During the first year we were dating I went with my wife to a complete physical that she had after a minor car crash. She had only had one other pelvic exam in her life, and it was a pretty horrific ordeal for her.
The exam I watched, only her second pelvic ever, was by her family doctor who she liked very much and kinda had a crush on.
It did not go well. First he was insistent that I not be allowed to stay during the exam. She insisted and after some arguing, he acquiesced. But he was kinda mad from then on.
When he put the speculum in he did nothing to try and make the insertion comfortable. He just spread her small lips with one hand and then just pushed a Graves Medium lubricated with water right into her. She kinda screamed and tried to pull away. He held her down with on hand on her thigh, and he said, “just calm down. Its fine.”
she hated him from that point on.
The next exam she had he was out so she saw a different doctor. This doctor was Asian and much older than her regular. He used a Pedersen. And he sort of rubbed on the inside of her lips to start. Then the speculum just slid right in. she later told me it was not at all painful.
She had issues on two occasions when we went to the medical college for her annual. The first time the student did not put a finger in first, a common way to assess the size of the vagina and the muscle tone. He just tried to put in a graves. And she kept pulling away and yelling. The overseeing doctor finally stepped in and fingered her himself.
He mumbled the size to use and I didn’t hear what he said, but then he turned back to her and apologized and said, “you are just very small down there. We will use a pediatric speculum.”
As others have pointed out, part of her problem was certainly that she was nervous and scared and all of her muscles were very tight. And she has really good pelvic muscles.
On another occasion the overseeing doctor seemed determined to not get involved. After much trying to ram a speculum in causing Marie considerable pain, the doctor finally said, “maybe you need a smaller speculum.”
the student tried two progressively smaller speculums until the doctor finally stepped in and said, “well this is a pediatric speculum. If it is too big I don’t know what we will do.
He then put it in himself without any difficulty.
Undoubtedly her being tense makes getting a speculum in more difficult. But she is very small and tight.