Dreading your Pap Smear? Tips to Make It More Comfortable

In the United States, about 11,500 new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed each year. As many as 93% of those new cases could be prevented by screening for the HPV virus.  As many as 8 million people with vaginas report not having a cervical screening completed in the last 5 years. A barrier not often discussed to obtain this screening is pain or inability to tolerate vaginal penetration. 

We put together a few tips and tricks to hopefully make your next pelvic exam and/or pap smear a little more comfortable:

1. Discuss any anxiety about the procedure with your provider with fully clothed. This allows a little more comfort before going into the actual exam.

2. Say no to stirrups. Did you know you do not need to use stirrups to have a speculum exam? That’s right! The provider can have you move down to the end of the table and place a pillow under your sacrum. This can feel less intrusive than having your legs spread wide in the stirrups.

3. Don't forget to breathe!!! If you are holding your breath, you can be holding tension in your pelvic floor. Allow each inhale to fill your belly and travel all the way down to the pelvic floor.

4. If something doesn't feel right, is painful, or becomes overwhelming, ask your provider to let you take a break. Never accept a provider saying "it will be over quickly." Stop means stop.

5. Ask the provider to allow you to insert and remove the speculum. This can be helpful if you have any pain or anxiety with insertion. This puts you in charge of how far the speculum goes in and at what pace.

6. Knowing what will happen before it does can be helpful for you to prepare for what is coming next and not having anything done that might cause the pelvic floor to tense up.

Also consider….

Self-collected HPV screening.  If your hesitation is having the provider do the exam, an option might be discussing with the provider about collecting the sample yourself.  A sample collected from the vagina is just as accurate for HPV diagnosis.

It is important to feel like you are a part of this exam and not just the exam being done to you. We hope these tips help you leave your next pelvic exam empowered about your own body!

If you’re looking to address this pain with a conservative treatment approach, consider seeing a pelvic floor physical therapist. 

This blog post was written by Jace Eardley.