Abnormal Pap

So your Pap smear results came back ‘inconclusive’ or ‘suspicious’ and you were told to repeat the test in so many months.  You are nervous, worried, and — so typically — convinced you now have cancer…

In reality, fasle-positive results are not unusual and can be due to laboratory errors or to the presence of blood, or mucus or inflammation, or semen/spermicidal, etc.,  that mask the result.  If the abnormalities require close scrutiny, your doctor will proceed with a colposcopy even before recommending a repeat Pap smear.

What can you do to minimize false-positive results? Read our post Tips for Gyno Exam.  Beyond that, try to stay as calm as possible until you do the repeat test — it may very well come back negative and normal after all!

Scraping my cervix?

The term ‘scraping the cervix’ that is associated with the Pap test tends to cause distress to many women because it implies ‘sharp, pain, blood.’

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, scraping means “to remove from a surface by usually repeated strokes of an edged instrument” as in rubbing off a tissue sample for cytology.

So ladies: by no means is the Pap test to be associated with a surgical procedure or with sharp instruments cutting deeply into the cervix!  Instead, look at it as a ‘throat culture’ to the cervix — simple and harmless (even you tend to spot/bleed a bit afterward, which is common).