Hello everyone!
I read this article today online and I wanted to share it here as I think it contains some great information and tips for any woman who feels nervous or anxious during her annual exam:
http://www.carolinalive.com/news/story.aspx?id=315014#.VFJinPTF-xk
I like the idea of bringing a close friend with you if you are both comfortable with it and also to ask questions ahead of time about what to expect. That would really help women feel more in control of the whole process. Are there any other tips that you would add to this list? Michelle
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I didn't know the medical community was beginning to question the use of pelvic exams. I've hated going ever since my mother took me to the gynecologist when I was 12 because I thought I had an infection. I was totally unprepared for the pelvic exam and when I cried, the assisting said, cheerily, "well if you don't like that you probably wouldn't like sex too much!" And this wasn't back in the 50s or something -- it was only about 15 years ago. Looking back on it I still feel angry that she said that too me. It was insensitive, judgmental, and unprofessional.
February 19, 2013 - 4:04pmThis Comment
It is important to ask the medical school for the list of possible and probable risks for these procedures (this list must be provided, by law). Have you received this documentation?
May 11, 2012 - 4:21amThis Comment
Also, women who’ve had complete hysterectomies for benign conditions should be excluded from testing. One other group often overlooked – women in lifetime mutually monogamous relationships are most unlikely to benefit from testing – their risk of cc is near zero.
May 11, 2012 - 4:12amThis Comment
Do nuns need pelvic exams after 70?
March 14, 2012 - 4:53amThis Comment
Not sure about pelvic exams but definitely breast exams
October 29, 2014 - 8:22pmThis Comment
I am so tired of these exams! I told my OB/GYN years ago, about the 3 year recommendation and she finally agreed 3 years ago to have me wait for the pap smear. However, I was still expected to have the Pelvic exam annually. I brought up nuns and mennonites and ammish women probably not getting these and she told me nuns do get them. However, were the nuns in a monogamous marriage for over 25 years before their exam? I have had to have these since 19 years (US Navy) and a virgin. I don't feel better about these but worse, particularly when I know it's mainly for an STD. Every pap smear came back clean. I only want the pills for hormones because I am 49 years old. I am seriously thinking about cancelling my appointment in 2 days. Thanks for letting me sound off. Kerry
June 6, 2011 - 12:50pmThis Comment
I have panic attacks before a pelvic exam. As in, heart racing, high blood pressure, nausea, dizziness, shortness of breath, want to die panic. The exam is incredibly quick, but it is so humiliating... so degrading... so undignified... so immodest... I cry for two days afterward.
My exams wouldn't be so bad after I establish rapport with a provider. But then, right when it's time for my legs to go in the stirrups, they have a strange nurse come in to "help" (i.e., chaperon) and she stand down by my feet, looking at my most intimate parts, just for the sake of looking. HUMILIATING AND DEGRADING!
If it weren't for pelvic exams, I would have many more babies. The anxiety from pelvic exams and all the humiliating, degrading things they make you go through during pregnancy is enough to make me not want to get pregnant again, even though I want more children.
I actually voiced my fear the last time I went in. The provider laughed it off (in a nice way?), but did nothing to help my fears.
I don't know what to do.
May 6, 2011 - 6:52amThis Comment
This is ME! I have never met anyone else who felt the way I do. I am so tired of having my feelings brushed off because it's "a little uncomfortable". It's not uncomfortable, it's humiliating! I cry for days before and after. I am on the verge of vomiting when I arrive.
February 17, 2016 - 8:57pmThe doctors try to say the right things but they just don't get it. I feel so violated and do not understand people who laugh about their gyno visits. I have zero children because I can not stomach the idea of the exams and child birth. I need birth control for extremely irregular menstration but I am about to give up and just bleed every day for the rest of my life.
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There have been some very honest articles in your papers recently..."Is the routine pelvic exam obsolete?" also, "Questioning the value of the routine pelvic exam" in the WSJ and comments by Dr Carolyn Westhoff. These comments not only confirm the exam is unnecessary in symptom-free women, but they risk your health - American women have high numbers for hysterectomies and surgery removing healthy ovaries. (much higher than countries that don't recommend this exam like the UK and Australia)
March 16, 2011 - 11:45pmAlso, comments made by Dr Robert Hatcher from the Managing Contraception site confirming this exam and cancer screening is not required for birth control. Search his name plus pelvic exam and birth control and it should appear. The only thing clinically required for the safe use of the Pill is your medical history and your blood pressure.
Hopefully, the coercion will soon be a thing of the past - avoid doctors who still try to coerce you into unnecessary and harmful exams and optional cancer screening - once they see patients walking away and lost revenue, they'll soon embrace evidence based medicine. Protect your healthy body from harm - symptom-free women do not need this sort of medical scrutiny and surveillance and the coercion/control/power thing is disgraceful.
This Comment
I think this article is very arrogant to tell all women how to reduce pelvic exam anxiety. When a brainwashed mother drags her 18 year old daughter to the gyneocologist, everyone around her seems to know what is best for her! She is eventually lured into the stirrups for unnecessary humiliation and violation of her womanhood. Her body "clamps up" because it has its own intelligence. It is screaming "No!" But she must stare at the stupid posters on the ceiling designed by doctors to distract women from the fact that they are being gently raped. I do believe unnecessary penetration by sexual organs is rape. Women are not as consented as they believe because of all the scare tactics and fear mongering these "caring" gynecologists and "caring" people like the misogynist who wrote this article dish out. Period.
This exam is barbaric, outdated, and so unnecessary. Most of the rest of the developed world is laughing at you American women. Women in Europe and especially Asia: Paying doctors to finger their pussies is the exception rather than the norm. The CDC recently announced its conviction that even the beloved pap smear has done so much more harm than good. The ACOG finally admitted that its recommendation that 18-year-olds be screened for cervical cancer will no longer be the standard. Please educate yourself and read about that! (Young women needing psychiatric help before and AFTER exams because of the emotional toll these clinical rape rituals take on them. Women needing to drop out of college because they were told they "might" have cancer, when that ALMOST ALWAYS >>>>99% was not the case. All of this trauma to save about ONE woman under age 21 all these years according to the reports!)
There is a reason intelligent women who respect their bodies do not want to be violated this way. Stop defending the medical community and your own insecurities that you KNOW you have lost control over your pussy by handing it over every year to "caring" doctors and encouraging other women to do the same. We can make our own decisions and not be treated like children when you give us unwanted and unhelpful tips to reduce white-coat rape anxiety.
March 12, 2011 - 10:28pmThis Comment