightly more difficult, although I still didn't find it all that painful. They give you a numbing shot and after that you just sit tight and wait til it's over. Its really not that tedious of a procedure - its just an office visit, and is really quite fast. I experienced pain for a few days afterwards. After a LEEP, you do need to abstain from penetration for a while again....I forget how long. Maybe a few weeks? Not all THAT long in the grand scheme of things, and like I said you can still enjoy non-penetrative activities.

But rest assured, there is no sexing you can do (aside from having sex directly after a procedure and risking infection) that will make your condition worse. You don't need to add lube, you don't need to be gentle. Cervical abnormalities do not pay any attention to how rough your sex is, how frequent it is, or how lubricated it is. There is no reason this situation needs to affect your sex life. Remember, the majority of people have HPV at some point in their lives...it just so happens that for some of us, that turns into a cervical abnormality. Its very very common - look through some of the archives, you'll see how many of us have had colpos.

Re: Thanks!

[eunicemcgee.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad you elaborated on some of your fears, so you can get some more specific reassurances :) First off, pap smears are perfectly capable of detecting cancerous cells; it's extremely, extremely unlikely that you would have changes to the level of cancer that were only showing up as mild/moderate. It's true that a small percentage of paps will be a little off; sometimes they show moderate changes when there's really only mild changes present, sometimes they don't detect mild changes at all - but the higher grade the changes, the more accurate the pap results become. By the time you're getting up into higher, precancerous or cancerous changes, pap smears are very accurate diagnostic tools.

And really, mild/moderate results just aren't even close to cancer at all. If you group all the women who have moderate and highly abnormal results, and DON'T EVER treat them, only 30-60% will develop cancer after about 10 years. It is essentially unheard of for a woman to develop cervical cancer if she follows screening guidelines and her doctor's recommendations for follow-up testing and treatment. The far more likely result, that 90% of people in your situation will experience, is that the abnormalities will go away on their own within a couple of years, without progressing at all or requiring any sort of medical procedure. (This is NOT to say that the remaining 10% go on to develop cancer, but rather that it takes a little longer for their immune system to resolve the infection, or that they may develop further abnormalities before starting to get better, or that a doctor will decide to perform treatments on the cervix).

The prospect of having cells removed sounds scary, but it's really not that big a deal. To begin with, the doctor may not even find anything worth taking a biopsy of. Even if they do, they only need a very small sample of cells to test further. A colposcopy, even with a biopsy, shouldn't put your sex life on hold for more than about a week. There's no need at all to worry that sex will make your condition worse; you just have a virus that about 80% of people will have at some point in their lives. I hope the extra info encourages you to not worry.