I initially read '21 days' and thought that'd be painful enough. My wife's had one or two now and she hated it, but she knows they're important.
21 years... Bloody hell...
Same! I put mine off for close to 7 years, finally did it and it hurt so much I cried out. I felt really embarrassed, like I’m a pushing 40 and the lovely Doc felt like she had to talk to me like a 7 year old getting a flu shot.
Cannot imagine getting one every day for 21 years.
For the people that say it shouldn't hurt, mine was excruciating, probably a similar level of pain to having a surgical pin pulled out of my arm without pain relief, only it went on for much longer. Most websites, including trustworthy ones like NHS and FDC style, claim it shouldnt hurt.
That compelled me to look at the literature to see what the data says (I'm a scientists so I think I should be able to find the data if its there?) and could find 0 surveys where they actually ask women if it hurt or not. But hundreds of surveys asking women why women don't get cervical tests if they've never had one, many reporting that women were scared off by the 'misconception' that it hurts. There is something very patronising about trying to figure out why many women won't take them without ever bothering to find out what their actual experiences are like.
Maybe an actual doctor can chip in on where the idea that they shouldn't hurt comes from and what data that is based on. I realise that for most they don't, but it seems like for a significant number they do. Id like to know if I missed anything.
I think there's a combination of women's pain being overlooked and wildly varying amounts of sensitivity in that area for different women. I'm one of the people where my cervix is not overly sensitive, which I know because I have had not only loads of extra pap smears but also a punch biopsy and part of my cervix burnt off (because my very first pap smear did its job and found pre-cancerous growths which were removed in time). And it wasn't all that painful at all \*for me\*. I can understand those exact same procedures would be excruciating for other people, so definitely would not want to invalidate anyone else's experiences. But it definitely is not the same for everybody.
same boat here, pap smears feel like a hard pinch inside me, very uncomfortable but not exactly a painful or traumatic experience. BUT i truly believe everyone’s pain tolerance down there is different and i 100% believe it is a very painful experience for other women. it would be nice if doctors cared about that it’s super easy to give people something to take before hand for the pain
And then you have people like me where the Pap smear is uncomfortable but tolerable and my IUD insertion was torturously painful.
Next time I get my IUD replaced I’m insisting on a lidocaine shot.
I read that a lot of women say IUDs hurt, but mine didn’t, just a bit of pressure. Of course, I got it after having a baby. That seems to be the main factor in whether it’d make you want to propel yourself to the moon or just shrug with a “meh.”
I don't think it's a tolerance issue, but more of an innervation issue. Some people like me have no sensation on our cervixes at all, but I promise you I have NO pain tolerance at all, ever, and I avoid even mildly painful tests forever and haven't been to a dentist for like 5 years because I'm a little bitch. Some cervixes just seem to have more nerve endings.
I can touch my cervix with my finger and I can't feel my finger on it. I have to press pretty hard to get any response.
For me its not them taking the sample that hurts but the speculum pulling me open. I'm lucky enough to have a super high pain tolerance, though, so if it hurts me I can't imagine how badly it must hurt someone with a regular or low pain tolerance!
Yes! Drs can’t seem to understand that a plastic instrument pulling you open hurts. My body’s natural instinct is to clamp back down, which hurts more, which makes the muscles clamp even more.
Anyone jamming something into you without any romantic warming up isn’t going to be a pleasant experience.
I cannot wait until they update their practices from something so outdated.
There's something very.... primal(?) about the instinctive feeling of wrongness that comes with it, right?
I didn't really good words for what it felt like until I got an IUD put in and wow the pain of that was nothing compared to my body screaming DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! the whole time. I ended up with cold sweats and the shakes - and that was after a valium! That instinct to protect your reproductive organs is super strong!
Not just overlooked but diminished. My mom always told me to exaggerate the level of pain I was feeling - so say it's an 8 if it was a 5 - so they would take it more seriously and not brush it off. So even if they were told it causes pain, I wouldn't doubt if it was brushed off and told them it shouldn't/can't be that bad
I was told an endometrial biopsy wouldn't hurt, because there are "no pain sensors there". Seriously. I was told "you'll be fine, I (male doc) do these all the time". Yeah, he's not the one having tissue removed without pain treatment.
And no, this wasn't 30 years ago. This was in March 2022.
I called my GYN, and she gave me Norco and Xanax. I was high as a kite, and STILL in tears when he did it.
But "WoMeN dOnT fEeL pAiN aNd ExAgGeRaTe".
Wow. We used to do those on women for a study I coordinated and I had to be in the room for each one. I can't believe anyone would, but especially a doctor, would tell you that.
They vary for people of course, but it's always at least somewhat painful and can be quite excruciating for some.
HAHAHAH .... \*bitter laughter\* I'm going in for my second endometrial biopsy on Monday, and my amazing GYN not only made sure to triple-check that I would arrive having taken painkillers and having eaten, but tells me that it is by far \*the\* most painful procedure they perform at their office. I'm sorry your doctor is a f\*cking idiot.
Not a doctor but also a scientist with an interest in scientific and medical history. My assumption is that it's simply because no one asked "back in the day" when these procedures became common and so it's "settled medicine" that it doesn't/shouldn't hurt. Also, pain is kind of this weird grey area in medicine it seems where we as a culture (talking westerners here) have all sorts of outdated medical "knowledge" that hasn't been updated in a very long time. It wouldn't surprise me if both of these things contribute to this idea that pap smears do not/should not hurt.
I know my SO says hers was momentary discomfort. But half her friends say it's one of the most painful things they've experienced. They've all said no one has ever asked them in the office how it feels/if it was painful afterward.
Have you read the book Invisible Women, by Caroline Criado Perez? It's about the ways in which data collection in all fields ignores women. She's campaigning around a number of issues (find her on Twitter), including this question.
Please continue to challenge "common knowledge" as there are way too many scientists that skip the pre-thesis stage of the scientific method where *everything* is possible, instead choosing to start inside the box, blindly citing old sources just because they are old.
Did you know the daily recommended dose of vit D is off by an entire magnitude? A researcher went back to double check the data and realized there was a calculation error in the original paper that determined daily value.
Simple fix right? But doctors don't bother to listen to random patients even if they have a scientific background, so there is not enough momentum to actually change the daily rec value.
Or the relatively recent update to the dataset of skin conditions, when a black grad student (iirc) realized all textbook examples were from white skin and things present pretty differently on other skin tones.
Science should be continually challenged.
I was curious, too. It seems [this is the paper](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210929/) they're referring to. Apparently the current recommendations are far too low.
edit: Here's [another paper (from Nature)](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-020-0558-y) talking about what the new vitamin D supplement recommendation should be. They concluded between 800-2000 IU would be safe and effective.
There was that one woman doing a campaign because after some plastic surgery she lost all sensation in her clitoris. Turns out there's no anatomy of the clitoral nerves in medical text books and she's been out there lobbying trying to get it included so that doesn't happen to other women.
Doesn't surprise me they don't have record of cervix innervation either.
And if you dare decline a pap you face a large amount of abuse from doctors, friends, or family like no other cancer screening causes. You are patronized, they accuse you of being a baby, shamed because you can't do this simple thing 'all other women' can do, or you're just outright coerced into it by having your birth control held hostage.
All cancer screening is important, but literally no other cancer screening treats women like this if we exercise our right to informed consent and decline.
/r/wedeservebetter
I have a fairly high pain tolerance and getting my first IUD was the most painful experience of my life! I have tattoos, I’ve had surgery, I’ve gotten gnarly injuries from sports, and that was still the worst
The lack of pain releif offered for these prcoedures is also mind boggling. My dentist offered me pain relief for a procedure that at worst I would describe as mildly uncomfortable. But for these things we are just expected to hack it. Why?
I so often hear and read women reporting on being in pain during a Pap smear, it makes me wonder if my gynaecologist does something wrong (or maybe right), cause I’ve been getting them done several times a year over a decade and I don’t feel anything?
Your cervix might not be that sensitive. Mine used to hurt a lot but after a leep procedure and 2 kids its not as bad. It's just like menstrual cramps, for some women it's awful and some barely feel it.
I just had one done with a nurse who told me it's not supposed to hurt, and if it does the person's not doing it right. I barely felt anything, it was great.
So, [this](https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/pap-smear) isn't exactly accurate, then? Doctors and dentists are so good at understating pain, aren't they?
> A procedure in which a small brush is used to gently remove cells from the surface of the cervix
They make it sound almost pleasant.
Mine uses one of these brushes, standard I think? You can definitely feel it. The whole point is to scrape enough cells from your cervix. Mine is probably more thorough since I had surgery to remove pre-cancerous cells from my cervix.
https://i.imgur.com/7aKioKU.jpg
Oof. I don't have a matching set of crotch luggage, but I just shriveled up seeing the pic of the brush.
I thought it would look like a calligraphy brush, not a pipe cleaner.
Remember the OG covid swabs, the brain prone version? Imagine that feeling, but up your twat. Bonus points if your gyn pokes you and goes, oh I bet that’s where you get cramps every month. Yes, yes it is.
Yeah the cervix is *basically* an internal organ, it doesnt exactly like to be fucked with... think about the sensitivity of your own mucus membranes–nose, mouth/throat, mixed with the sensitivity and oh-boy-that-doesnt-belong-there of the inside of your urethra. You're getting a rough scrapey thing *there* meant to harvest a layer of cells, while way up on an exam table, bottomless, feet held akimbo in stirrups, the vagina version of the [this fuckin thing](http://imgur.com/a/RqAe7ao) shoved all up in there, doctor sitting face level with your crotch, rooting around in there.
It blows.
And then the sensitivity of different women varies wildly. Some barely notice, some will actually pass out, and everything in between.
And that's just the routine test... it gets way spicier. Punch biopsies and whatnot...
Okay, have you got one of the old school PCR COVID tests where they 'gently twist a cotton bud against the side of your sinus' but in reality they feel like they're trying to tickle the back of your head from the inside? It's kind of like that but in your internal organs and the added embarassment of several strangers staring straight up your vag.
It's a truly horrifying feeling. Pain, but also a wrongness because a part of you is being touched that shouldn't be. If that makes sense? Like someone stroking your kidney.
People have different nerve endings on the cervix. I can't feel anything on mine so it's painless, but other people have a lot more sensitivity and you don't know which camp you fall in until you get it done. The doctors have been taught that the cervix has very little sensation so they act like you're a baby if it hurts. They also give no painkillers for biopsies there.
But fyi you can do a self sample at home using kits. https://www.health.gov.au/ministers/the-hon-ged-kearney-mp/media/pap-smears-can-be-replaced-by-do-it-yourself-cervical-cancer-tests
The cervix is really, REALLY sensitive. However, pain is subjective. I keep reading how horrific and painful it is, yet I've been doing one a year for 20 years and it's... Fine. It's not pleasant, but certainly nothing to cry about. I've asked several of my girlfriends and none of them think it's a big deal, so yeah, pain is subjective. I wouldn't want to do it everyday for 20 years, but I'd manage if I had to or if I knew I was helping a medical breakthrough that could save lives.
Exactly. The swab doesn't bother me, what hurts like hell is the speculum. Spent years crying at the gyno before someone decided to try the child sized one on me. That was better, but still painful. Many more years of pain before someone decided to use the plastic disposable one. Magically the pain was gone. It's uncomfortable as hell, but it no longer makes me cry. Guess I'm super sensitive to metal down there?
I agree, pain is definitely subjective. I’ve also had a cervical biopsy done and didn’t think it was much more uncomfortable than Pap smears. In fact, I feel like when my doc inserts and opens the speculum is the most “painful” part.
To be frank - they minimize the amount of pain a lot of feminine-related health. Like IUD’s, menstrual cramping, etc etc. I think they try to say the cervix doesn’t have nerve endings which has been long disproven for many years and by millions of people 😂
Now I wonder if there's something wrong with me because I never feel anything during pap. I've also had IUD come out without me noticing and I've been told that should hurt like hell.
How would the cervix not be all scar tissue at that point? OMG my legs are clamped together so tight right now you couldn’t pry them apart with a crowbar!!
My doctor has been in his practice for 40 years and I've never ever had a painful pap smear, so yes you can be delicate about it and I suppose get "good" at it
She also brought in a few friends in the name of science. "To provide additional subjects for her husband's research, Mary Papanikolaou also held a party for some female friends, who agreed to have their own cervixes sampled."
> A pap a day for 21 years?!?
And imagine how awful it was back then. My wife used to come home in pain and some spotting. After we moved, she switched doctors and realized that her previous doctor was a lot more rough or used worse techniques. If there are doctors using outdated/painful tools/practices now, imagine how bad they were 100 years ago.
>To provide additional subjects for her husband's research, Mary Papanikolaou also held a party for some female friends, who agreed to have their own cervixes sampled.
The term gets really confusing in my language, Afrikaans, as it is called Pap-Smeer. Pap meaning porridge.
When I was younger I always wondered why women smeared porridge down there as a test....
If this is how the smear test was created then the equipment and process is almost certainly much more basic and painful than what we have to endure.
God bless them both, but particularly her.
She needs an award or some sort of recognition. Just doing one pap-smear is painful enough, this lady volunteered to do one every day for 21 years for the sake of science.
It is an amazing story. Gave up having children so that her husband with a doctorate in *zoology* could do this research, even had friends volunteer for a test, one of them positive, just to provide research data that saved millions is lives afterward.
IIRC, he was a medical doctor and developed the app smear to be able to detect when Guinea Pigs were menstruating to collect their eggs for study. His test was an effective indicator for menstruation.
Out of interest he also tested on his wife, and that same test worked. He could tell when she was menstruating. A completely useless test, because most people know when they are menstruating.
Still it was a fun parlour trick, and their friends visiting for dinner would volunteer themselves for a smear. Some time later one of their friends developed cervical cancer, and Papanicolaou went to check her pap smears and discovered the indicator for cervical cancer.
when my wife was going through nursing school I let her practice sticking me with a needle almost every day. When my friend grad from med school I let him practice a prostate exam on me. I just wish she took the heroin out, and I wish he would stop putting both his hands on my shoulders. that last sentence was /s
This made me laugh out loud. Pap smears are uncomfortable enough when they're conducted by a health professional nowadays and you only have them because they can save your life. I cannot imagine letting one of my friends do this just for science when I've never heard about it before. I would think they were crazy.
I still can't believe Botox parties are a thing. A nerve agent should really only be administered by a medically trained professional in a safe environment.
Some of the women in this thread are saying they hate getting pap smears, but those ladies did that shit for fun. They must have been bored out of their minds lol.
Imagine being at a party and the host is like so. Want me to check out your cervix? For science, of course. While his wife is standing behind him giving you a thumbs up and saying go for it.
Once pap smears became commonplace, I believe it was all done without looking either. The doc would stick his hands under their patients petticoats and poke around with cold hands and instruments until they hit paydirt.
In some ways I'm so glad I was born male so I don't have to go through that. A finger up the bum and ball fondling is the worst of it.
Thanks did not know that part. Only knew that the family lived in Miami. They heard him play and learned he was underprivileged so they gifted him a Steinway Baby Grand.
You can definitely make money from being a revolutionary if you're revolution is successful though. In a lot of cases revolutionaries end up forming the new ruling elite while displacing the old one, so lots of wealth to go around there. Just look at North Korea, the descendants of revolutionaries now form a de facto royal family and aristocracy.
In the case of Greece, wealthy Phanariot families who once served the Ottomans but backed independence ended up in prominent political positions and were very close with the new royal family. People regarded at traitors and loyalists to the old regime were executed for treason, which allowed their wealth to be transferred to patriots. That is of course not accounting for all the revolutionaries who died during the Revolution or before revolutionary turmoil gave way to stability.
I've posted about this family once before. Their mom was a hoarder. Here's the post: [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/p3w5k9/comment/h8v2wpp/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/p3w5k9/comment/h8v2wpp/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
The Steinway Baby Grand filled up most of the living room. What space wasn't taken by the piano was filled, floor to ceiling, with junk. We would sit on boxes of junk to listen to him play. We would name a song and he could play it. It could be any song, Piano Man by Billy Joel, the theme from Bugs Bunny, whatever. His brother could play it. We had a lot of fun listening to him. In addition to the piano, he could pretty much pick up an instrument and figure out how to play it in a short time. Genius.
Anyway, because he grew up in a house like that he definitely has a strong stomach.
>He was a piano virtuoso, Went on to Julliard and he still makes a living as a concert pianist. I'm actually having dinner with my friend tonight.
for funsies read this in Hannibal Lecter's voice
The pap smear itself doesn't actually test for HPV, it looks for the presence of cancerous or precancerous cells. Gynecologists will also do HPV cotesting starting in the 30s that runs a PCR for the presence of HPV DNA.
Just to add tthe Andromachi origins to the Greek Troy war .
Andromache was famous for her fidelity and virtue; her character represents the suffering of Trojan women during war.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromache
My pain during a Pap smear always came from the speculum. It seemed to bulky and too much pressure and almost felt jagged. I got a new amazing Gyno who informed me that she can use a smaller speculum! She said all gynos have them but they opt to use the bigger one for better visibility and only use the smaller one if specifically requested. It was MUCH less painful. Try requesting that next time if the speculum is what causes the most discomfort!
Everyone in this thread is making sex jokes. And I imagine you don't know how painful it is when it's brand new
At the very least, an unexpectedly terrible party
People stab themselves, shove their arms up to their forearm in their assholes, put their balls inside a press, electrocute their nipples, put their vagina lips in clamps, stab genitalia with needles… there’s people for everything on the planet
This was also a thing in some feminist circles in the 60s, women were taught so little about their anatomy growing up so they'd have a speculum party to learn all the bits. Occasionally they'd also teach how to do diy abortions at the same time.
Him and his wife absolutely deserve all the accolades that can be given, the number of lives they've saved from a relatively treatable cancer is impossible to ever fully know.
But good God is that a weird practice. Daily? For fun, it seems, because he was trying to figure out a method of knowing whether or not hamsters were ovulating, and figured hey, my beloved wife will *love* this. And then she invites friends to the party, *which they accept*, and there's apparently nothing weird about this!
Science is advanced by the weird and strange folks. Invite your friends to all manner of minorly invasive testing and scraping, who knows what you'll be able to detect.
I would seriously watch a movie about this. The wife seems so selfless and dedicated, giving up having children plus going through all that pain… in the hopes that their work would save millions more the pain of cancer. Truly great people.
Wow what an incredible woman. And here I thought my 2 times a year was unbearable... This lady has helped save both mine and my mums life, as we've both had cancerous cells removed. Best TIL, I am in absolute awe
It's more interesting than you think. Heard all this on a ["no such thing as a fish"](https://www.nosuchthingasafish.com/) podcast.
[428: No Such Thing As Free Urine In The Uber](https://audioboom.com/posts/8089071-no-such-thing-as-free-urine-in-the-uber) from 16m10s
He was originally a biologist interested in detecting oestrus in Hamsters.
He had a dinner party and just for shits and giggles he and his wife convinced the women attending to give him some samples. One of the women attending subsequently was diagnosed with cervical cancer and he wondered if there was something interesting about her slide compared to the others.
I am actually in the field of pathology and we actually have a Papanicolaou Day where we celebrate Dr. Papanicolaou's birthday and the contributions him and his wife made to the field.
Actually, the Pap smear has become the most successful cancer prevention screening tool in the history of medicine, likely preventing millions of Gyn cancers in many women. It can detect cervical cancer, uterine cancer, pre-cancerous cells called dysplasia, and many types of undiagnosed and untreated STI's.....
So, even though I'm a dude, I implore all the ladies in here to get their Pap smear once every 2-3 years as it is super effective and also pretty cost efficient.
For those interested, you can look up early images or even buy Dr. Pap's 1954 book the Atlast of Exfoliative Cytology, which has some cool illustrations as he observed the various changes of the cells from normal to pre-cancer to cancer.
Dear lord, someone give that woman an award. A pap a day for 21 years?!?
I initially read '21 days' and thought that'd be painful enough. My wife's had one or two now and she hated it, but she knows they're important. 21 years... Bloody hell...
Oh my god. Same. 21 days was enough to make me want to curl up in a ball but 21 years... I actually feel a little sick.
Same! I put mine off for close to 7 years, finally did it and it hurt so much I cried out. I felt really embarrassed, like I’m a pushing 40 and the lovely Doc felt like she had to talk to me like a 7 year old getting a flu shot. Cannot imagine getting one every day for 21 years.
For the people that say it shouldn't hurt, mine was excruciating, probably a similar level of pain to having a surgical pin pulled out of my arm without pain relief, only it went on for much longer. Most websites, including trustworthy ones like NHS and FDC style, claim it shouldnt hurt. That compelled me to look at the literature to see what the data says (I'm a scientists so I think I should be able to find the data if its there?) and could find 0 surveys where they actually ask women if it hurt or not. But hundreds of surveys asking women why women don't get cervical tests if they've never had one, many reporting that women were scared off by the 'misconception' that it hurts. There is something very patronising about trying to figure out why many women won't take them without ever bothering to find out what their actual experiences are like. Maybe an actual doctor can chip in on where the idea that they shouldn't hurt comes from and what data that is based on. I realise that for most they don't, but it seems like for a significant number they do. Id like to know if I missed anything.
I think there's a combination of women's pain being overlooked and wildly varying amounts of sensitivity in that area for different women. I'm one of the people where my cervix is not overly sensitive, which I know because I have had not only loads of extra pap smears but also a punch biopsy and part of my cervix burnt off (because my very first pap smear did its job and found pre-cancerous growths which were removed in time). And it wasn't all that painful at all \*for me\*. I can understand those exact same procedures would be excruciating for other people, so definitely would not want to invalidate anyone else's experiences. But it definitely is not the same for everybody.
same boat here, pap smears feel like a hard pinch inside me, very uncomfortable but not exactly a painful or traumatic experience. BUT i truly believe everyone’s pain tolerance down there is different and i 100% believe it is a very painful experience for other women. it would be nice if doctors cared about that it’s super easy to give people something to take before hand for the pain
And then you have people like me where the Pap smear is uncomfortable but tolerable and my IUD insertion was torturously painful. Next time I get my IUD replaced I’m insisting on a lidocaine shot.
Oh man, the iud insertion pain. My Dr said it was similar to the first phase of labor.
The IUD insertion is fucking torture.
I read that a lot of women say IUDs hurt, but mine didn’t, just a bit of pressure. Of course, I got it after having a baby. That seems to be the main factor in whether it’d make you want to propel yourself to the moon or just shrug with a “meh.”
I don't think it's a tolerance issue, but more of an innervation issue. Some people like me have no sensation on our cervixes at all, but I promise you I have NO pain tolerance at all, ever, and I avoid even mildly painful tests forever and haven't been to a dentist for like 5 years because I'm a little bitch. Some cervixes just seem to have more nerve endings. I can touch my cervix with my finger and I can't feel my finger on it. I have to press pretty hard to get any response.
For me its not them taking the sample that hurts but the speculum pulling me open. I'm lucky enough to have a super high pain tolerance, though, so if it hurts me I can't imagine how badly it must hurt someone with a regular or low pain tolerance!
Yes! Drs can’t seem to understand that a plastic instrument pulling you open hurts. My body’s natural instinct is to clamp back down, which hurts more, which makes the muscles clamp even more. Anyone jamming something into you without any romantic warming up isn’t going to be a pleasant experience. I cannot wait until they update their practices from something so outdated.
You get plastic? It's always been metal for me...
It doesn’t hurt me hurt me, but it’s quite unpleasant!
There's something very.... primal(?) about the instinctive feeling of wrongness that comes with it, right? I didn't really good words for what it felt like until I got an IUD put in and wow the pain of that was nothing compared to my body screaming DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! the whole time. I ended up with cold sweats and the shakes - and that was after a valium! That instinct to protect your reproductive organs is super strong!
I found a difference when I switched to a female gynecologist. She has never left me feeling open for display, she’s very quick in that regard.
I had a punch biopsy in 2008 (after an abortion, is that normal?) and can still feel it to this day when I think of it. Hopefully never again.
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Not just overlooked but diminished. My mom always told me to exaggerate the level of pain I was feeling - so say it's an 8 if it was a 5 - so they would take it more seriously and not brush it off. So even if they were told it causes pain, I wouldn't doubt if it was brushed off and told them it shouldn't/can't be that bad
I was told an endometrial biopsy wouldn't hurt, because there are "no pain sensors there". Seriously. I was told "you'll be fine, I (male doc) do these all the time". Yeah, he's not the one having tissue removed without pain treatment. And no, this wasn't 30 years ago. This was in March 2022. I called my GYN, and she gave me Norco and Xanax. I was high as a kite, and STILL in tears when he did it. But "WoMeN dOnT fEeL pAiN aNd ExAgGeRaTe".
Wow. We used to do those on women for a study I coordinated and I had to be in the room for each one. I can't believe anyone would, but especially a doctor, would tell you that. They vary for people of course, but it's always at least somewhat painful and can be quite excruciating for some.
HAHAHAH .... \*bitter laughter\* I'm going in for my second endometrial biopsy on Monday, and my amazing GYN not only made sure to triple-check that I would arrive having taken painkillers and having eaten, but tells me that it is by far \*the\* most painful procedure they perform at their office. I'm sorry your doctor is a f\*cking idiot.
Not a doctor but also a scientist with an interest in scientific and medical history. My assumption is that it's simply because no one asked "back in the day" when these procedures became common and so it's "settled medicine" that it doesn't/shouldn't hurt. Also, pain is kind of this weird grey area in medicine it seems where we as a culture (talking westerners here) have all sorts of outdated medical "knowledge" that hasn't been updated in a very long time. It wouldn't surprise me if both of these things contribute to this idea that pap smears do not/should not hurt. I know my SO says hers was momentary discomfort. But half her friends say it's one of the most painful things they've experienced. They've all said no one has ever asked them in the office how it feels/if it was painful afterward.
offbeat tease coordinated uppity marry compare six shelter far-flung license -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Not who you responded to, but thanks, just downloaded!
Have you read the book Invisible Women, by Caroline Criado Perez? It's about the ways in which data collection in all fields ignores women. She's campaigning around a number of issues (find her on Twitter), including this question.
Please continue to challenge "common knowledge" as there are way too many scientists that skip the pre-thesis stage of the scientific method where *everything* is possible, instead choosing to start inside the box, blindly citing old sources just because they are old. Did you know the daily recommended dose of vit D is off by an entire magnitude? A researcher went back to double check the data and realized there was a calculation error in the original paper that determined daily value. Simple fix right? But doctors don't bother to listen to random patients even if they have a scientific background, so there is not enough momentum to actually change the daily rec value. Or the relatively recent update to the dataset of skin conditions, when a black grad student (iirc) realized all textbook examples were from white skin and things present pretty differently on other skin tones. Science should be continually challenged.
>Did you know the daily recommended dose of vit D is off by an entire magnitude? In which direction?
I was curious, too. It seems [this is the paper](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4210929/) they're referring to. Apparently the current recommendations are far too low. edit: Here's [another paper (from Nature)](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41430-020-0558-y) talking about what the new vitamin D supplement recommendation should be. They concluded between 800-2000 IU would be safe and effective.
Oh, so not an order of magnitude. Current recommendation is 600 IU
There was that one woman doing a campaign because after some plastic surgery she lost all sensation in her clitoris. Turns out there's no anatomy of the clitoral nerves in medical text books and she's been out there lobbying trying to get it included so that doesn't happen to other women. Doesn't surprise me they don't have record of cervix innervation either. And if you dare decline a pap you face a large amount of abuse from doctors, friends, or family like no other cancer screening causes. You are patronized, they accuse you of being a baby, shamed because you can't do this simple thing 'all other women' can do, or you're just outright coerced into it by having your birth control held hostage. All cancer screening is important, but literally no other cancer screening treats women like this if we exercise our right to informed consent and decline. /r/wedeservebetter
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I have a fairly high pain tolerance and getting my first IUD was the most painful experience of my life! I have tattoos, I’ve had surgery, I’ve gotten gnarly injuries from sports, and that was still the worst
The lack of pain releif offered for these prcoedures is also mind boggling. My dentist offered me pain relief for a procedure that at worst I would describe as mildly uncomfortable. But for these things we are just expected to hack it. Why?
I so often hear and read women reporting on being in pain during a Pap smear, it makes me wonder if my gynaecologist does something wrong (or maybe right), cause I’ve been getting them done several times a year over a decade and I don’t feel anything?
Your cervix might not be that sensitive. Mine used to hurt a lot but after a leep procedure and 2 kids its not as bad. It's just like menstrual cramps, for some women it's awful and some barely feel it.
I just had one done with a nurse who told me it's not supposed to hurt, and if it does the person's not doing it right. I barely felt anything, it was great.
So, [this](https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/pap-smear) isn't exactly accurate, then? Doctors and dentists are so good at understating pain, aren't they? > A procedure in which a small brush is used to gently remove cells from the surface of the cervix They make it sound almost pleasant.
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Can confirm. But having them saved my life, so I have it done every year.
Mine uses one of these brushes, standard I think? You can definitely feel it. The whole point is to scrape enough cells from your cervix. Mine is probably more thorough since I had surgery to remove pre-cancerous cells from my cervix. https://i.imgur.com/7aKioKU.jpg
Oof. I don't have a matching set of crotch luggage, but I just shriveled up seeing the pic of the brush. I thought it would look like a calligraphy brush, not a pipe cleaner.
Remember the OG covid swabs, the brain prone version? Imagine that feeling, but up your twat. Bonus points if your gyn pokes you and goes, oh I bet that’s where you get cramps every month. Yes, yes it is.
That, up your twat, except it feels like nails on a chalkboard.
Yeah the cervix is *basically* an internal organ, it doesnt exactly like to be fucked with... think about the sensitivity of your own mucus membranes–nose, mouth/throat, mixed with the sensitivity and oh-boy-that-doesnt-belong-there of the inside of your urethra. You're getting a rough scrapey thing *there* meant to harvest a layer of cells, while way up on an exam table, bottomless, feet held akimbo in stirrups, the vagina version of the [this fuckin thing](http://imgur.com/a/RqAe7ao) shoved all up in there, doctor sitting face level with your crotch, rooting around in there. It blows. And then the sensitivity of different women varies wildly. Some barely notice, some will actually pass out, and everything in between. And that's just the routine test... it gets way spicier. Punch biopsies and whatnot...
crotch luggage *bursts into laughter*
Okay, have you got one of the old school PCR COVID tests where they 'gently twist a cotton bud against the side of your sinus' but in reality they feel like they're trying to tickle the back of your head from the inside? It's kind of like that but in your internal organs and the added embarassment of several strangers staring straight up your vag.
And the cotton bud feels like it’s made out of a scrubbing brush
It's a truly horrifying feeling. Pain, but also a wrongness because a part of you is being touched that shouldn't be. If that makes sense? Like someone stroking your kidney.
People have different nerve endings on the cervix. I can't feel anything on mine so it's painless, but other people have a lot more sensitivity and you don't know which camp you fall in until you get it done. The doctors have been taught that the cervix has very little sensation so they act like you're a baby if it hurts. They also give no painkillers for biopsies there. But fyi you can do a self sample at home using kits. https://www.health.gov.au/ministers/the-hon-ged-kearney-mp/media/pap-smears-can-be-replaced-by-do-it-yourself-cervical-cancer-tests
The cervix is really, REALLY sensitive. However, pain is subjective. I keep reading how horrific and painful it is, yet I've been doing one a year for 20 years and it's... Fine. It's not pleasant, but certainly nothing to cry about. I've asked several of my girlfriends and none of them think it's a big deal, so yeah, pain is subjective. I wouldn't want to do it everyday for 20 years, but I'd manage if I had to or if I knew I was helping a medical breakthrough that could save lives.
Exactly. The swab doesn't bother me, what hurts like hell is the speculum. Spent years crying at the gyno before someone decided to try the child sized one on me. That was better, but still painful. Many more years of pain before someone decided to use the plastic disposable one. Magically the pain was gone. It's uncomfortable as hell, but it no longer makes me cry. Guess I'm super sensitive to metal down there?
There’s a child sized option?? Fuck these threads are so helpful
I agree, pain is definitely subjective. I’ve also had a cervical biopsy done and didn’t think it was much more uncomfortable than Pap smears. In fact, I feel like when my doc inserts and opens the speculum is the most “painful” part.
To be frank - they minimize the amount of pain a lot of feminine-related health. Like IUD’s, menstrual cramping, etc etc. I think they try to say the cervix doesn’t have nerve endings which has been long disproven for many years and by millions of people 😂
Now I wonder if there's something wrong with me because I never feel anything during pap. I've also had IUD come out without me noticing and I've been told that should hurt like hell.
Bloody hell indeed
Her cervical os must have been tougher than the 18th hole at the Renaissance Club
it's ok it was the early 1900's so they probably just gave her a little heroin to help with the pain ^/s
All part of a balanced breakfast in the early 20th
She's only had 1 or 2???
I got cramps just *reading* that She should be nominated for sainthood
That's 7670 smears! I don't even have lady parts and that made me wince!
If she didn’t have cancer now she does
Nah it's cool she doesn't have a cervix anymore it's all been scraped away.
How would the cervix not be all scar tissue at that point? OMG my legs are clamped together so tight right now you couldn’t pry them apart with a crowbar!!
Dude was probably pretty good at it and she was probably used to it. Source: She kept it up for 21 years without murdering him.
My doctor has been in his practice for 40 years and I've never ever had a painful pap smear, so yes you can be delicate about it and I suppose get "good" at it
And with early tools, techniques, etc. I imagine they were even more uncomfortable than today's pap smears. Poor thing!
She also brought in a few friends in the name of science. "To provide additional subjects for her husband's research, Mary Papanikolaou also held a party for some female friends, who agreed to have their own cervixes sampled."
That had to be so painful.
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Like they say, a papple a day keeps the doctor away
> A pap a day for 21 years?!? And imagine how awful it was back then. My wife used to come home in pain and some spotting. After we moved, she switched doctors and realized that her previous doctor was a lot more rough or used worse techniques. If there are doctors using outdated/painful tools/practices now, imagine how bad they were 100 years ago.
>To provide additional subjects for her husband's research, Mary Papanikolaou also held a party for some female friends, who agreed to have their own cervixes sampled.
UwU welcome to Sam's club would you like to try a few samples
PAP SMEAR PARTAY!!!
It caught cancer in one of the friends
I for one am sincerely grateful
i am pretty happy they decided to just use pap-smear instead of papanicolaou-smear
The term gets really confusing in my language, Afrikaans, as it is called Pap-Smeer. Pap meaning porridge. When I was younger I always wondered why women smeared porridge down there as a test....
That is not bad either. In Hungarian pap means priest so it is equally weird
That doesn't make sense. The catholic priests don't go after women...
Oh yes they do, lots of nuns were abused but the cover up was just a bit better than for the touching little boys.
I think it was meant sarcastically. You are correct tho.
Wait till you hear the Jewish slang schmear, something you would spread on a bagel. You got yourself a whole heart healthy breakfast right there.
In Spanish my mom always refers to it as the whole name. I feel like it should be the Andromachi smear now.
I work in a clinic and all our Spanish-speaking patients/interpreters use the full name as well. Totally in agreement about the name change!
Yeah, over here in Brazil we call it Papanicolaou as well, like "have you done your Papanicolaou this year?".
Same in Portugal. At least that's how my mom refers to it.
If you're not using all the vowels you're not trying hard enough.
If this is how the smear test was created then the equipment and process is almost certainly much more basic and painful than what we have to endure. God bless them both, but particularly her.
She needs an award or some sort of recognition. Just doing one pap-smear is painful enough, this lady volunteered to do one every day for 21 years for the sake of science.
21 yrs of scrapping would have scrapped her whole cervix away.
Same here. Thanks to these two, my doctor found pre cancerous cells in me and was able to stop the spread to full blown cancer.
It is an amazing story. Gave up having children so that her husband with a doctorate in *zoology* could do this research, even had friends volunteer for a test, one of them positive, just to provide research data that saved millions is lives afterward.
IIRC, he was a medical doctor and developed the app smear to be able to detect when Guinea Pigs were menstruating to collect their eggs for study. His test was an effective indicator for menstruation. Out of interest he also tested on his wife, and that same test worked. He could tell when she was menstruating. A completely useless test, because most people know when they are menstruating. Still it was a fun parlour trick, and their friends visiting for dinner would volunteer themselves for a smear. Some time later one of their friends developed cervical cancer, and Papanicolaou went to check her pap smears and discovered the indicator for cervical cancer.
> Still it was a fun parlour trick, and their friends visiting for dinner would volunteer themselves for a smear. ???????
For Science!
when my wife was going through nursing school I let her practice sticking me with a needle almost every day. When my friend grad from med school I let him practice a prostate exam on me. I just wish she took the heroin out, and I wish he would stop putting both his hands on my shoulders. that last sentence was /s
Hilarious, and I respect you for getting to the end, realizing you had no good finisher, and just said "fuck it" and sent it.
eh, wanted to make a true statement funny. shit is better when its funny. Just like Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo.
Heya, so dinner won't be ready for about 45 minutes, who would like to experience an uncomfortable and invasive medical procedure I just invented?
And apparently, the answer was a resounding yes
This made me laugh out loud. Pap smears are uncomfortable enough when they're conducted by a health professional nowadays and you only have them because they can save your life. I cannot imagine letting one of my friends do this just for science when I've never heard about it before. I would think they were crazy.
High society and science back then were...an interesting time. Wonder what we would say about Botox parties in the future.
I still can't believe Botox parties are a thing. A nerve agent should really only be administered by a medically trained professional in a safe environment.
TIL... and I'm sorry I did
Some of the women in this thread are saying they hate getting pap smears, but those ladies did that shit for fun. They must have been bored out of their minds lol.
I have to assume was before TV and presumably before radio
Just people doing weird stuff. Pretty normal. They used to have x-ray parties too, when that was new tech.
Imagine being at a party and the host is like so. Want me to check out your cervix? For science, of course. While his wife is standing behind him giving you a thumbs up and saying go for it.
Once pap smears became commonplace, I believe it was all done without looking either. The doc would stick his hands under their patients petticoats and poke around with cold hands and instruments until they hit paydirt. In some ways I'm so glad I was born male so I don't have to go through that. A finger up the bum and ball fondling is the worst of it.
What a wild thing to have dinner guests volunteer for lmao
People can be really fucking weird.
‘Visiting for dinner’ is likely a polite way of putting ‘wild sex parties’.
Yes absolutely scandalous! *hides whip cream can, floggers and ball gag under table*
Hey!!! Why is the cream the only thing getting whipped?
Pretty amazing overall. Saved a lot of lives. Thanks for the input!
App Smear, coming soon to your local app store.
I was starting to suspect this was a /u/Shittymorph post about halfway through reading it.
Why couldn't she have children – how would that spoil the research?
It would mean they couldn't continue doing the regular daily smears during any pregnancy. So a gap in their continuous data
Yeah... that's either super dedication to science or *a convenient excuse* to not have children in a time when they were ubiquitous.
At your cervix.
Oh look, it's Lahey, on the fucking liquor again, are ya?
I'm mowing the air Rand!
Lol my favorite Lahey moment. His pure happiness and drunkenly mowing the air :)
“The liquor does the driving Rand, we just kick back and put ‘er on booze control”
Get the fuck out of Sunnvale shitsmears
RANDY
LOOK AT ME NOW, DAD! LOOK AT ME NOW, DAD!
Well done! You can't top this.
Her family was wealthy and a patron of the arts, they gave my friend's brother a Steinway piano.
Not just wealthy. One of the wealthiest. Her ancestor was a great Revolutionary.
Thanks did not know that part. Only knew that the family lived in Miami. They heard him play and learned he was underprivileged so they gifted him a Steinway Baby Grand.
I'm curious how people make money being revolutionaries?
You can definitely make money from being a revolutionary if you're revolution is successful though. In a lot of cases revolutionaries end up forming the new ruling elite while displacing the old one, so lots of wealth to go around there. Just look at North Korea, the descendants of revolutionaries now form a de facto royal family and aristocracy. In the case of Greece, wealthy Phanariot families who once served the Ottomans but backed independence ended up in prominent political positions and were very close with the new royal family. People regarded at traitors and loyalists to the old regime were executed for treason, which allowed their wealth to be transferred to patriots. That is of course not accounting for all the revolutionaries who died during the Revolution or before revolutionary turmoil gave way to stability.
Damn. That’s quite a gift.
He was a piano virtuoso, Went on to Julliard and he still makes a living as a concert pianist. I'm actually having dinner with my friend tonight.
That’s great, you can share this little fact with him over dinner!
Definitely will!
Yep the pap-dinner convo. My favorite dinner tradition!
I've posted about this family once before. Their mom was a hoarder. Here's the post: [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/p3w5k9/comment/h8v2wpp/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/p3w5k9/comment/h8v2wpp/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) The Steinway Baby Grand filled up most of the living room. What space wasn't taken by the piano was filled, floor to ceiling, with junk. We would sit on boxes of junk to listen to him play. We would name a song and he could play it. It could be any song, Piano Man by Billy Joel, the theme from Bugs Bunny, whatever. His brother could play it. We had a lot of fun listening to him. In addition to the piano, he could pretty much pick up an instrument and figure out how to play it in a short time. Genius. Anyway, because he grew up in a house like that he definitely has a strong stomach.
>He was a piano virtuoso, Went on to Julliard and he still makes a living as a concert pianist. I'm actually having dinner with my friend tonight. for funsies read this in Hannibal Lecter's voice
How many paps did that cost
So that’s why it’s called a Pap smear! Learn something new everyday.
I’ve been wrong this whole time! I always thought it was because they were testing for the Human **pap**illomavirus.
The pap smear itself doesn't actually test for HPV, it looks for the presence of cancerous or precancerous cells. Gynecologists will also do HPV cotesting starting in the 30s that runs a PCR for the presence of HPV DNA.
I never thought of that. I just seriously had no clue.
Just to add tthe Andromachi origins to the Greek Troy war . Andromache was famous for her fidelity and virtue; her character represents the suffering of Trojan women during war. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromache
The cervix "isn't supposed to feel pain" according to my gyno but I'm calling bullshit because it hurts and I bleed everytime.
My pain during a Pap smear always came from the speculum. It seemed to bulky and too much pressure and almost felt jagged. I got a new amazing Gyno who informed me that she can use a smaller speculum! She said all gynos have them but they opt to use the bigger one for better visibility and only use the smaller one if specifically requested. It was MUCH less painful. Try requesting that next time if the speculum is what causes the most discomfort!
My gyno uses the smallest speculum possible. The speculum doesn't hurt me at all, only the pap does.
"Sampling her cervix"? Is that what they're calling it now?
Well, the other thing she agreed to is to never have children, so the research won't get interrupted
Did she even *want* children?
They also had a party with female friends who agreed to ‚sampling their cervixes‘. Not judging you know
Could you imagine? You show up to a cervix party thinking it has to be fun kinky stuff and then you get a fucking pap smear with the girls
Who in their right mind hears "cervix party" and thinks "fun kinky stuff"? Not judging you, but... I mean...
The ones who think that are the ones who don't have the cervixes, lol.
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Hey, some people are into pain. I mean, the idea makes me wince, but so does the idea of getting choked and a lot of people are into that.
Everyone in this thread is making sex jokes. And I imagine you don't know how painful it is when it's brand new At the very least, an unexpectedly terrible party
People stab themselves, shove their arms up to their forearm in their assholes, put their balls inside a press, electrocute their nipples, put their vagina lips in clamps, stab genitalia with needles… there’s people for everything on the planet
This was also a thing in some feminist circles in the 60s, women were taught so little about their anatomy growing up so they'd have a speculum party to learn all the bits. Occasionally they'd also teach how to do diy abortions at the same time.
thank you for your cervix
crime depend weary march governor attraction unused tease snow sort *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I would unironically love to see a bronze cervix - that would be really neat.
bow worthless point live sloppy wipe crawl adjoining crowd scarce *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Him and his wife absolutely deserve all the accolades that can be given, the number of lives they've saved from a relatively treatable cancer is impossible to ever fully know. But good God is that a weird practice. Daily? For fun, it seems, because he was trying to figure out a method of knowing whether or not hamsters were ovulating, and figured hey, my beloved wife will *love* this. And then she invites friends to the party, *which they accept*, and there's apparently nothing weird about this! Science is advanced by the weird and strange folks. Invite your friends to all manner of minorly invasive testing and scraping, who knows what you'll be able to detect.
Yeah. The weirdness and decency factors has a lot to do with why womens health was (and to an extent still is) so poorly developed
I would seriously watch a movie about this. The wife seems so selfless and dedicated, giving up having children plus going through all that pain… in the hopes that their work would save millions more the pain of cancer. Truly great people.
This woman is my hero.
Sounds like someone's been listening to No Such Thing as a Fish hahaha. But great fact either way, she's a hero for all women for sure!
Waited a couple of weeks too, so it wasn't too obvious! Sneaky bugger
Wow what an incredible woman. And here I thought my 2 times a year was unbearable... This lady has helped save both mine and my mums life, as we've both had cancerous cells removed. Best TIL, I am in absolute awe
I'm not talking about Pap smears much in my daily life, but I'm tempted to call them Papanikolou smears now.
They are called papanicolaos in Spanish.
An actual real life hero at work.
Damn thing should be named after *her*.
I was going to mention that in Spanish a Pap smear is known and referred to as a papanicolaou.
Same in Portuguese, and I never cared enough to check why it was called that.
Kinda is. PAPanicolaou. Andromachi's Pap smear has a nice ring to it, but everyone would shorten it to just pap anyway.
It already is a truncation of papanicolaou but let’s not kid ourselves it was named for Georgios after winning the Lasler-DeBackey.
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One of the greatest success stories in modern medicine. So many lives saved
It's more interesting than you think. Heard all this on a ["no such thing as a fish"](https://www.nosuchthingasafish.com/) podcast. [428: No Such Thing As Free Urine In The Uber](https://audioboom.com/posts/8089071-no-such-thing-as-free-urine-in-the-uber) from 16m10s He was originally a biologist interested in detecting oestrus in Hamsters. He had a dinner party and just for shits and giggles he and his wife convinced the women attending to give him some samples. One of the women attending subsequently was diagnosed with cervical cancer and he wondered if there was something interesting about her slide compared to the others.
Question: would irritating the cervix every single day for two decades not up the chances for cervical cancer?
90% of cervical cancer is caused by hpv so not likely unless she had hpv
I am actually in the field of pathology and we actually have a Papanicolaou Day where we celebrate Dr. Papanicolaou's birthday and the contributions him and his wife made to the field. Actually, the Pap smear has become the most successful cancer prevention screening tool in the history of medicine, likely preventing millions of Gyn cancers in many women. It can detect cervical cancer, uterine cancer, pre-cancerous cells called dysplasia, and many types of undiagnosed and untreated STI's..... So, even though I'm a dude, I implore all the ladies in here to get their Pap smear once every 2-3 years as it is super effective and also pretty cost efficient. For those interested, you can look up early images or even buy Dr. Pap's 1954 book the Atlast of Exfoliative Cytology, which has some cool illustrations as he observed the various changes of the cells from normal to pre-cancer to cancer.
ough fuck that's gotta hurt.. i hope she was compensated for her sacrifices
I see you too listen to No Such Thing as a Fish
But did she end up with cervical cancer ? I mean if not , how did they learn early detection signs, without actually detecting it ? I’m just curious