melannen | (no subject)

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!

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.

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).

Ditto.

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.

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!")

Edited 2016-02-02 19:50 (UTC)

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.

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.

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. ^_^

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.

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!)

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.)

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. }:|

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...)

I think that's the best compliment you can give, as a professional who is looking up a woman's apse.

(I'm sorry, I went back and forth. Narthex seems good too, but it's really more of an exit, and transept is a great word, which is probably metaphorically one's duodenum. Sacristy? I have overthought this by an order of magnitude. Apse sounds funny, but it's clearly correct!)

And this was after I had gone to the practice to get a copper IUD to get off hormones so I could better control my weight. I probably should have just turned around when I was told that hormones didn't make you fat, they just make you crave carbs. The "you weak willed glutton" was implied. But I didn't know of any other place that was willing to give me the IUD I wanted without a lot of argument.

Hilariously, their practice added me to their mailing list like a year after I never went back and they sent out emails without an unsubscribe link or email address or phone number. Illegal AND infuriating.

A++++++

Yeah, for my retina checkup my regular practice has a machine too, and you have to pay extra out of pocket, but the 40€ it cost here was worth it for me in my regular checks, but then I found out that there are actually differing opinions among doctors how well that method (which sort of generates an image with computer help rather than letting the doctor see the retina with their own eyes in 3D through the magnifying glass) shows certain retina changes. My eye doctor says he can interpret the pictures as well as the traditional method and it has the advantage of instant documentation and a wider angle, but some doctors at a hospital who operated on my retinas (who also had a very good reputation) swore by looking themselves and documenting with crayon sketches, dissed my doctors opinion as money grubbing basically, and said the machine pictures weren't as good. They told me that the manufacturers of these machines release only selective studies for how well they find changes and how that compares to traditional (iirc they were good for changes due to diabetes or such). So now I've decided to go back to alternating the methods, because among three senior eye doctors I've asked about this there were something like four opinions on whether monitoring just with the imaging tech was sufficient... I was really disappointed too because the futuristic method was so much better.

:like:

Sure, and thank you.

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)

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.

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.

vass for the win.

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.

Edited 2016-02-02 22:09 (UTC)