Pap smears are designed to screen for cancer. Why are people afraid to get them?
22d 9h ago by lemmy.today/u/Wren in womensstuff@piefed.blahaj.zone from 19thnews.org
I know I hate them.
Self screening options were just FDA approved in the last year. It doesn't have to be violating anymore, but so many practices want to stay in the stone age.
My clinic wouldn't even follow the national guidelines of once every three years and forced me against my will to get them done every year just to get birth control. Let me repeat that: I was forced against my will to allow someone to penetrate me. There is no medical reason to require a pap smear to get birth control and the ACOG recommends against that practice.
It's about far more than "discomfort". We've experienced medical battery at best and sexual assault at worst at the hands of these clinicians.
I would have panic attacks before my appointments.
That was frustrating just to read. I'm so sorry. I had to get pap smears as a teenager for birth control and had no idea it wasn't necessary. It traumatized me against getting them as an adult.
Firs time I had one done, they used a metal speculum. The second time they did it with a plastic one, which made a world of difference.
Still not fun, but less not fun.
It should be illegal not to warm up the metal speculum first. The moment it touched my skin my muscles clamped down and the doctor had the nerve to tell me to relax.
At least plastic mitigates doctor dickheadedness a bit.
“If you’re considering having a speculum exam, any good provider should be able to walk you through it, making sure you, the patient, are in charge,” she said.
(Emphasis mine)
Uh yes, doc, those things are so rare, nevertheless finding them together.
Undignified, uncomfortable, and more importantly, you have to put up with a gynaecologist.
The process leaves me feeling dirty, for some reason. Like, I don't feel right until I've had a shower and put on different clothes.
Every part of seeing a gynecologist is awful. The pain is often downplayed. They told me to take an ibuprofen before getting an IUD and I’d be fine.
I vomited in the parking lot due to the pain of the procedure. I had to drive myself home and I absolutely should not have been driving. I would have arranged for a ride if they had been honest with me from the start.
Why would I want to go back to those places even for something as simple as a pap smear?
I find them painful.
Maybe people wouldn't have fears about them if they weren't medicalised sexual assault