Im scared .. Please read..

Stacy first please rest assured that your symptoms coiuld be a number of things.

Is it the cerviacl smear your frightened of or the results? or both? when i was your age i can honestly say have a smear test was more or less painless, a bit uncomfortable but thats about all. Just relax and its all over ina few minutes, im surer your probably worried about nothing but its unxderstanable that you are all the same. Even if it should be that you are in the early stages of cervical cancer then found early has only got to be a blessing and easily treated. i think all of us on hear if we put in our symptoms on google all sorts of scary things come up. Go Monday and let us know how you got on. i had five children by the time i was 37! had a few scares but all was ok.

Sue

Stop worrying Stacey, at your age you wouldn't even be offered a pap test in countries that have evidence based screening. Not one country in the world has shown a benefit pap testing women under 30 and now the evidence has moved on, the ONLY women who should be offered a 5 yearly pap test are the roughly 5% of women aged 30 to 60 who test HPV+...and you can test yourself easily and reliably for HPV, no need for speculum exams. 

The lifetime risk of cervical cancer is 0.65%, LESS than 1% and it's fleetingly rare in women your age. (and sadly, screening does not prevent these early very rare deaths, these tend to be false negative cases, so pap testing can even disadvantage women by false reassurance that can lead to a delay in diagnosis and a poorer prognosis) The Dutch and Finns protect their young women and exclude them from pap testing, (and HPV testing) they advise young women to see a doctor with persistent and unusual symptoms, like bleeding after sex or pelvic pain, unusual bleeding etc. (NOT for a pap test, but for a proper investigation of the symptoms)

If you have symptoms, you need a proper investigation, (sounds like you've done that) pap testing is a screening test for women with NO symptoms.

You might be interested to hear about the evidence based program found in the Netherlands. The Dutch will scrap population pap testing, and offer instead 5 HPV primary tests at ages 30,35,40,50 and 60 (or self testing with the Delphi Screener) and ONLY the roughly 5% who are HPV+ will be offered a pap test. MOST women are HPV- and having unnecessary pap tests, excess biopsies and being over-treated.

I hope that provides you with some reassurance. Be careful, pap testing before age 30 is associated with a higher risk of false positives and that can lead to colposcopy, excess biopsy or over-treatment.

 

Im petrifed of the results and that when i have it done shes going to say that my cervix looks unhealthy or abmormal. Keep looking at my children and thinking im never going to see them grow up which brings me to tears. The more i think about it the more i notice pains and stuff. Dont know wether thats the anxiety or im actually more in tune with my body than i thought . And the stats are sort of reasurring 1% doesnt seem alot but when you are faced with it and especially with all these young girls dying from it it just makes it even more scary. Xx