Surprise At First GYN Exam

I was surprised by how painful the Pap smear was

@Lcm Was it the speculum that was painful, or the scraping on the cervix?

Pecan nut job it was the scraping of the cervix

@lcm Ouch. 😢 Was it as painful the next times you did a pap smear?

@Pecan_nutjob Its standard part of exam. If they have ultrasound-can be replaced.

In general was made to check up any abnormalities around pelvic like congenital malformations of uterus. Based as well about problem which women gets there and age. Eg- if complain about periods, time to time culprit is cyst on ovaries, refractory organ mobility (longer therm not cured infection can able made women unferitility). Over 30 to check up fluid into Douglas pouch and early detection of colon cancer

@Lcm, of course the pap smear was so painful. Almost certainly the doctor took a strong endocervical sample inserting the cytobrush fully into your cervical canal making it bleed.

I have heard from many girls that some Dr and NPs can be extremely rough with the Pap smear portion of the exam.

My wife had her first internal pelvic exam when she was seventeen as an entrance requirement to get a military scholarship. she grew up on a very secluded farm and did not have friends her age and had no idea anyone would ever do something like that to her. The doctor said that he had to do a pelvic exam and he asked her if she knew what that entailed. She did not want to sound ignorant, so she said yes, but she told me she had no idea what was to come.

She was already fully nude for other parts of the exam, and he told her to get on the table. she was thinking about how horrific this was as he was poking at her lips, and then, she said, "without any warning he just rammed a fat finger into me!"

She said it felt like he tore her skin as he did. She pulled back and shrieked and he said, "you're fine. just relax."

To this day, that comment makes her blood boil.

He did not try to put a second finger in.

@Antonin @Alex112

I don't think it's fair to say that some doctors are extremely harsh on a Pap test.

Personally, I am one of those who absolutely want to know the state of the cells of the endocervix (inside the birth canal). If the junction area is not very exteriorized, it is therefore advisable to swab the canal with a sort of small brush with hard bristles. In this case, some patients actually have burning sensations.

The current practice is to abandon the good old Pap test to carry out a simple HPV test. So all we have to do is rub the outside of the cervix with a sort of brush which we then put in a liquid before sending it to the laboratory.

As a result, patients no longer have to worry, the test is completely painless.

@Franklin58200 Can you please clear up some misunderstanding for me? To me, "pap test" means "papillomavirus test", and "papillomavirus" is the same as "HPV", thus I don't get the difference between doing a "pap test" and a "HPV test".

@Pecan_nutjob

In fact, you have a culture that is well ahead of the first stages of cervical cancer screening.

When our first masters looked at the mechanism of this disease, they first studied the mutation of cells of the uterus and its outcome in the vagina. .

And it was a Greek doctor George Papanicolaou who had the idea of ​​carrying out in the late 1920s what we would later call more simply the “cervicovaginal smear”.

In fact, this screening technique was known internationally under the name “Pap test”.

The involvement of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) was only brought to light around thirty years ago and HPV typing is a recent result of this.

@Franklin58200 Oh I see! So in the old days you had to take some cervix cells and examine them to see if they were abnormal, and now they just check for the presence of HPV?

No. Pap test doesn't refer to Pappilomavirus, it's named after the guy that invented it Dr George Papanicolaou. A Pap test is a smear involving cells from the cervix. An HPV screen is something different.

The external genital exam..I knew what to expect and I was probably most anxious about the speculum, but for some reason I didn't really expect to be touched and spread quite so intimately

The bimanual exa, was dreading it but it was surprisingly fast and not as bad as imagined

I mean I haven't sex education at home lol but had seen some medical video. Yes, this lie about 18yo to see some stuff 😉

HPV is kind of virus and gyno knows how to diagnose by changes on the cervix. Plus it's two types of pap smear-this original, from '70 and new one-liqid/crystal which cancer signs are detected even 5 years before cancer grown up but pricy. Both is taken samples by scratching around cervix area and deeply inside. For some women's it's bit painful procedure and even few drops of blood

For me, my first visit was before i started puberty so i was very very small there. I remember the huge speculum and then the doctors fingers being put in my vagina. When he catheterize me, that caught me off guard as well.

@MissPuffyButt

It is quite unusual to perform a full gynaecological exam before puberty. Did your doc or parents explain why it had to be performed?

There was a lot going on. My sister was a teenager and had just been diagnosed with clitoral cancer and it had metastasized into her cervix and eventually everywhere else.

I also was still wetting the bed and having frequent accidents through the day. They were trying to figure out what was going on.

@MissPuffyButt

It is quite unusual to perform a full gynaecological exam before puberty. Did your doc or parents explain why it had to be performed?

@MissPuffyButt

My pediatrician was rude and I felt violated, but the ob-gyn was só kindness, so it was a great surprise.

I was very surprised about the breast exam. I went to the gynecologist to get birth control, so I was expecting a vaginal exam, but I had no idea why he would do a breast exam. I was new to the US and didn't know much about gynecological exams at that time. I was 25 and it was with a much older male doctor (60+). I remember he did quite a thorough breast exam. I am self-conscious about my breasts so I was very embarrassed by it.

@Nisha If it's not indiscreet, what kind of birth control? A vaginal exam is not even needed to prescribe oral contraceptives!

Yes, it was for oral birth control pills. This was about 12 years ago, and I don't think I had a choice about getting the exam or not. I also continued to get yearly exams with pap smear after that and I thought it was needed to renew my prescription. Thankfully all my later exams have been with a younger doctor I really like, so I am not complaining about it!

Seems like this is not needed now - is this a recent change?

I was raised in a very sheltered Christian home and sex talk was taboo so my mother never explained the gynecological exam process. I had researched it before the exam.

I was in my early 20's when I had my first gynecological exam and pap test. I was very scared. The NP did a great job of talking to me before and through the procedures. The office had knee crutch stirrups. I've never been to an office since where I felt so exposed. I've never seen those in any other gyn office.

At my first gyn exam it turned out I had yeast infection. This lead to having to be swabbed twice. This was before the current standards of doing two swabs one for pap and one for hpv-- was just usually one swab for pap testing. At my first exam there was one swab to collect a sample of the infection and another swab for the actual testing the deep cervix testing. While I waited in the exam room after the examination. the NP looked under a microscope and told me it was a yeast infection and prescribed antibiotics.

Met my expectations in terms of steps and process but was not prepared for how wide open I'd feel. Also, involuntarily clenched my muscles so it hurt quite a bit being forced open by a device.

@Nisha I think that your doctor has adopted the right attitude and his age has nothing to do with the progress of his consultation.

You say that you were 25 years old, in my opinion this is the ideal age to start regular gynecological follow-up. This is especially true since you came to get a contraceptive prescription, so you had established sexual activity.

@Jacana is not wrong, a vaginal examination is not necessary to prescribe a contraceptive pill but it is the science of the practitioner to determine what seems appropriate to offer to his patient.

In your case, the approach was therefore perfectly justified to carry out a complete assessment including examination and palpation of the breasts. It was also important to look at the condition of your vaginal mucous membranes and your cervix. Supplemented by a smear, this first complete consultation constitutes the basis of your gynecological reference file which will then be taken into account to evaluate subsequent situations.