Hi everyone.
I’m 26 and I’ve been having quite painful sex for a while now; and 9 times out of 10 I bleed during too. My partners have been lovely whenever this has happened but I can’t help feeling embarrassed.
I was due to see a gynaecologist as I had really painful and heavy periods but this was delayed due to COVID; and when I did phone to enquire; the receptionist said “we have been in a pandemic you know”.
The last time I had painful sex was yesterday and again I bled. I came home and Googled it (I know BIG MISTAKE) and was horrified by what I saw. I discussed it with my Mum tonight and she’s advised I see my GP ASAP.
My Nan (Mum’s Mum) died of cervical cancer but I did have my smear last year before I turned 25.
I’m going to go to the doctors on Monday as I’m in London tomorrow but I just need to vent to someone!
Hi Stefaniex and welcome to our group
I’d like to mention a couple of things to you, and the first would be to stay off Google! As you’ve found, it can be a scary place and it cannot diagnose you. If you put headaches into a Google search it will likely produce brain tumour in the results so it’s not the best place to look if you have symptoms which concern you.
The best thing to do is go to your gp in the first instance which I see you are doing on Monday. The gp can refer you again to be seen by a gynaecologist if he/she is concerned as they are the experts.
The next thing is that there is no proven genetic link in cervical cancer, so just because your Nan had cervical cancer, it doesn’t mean that you would be more likely to have it. There can be many reasons, especially in young women, for unexplained bleeding and it doesn’t necessarily mean there is anything serious going on.
Coming to a group like this, most of us have or have had cervical cancer, but try not to make assumptions from that. It’s a cancer group, so most of the discussions revolve around that, but those are our stories and hopefully will not be yours.
You wouldn’t get another smear test at this point because the national screening programme has strict guidelines about the timing of these, and you had one last year, so another one is not due. But it’s important to be aware that a smear test is not a diagnostic test for cancer-it is primarily a test to check if you have active hpv, and from there is you have any abnormal cells (not cancer).
I can understand you are scared, but try not to let your thoughts run away with themselves at this point. The doctor will decide if you need to be referred, and from there may want some additional tests to explain your heavy periods for example. Try also if you can not to focus on cancer by reading things online which are unlikely to apply to you.
Let us know how you get on with the gp, and hopefully you will come back and tell us you have been reassured. If you have more questions, then feel free to ask here and we will help if we can. Good luck!
Sarah xx
