Reply #21: I've had the colposcopy,

[geniph]

the cone biopsy, cryosurgery, all manner of scrapings and diggings around in there. In my 20s, I went through a period when I was having to have Pap smears every six weeks, and they all came back dysplastic. Never developed into cancer, and by my 30s, it'd settled down. I haven't had a bad Pap smear in nearly 15 years now. So bad Pap smears, even repeated ones, are not the end of the world. Most of the procedures aren't fun, but they are not painful either. The cryo sucked, not because it hurt (it didn't) but because you...um...drip for about six weeks afterward. You have to wear napkins and they get soaked - I got diaper rash! On the plus side, that's what finally convinced me to never see another male OB/GYN - he more or less patted me on the head and said, "I know, isn't it terrible" when I mentioned the drippage, and I glared at him and said, "how the hell would YOU know?" and never went to a man for a Pap smear ever again.

The procedure I had that sucked was totally unrelated to the bad Pap smears - I had cervical polyps removed. THAT was distinctly unpleasant. However, that's very unlikely to be what's causing your results to come back dysplastic.

Don't worry too much. The vast, vast majority even of stage 3 and 4 Pap smears are not cancerous and never become so. Colposcopy doesn't hurt at all, they sedate you for the cone biopsy, and the cryo isn't painful.

:hug: