Intimate Health Consulting has started answering some questions on Quora about reproductive health, gynecology, and LGBTQ health. You can follow our answers here but we'll be posting a few of them here on the blog.
Are pap smears painful for women who never had kids?
Should they be painful? No.
Are they sometimes? Yes.
The experience of pain has less to do with whether you’ve had kids and more to do with:
- 1. The size and shape of the speculum
- 2. How nervous you are
It’s completely understandable to be nervous about getting a pap smear, but those jitters are often your worst enemy, as they cause an unconscious tightening of your pelvic floor muscles, and thus the walls of the vagina can feel less elastic and more pained when stretched by the speculum. The best thing you can do is take a deep breath and let it out slowly to a count of 4 or so, which activates your vasovagal reflex, relaxing the muscles of your pelvic floor and making it easier to insert a speculum.
You can also request a specific design of speculum for your exam. Pederson speculums have thinner bills than the same size of Graves speculums, and often it’s the width of the bills that hurts people moreso than the length. Unless a person is quite tall and/or heavy, I can find a cervix with no problem using a medium Pederson speculum, and I’m not at all experienced with the exam. I would recommend anxious individuals ask for a size small.
The actual swabbing of the cervix with the spatula and/or endocervical brush can often feel quite weird, a bit like rubbing a q-tip on the inside of your cheek where it’s quite sensitive. There’s not much to be done about that sensation unfortunately, but an experienced practitioner can get their cell sample in 10 seconds, tops, so the discomfort doesn’t last long at all.
I hope this helps!
