Hello - I'm looking for a bit of advice re smear tests. I'm 60 and had chemoradiotherapy in Sept/October 2020 for (stage 3) anal cancer and, as part of a trial, received the highest dose of radiation being trialled. Results so far are looking very good as far as the cancer is concerned but I am suffering from long term side effects - anal and vaginal stenosis, shrinkage, less stretchy, fragile, easily broken skin etc. I’ve been contacted by my GP practice re an overdue smear test as the last one was due in 2018. I forgot all about it at the time (for various reasons) and now I’m not keen to go anywhere near a speculum any time soon! I told the nurse that I’m trying to persevere with the vaginal dilators but it’s difficult and asked about the home tests trial, sizes of speculum etc. She said that even if the trial was available in this area (which it’s not) I would still have to have a traditional smear test as well (whereas I thought that would only happen if HPV was detected) and that smaller speculums were often too short to be effective. Unfortunately she didn’t come across as particularly sympathetic although she suggest asking my consultant if I could be prescribed Vagifem to help.
I’ve also read that smear tests are not recommended after pelvic radiotherapy because radiation has already damaged the skin cells and instead to wait for symptoms before doing any screening. I have no idea if that is accurate or not. My consultant has just said in the past when I mentioned the dilator situation (prior to my conversation with the GP nurse) that I should keep trying if only in case I needed an internal examination in the future. Does anyone have any advice/experience of this please?
