The Cut - Gynecology Has a Pain Problem

Routine Pap smears — in which a medical provider uses small tools to scrape cells from the cervix to test for cancer or precancerous conditions — are recommended by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists once every three years for patients over 21 whose results are normal. Lauren Capps, 28, is due for her next one in October. She’s worried about it. “Honestly, it’s a bit scary,” she says. “I don’t want to go.”

When she was 20, Capps went to her college clinic for birth-control pills. They told her she needed a Pap smear before they could prescribe them. And it went okay, actually. That one really did feel like a pinch, she says.

Two years later, she went to a different provider, who required a Pap smear before providing another birth-control prescription. She was expecting a similar experience to her first. “She started the speculum insertion and she wasn’t even at the cervix yet, and I just remember the most terrible pain,” Capps says. “I just started screaming out.”

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