(no subject)

[melannen]

I'm about to leave for my first ever gynecology appointment! Everybody in my local life has decided that means they should share their gynecology visit horror stories with me under the guise of 'advice'. Any of y'all want to join in? :D

(If you want to, srsly, go ahead - I'll be back from the appointment by the time I can read these comments, at which point the worst they can possibly do is provide better-you-than-me schadenfreude...)

Comments

[eleanor_lavish]

I have only ever had just fine (not FUN, I mean, it's a doctor's visit, but just fine) experiences at the gyno, and I hope yours was the same!

[birke]

Ditto.

[melannen]

It went really well! Everybody at the office was super-nice, and they actually listened to me and, like, took notes on my chart!! and told me what was happening. (And they even explained my lab results from my primary-care checkup, which the primary care person didn't bother with...)

[cyprinella]

The brand new resident that I had to tell to put on gloves multiple times...D: Thankfully it registered before she tried to touch me.

I got fatshamed once mid pelvic. Nothing like being told to stop being a donut eating fatty by a doctor with his fingers up my lady garden. That was probably the worst. I should have "slipped" and kicked him in the head.

[melannen]

Oh no! At least you noticed. (I bet the doctor was kicking herself once she realized, though.)

...all fatshaming doctors should be forced to eat all the actual research about fat and health and then sent back to medical school until they can function as people. }:|

[ratcreature]

I had my first gynecology visit ever only last year (at almost forty), and it was much less uncomfortable than I thought (and I thought my anxiety was mostly irrational, which unfortunately never matters to our brain weasels). Even the speculum wasn't that uncomfortable, though it made me feel like I had to pee. Eye doctor visits are still the worst and most uncomfortable doctors I've ever encountered by far (things touching my eyeballs? much worse than things touching my genitals; eyeballs bruise more easily too if they have to keep pressing their glass to not loose contact when you flinch).

[melannen]

Yeah, this was actually much less awkward and annoying than my regular checkup last month, actually! (probably because they'd been given a lot more emphasis on making patients comfortable...) I kind of want to go back there for my next checkup instead.

My last eye doctor visit they had a fancy radar thing or sth and didn't actually have to touch my eyes! I was shocked. It was soooo much better, I just sat there and got scanned. Things touching my eyeballs is so awful. (unfortunately they were also way more expensive than the previous eye doctor, so I might have to go back to the poky one this year.)

[vass]

They had a fishtank in the waiting room! And the walls and curtains and examination gowns were all purple. Purple, I tell you! And parking was really very bad.

(Sorry, I got nothing. I've only been once, but nothing bad happened except it was awkward and embarrassing and not how I wanted to be spending an afternoon.)

Wait, "under the guise of 'advice'". Actually...

- brush your lower set of teeth first, using a toothpaste with a pH between 3.8 and 4.2, and try not to bite the speculum.
- inform your gynaecologist if you are ovulating before the exam, rather than laying an egg on the exam table
- it can be difficult to conceal a set of furled wings while wearing an open-backed examination gown, but usually the doctor will let you change before coming in and then turn their back while you get onto the table, so as long as you're okay lying on your wings, they shouldn't see.
- don't expose your gynaecologist to bright light, don't let them get wet, and don't feed them after midnight.

[watersword]

BEST COMMENT EVER. I do have some horror stories, but I'm trying to forget them myself, rather than inflict them on other people. Beings.

ETA: May I metaquotes? This advice needs to be shared as widely as possible. ("Relax your thighs!")

[melannen]

Luckily, it was a front-opening gown for a pelvic/pap smear, so the wings weren't as much of a problem as usual. The rest of this advice is great though, thanks!

(This place had a mobile over the table! You could watch the rainbow-colored paper lanterns spin!)

[sylvaine]

A++++++

[hannah]

I'd never screamed in pain until I had my first pelvic exam.

To the doctor's credit, she stopped immediately and we discussed how things were going. But that was a hard thing.

[melannen]

Oh no, that sounds awful! :O I'm glad she stopped.

I had no pain at all actually, which surprised me, given the stories I've heard I was expecting at least a scrapy feeling.

[brownbetty]

Has anyone told you that their friend was really nervous and sprayed herself with deodorant only to realize when she got there that she'd accidentally used glitter-spray? Because I think that one's an urban legend.

[melannen]

No, I did not get that one! I've heard various glitter-spray-mistake stories though. (And it does have its snopes page!)

The doctor did compliment my socks though. ^_^

[hyperfocused]

My horror story? (More of an UN-exam) Dr informing me I was too fat to examine, and I should take [XYZ] hormone for my 25 days a month (I'm barely exaggerating) periods. No suggestions of blood work,or who might be able to examine me. Yes, fat women get pelvic exams. So for another couple of years I just kept on bleeding. I figured at some point I'd find an OB/Gyn.

Cut to fall 2010. I'm diabetic, and had a place on my heel that wouldn't heal, or heel, either. I ended up spending 3 months in a combination of hospitals and rehab with a wound vacuum. During time at the rehab, they decided my bleeding was a big deal, and sent me back to the hospital. I finally got examined, and learned I had a six inch mass in my uterus, that odds were high it was malignant. Thank God, it turned out to be fibroids, and after minor surgery the issue was resolved. But the thought that I had spent years living with this, because a fat-shaming cretin of a ND decided I wasn't worth treating? That irks me to this day. (My heel healed, btw)

[melannen]

...I repeat everything I said above about fat-shaming doctors. What the HELL. I'm glad you finally found people who were more interested in healing you than hating you, though.

[synecdochic]

I have a habit of going absolutely crazy on any hormone-based treatment (like, to the point where birth control makes me suicidal). I also have PCOS and seriously awful periods that make me lose at least two days a (fortunately irregular) cycle, curled up in bed and whimpering through the pain. Since the only treatment most OB/GYNs are willing to offer for the latter is to put you on the former, many of my GYN visits have involved a bit of shouting. (There are other treatments, but as they're fertility-destroying, patronizing chucklefucks won't listen to "I don't want kids at all and even if I did my marriage comes with a backup uterus oh and by the way I have an immensely painful genetic disorder that I would shoot myself before passing on to a kid" and refuse to even consider it. It's getting slightly better now that I'm nearly 40, but oi.)

The absolute best "awful GYN visit" involved the GYN who wanted to install a Mirena IUD to treat the painful cramps. I explained patiently that I could not risk any hormone-based treatment. She told me "it's all right, the IUD means that the hormones stay in your uterus and don't go anywhere that can affect you".

I walked out on that appointment mid-sentence shortly thereafter. ("Okay, let's say I override every bit of common sense and my medical history and say yes, okay, let's do it. When I do turn up in the hospital from having tried to kill myself, how fast can you get the IUD out?" "Well, I generally won't remove an IUD within the first year, because patients need to just give it time to get used to it..." "Yeah, this appointment is over.")

This is the same GYN who said that I needed to take the hormones to melt the snow-capped mountains of my uterus. No, it didn't make sense in context, either.

[melannen]

I am always amazed at the stories from people with massively horrible symptoms who can't get the treatment they need because "you might want kids some day." Even when that same condition has rendered them indubitably infertile??? Like. I don't disbelieve that it happens. But. How is that something anyone would think is good medical practice?? (I guess it could be worse, I've gotten stories from older women where it's 'we won't because your nonexistent husband might want kids some day'.)

" melt the snow-capped mountains of my uterus " - oh my GOD

[petra]

My least favorite gyn "asked" "You don't have intercourse often, do you?" with her hands in intimate places, and rather than talk about the paths that exist to making that more possible and comfortable (given that I'm married to a cisman and was then too), segued into "Also your BMI is high, you need to work on that."

People who have trouble with speculums and find gyn exams/intercourse/tampons painful: look into physical therapy for the pelvic floor. It can be life-changing.

[melannen]

...why would your gyn even... ugh, anyway. I'm sorry that happened to you.

[sasha_feather]

At my first ever GYN appt, I didn't tell them it was my first appt because I was embarrassed.

The doc went to look under the microscope, to see if I had a yeast infection, which is why I was there (I also wanted Gardasil shots, etc). She didn't come back. Aaaaand she didn't come back. I laid there on the table in the paper gown. Eventually I got up. Eventually I got dressed and sat in the chair. I sat some more. Ages passed. I may have read a book, or perhaps I was too nervous to read, I don't remember. I heard the doctor go into the exam room next door and start the next appointment-- she'd forgotten all about me.

Eventually a nurse came into the room I was in and said, "you should have said something!" D:

This is the first time I've told this story.

[melannen]

:O That's awful! Doctors should remember their patients exist, at minimum, I would think.

(I credit online fandom for the fact that I was pretty much unembarrassed to tell the gyno All The Things.)

At my regular checkup last month, they wanted a urine sample, so they left me a glass of water, and I drank it, and then I just waited, and waited, and finally I went out to see if I could at least get another glass of water, and the nurses were shocked, like, OMG! A patient got out of its cage and it's wandering unattended! and herded me back in.

And then when they finally let me out to pee in the cup, they told me to just leave the cup in the cabinet in the bathroom, only the cabinet was locked, so then I had to go wandering again, this time while holding a cup full of warm pee. It was great.

[azurelunatic]

I brought my crocheted uterus-and-bits with me to my last one, curled up inside its rainbow hat, to hug for comfort. The doctor was obnoxious about my weight, but at least I had a huggable uterus with me!

[melannen]

Awww. That's a good treatment for an obnoxious doctor. Did they have anything to say about the crocheted uterus?

[stultiloquentia]

My first visit was in college. I was nervous and forgot the part where you're supposed to spread your legs and put your feet in the stirrups, so I wound up mashing my sock-clad feet against the poor doc's stomach. And then the speculum hurt, because my vagina is small and a bit curved, and when I offered an informative, "Ow," she decided on her own to stop everything because she was worried about traumatizing me. I must have looked more terrified than I felt, and I wasn't experienced or articulate enough to argue.

I tried again at Planned Parenthood a year later, and they were great. That doctor did a much better job of explaining everything, and asked me whether I was interested in penises before offering tips on how to accommodate one.

[melannen]

Eep! I'm glad she decided to stop, anyway, probably better to wait until you can handle it. And see, this is why we need Planned Parenthood. :D

I was expecting to be a lot more nervous than I was, tbh, although I guess for someone with no sexual experience I've had more sexual experience than a lot of people.

here from metaquotes

[archersangel]

i've never been to a gyno. my new primary care doc wants me to go. i may go once to see if stuff is OK, not looking forward to it.

Re: here from metaquotes

[melannen]

Don't necessarily let the comments here scare you away! Mine was actually one of the nice doctor visits I've ever had - they explained everything, they were very gentle, they paid attention to what I wanted, they answered questions really well, it was nice. So some of them work out. And then they told me I don't have to come back for five years unless something changes, which was also nice. (And if you get a horrible one, there are better ones out there, so you don't have to stick with that one.)

[azurelunatic]

My first visit ever was actually pretty good. I'd had an STD scare via a moderately irresponsible ex (Shawn, for those keeping score; he was not good with condoms, his new girlfriend's ex-boyfriend got them and I was in the chain of fuck), and went to the campus health clinic. I got the pill, I got swabbed (and came up not infected), and by way of cheering me up, they explained that the penis examination for genital warts involved vinegar, so dear Shawn would be experiencing pickledick. That made me giggle for several days.

[birke]

LOL!

(here via friends of friends)

[toujours_nigel]

Oh, oh, I have a good one!

So a few months ago I had my first gynaecological exam as part of a full-body check up, wherein the tech for one of the scans said I seem to be exhibiting slight signs of PCOS, which made me fairly anxious to get properly checked up. The gynaec asked whether I was married and on hearing otherwise refused to conduct any exams, including a swab to check for an UTI, which I was afraid I had.

Eventually when I told her that I was (hetero)sexually active (lies all lies) in order to get her to do the examination, she kept assuming I was pregnant despite all evidence to the contrary. There was a stunning lack of lube or gentleness or indeed paper gown for the examination, and she actually tried out two sizes of speculum and then her hand and continued to tell me I was preggers. She put in a call to the tech who's commented on the potential PCOS and then accused me of lying about not being pregnant, and when that turned out to be a clerical mix-up refused to give me a swab or inspection anyway and told me to do a pregnancy home-kit and bring her the pee-stick because she was sure I was preggo.

Never ever going back ever again. And it turned out after all that, that my passing out was cardiac-related and not a side-effect of pregnancy after all.

Re: (here via friends of friends)

[melannen]

...that's HORRIBLE. What. Why. Why is that person seeing patients. You can't be the first unmarried person to walk in to the practice, SURELY?

[lilysea]

I once had an ex-GP accidentally get my outer labia between two bits of her speculum and almost cut my labia off by closing the metal bits of the speculum together like scissors.

She was not NEARLY apologetic enough, more of a "*shrug*, oh well".

I probably should have lodged a formal complaint to the medical standards people, but I was young and didn't think of it.

Most of my pap smears have involved mild cervix discomfort during and for several hours afterwards, but otherwise been uneventful.

No fat shaming that I can think of. I've certainly HAD lots of fat shaming from Drs, just not in a gynae context.

[birke]

Oh my GOD.

[luzula]

I have never been to a gynecologist, though I have been to get pap smears and once to get a precautionary test for STI:s (nurses did both of these things). But I did go along as moral support once for a friend who had an appointment. Her previous appointment had involved someone ordering her sternly to RELAX! in the apparent belief that this would make her relax, which it did not, so she wanted someone along to help her speak up for herself.

[birke]

Heh. Not a gyno story, but a doctor talked me into a procedure that made me nervous and halfway through it, when it wasn't working, asked me to relax. I was like, "Man, if you'd told me upfront that I'd have to be relaxed for this, I definitely would have said no..."

[whatistigerbalm]

I'm just astonished that you don't get reminders from the doc about your yearly appointment.