Incredibly painful smear, caused blood. Worried!

Hi, I had my first smear today privately - I’m 22 and have had lower back, hip and pelvis pain for months, as well as pain during sex and feeling like I need to pee all the time. (Have previously had a lot of blood tests, internal pelvic exam, cystitis tests, and testing for infections, including thrush/chlamydia/gonorrhea, all of which came back clear.) Then the last couple weeks I’ve had left side pain and left abdominal pain, it feels swollen and tender and I sometimes get stabbing/throbbing pains there. I thought it was probably a cyst but my GP says she would’ve felt it during the pelvic exam.

Today I had the smear and it was absolutely excruciating (I’ve had the speculum put in for internal exams in the past, once about a year ago when it was just uncomfortable, then a month ago when it was painful but not this bad) and when the doctor took the speculum out it had blood on it. Since then I’ve had what feels like serious period cramps and my back/pelvic pain has been much worse all day. If I didn’t have the other symptoms I wouldn’t be as worried as apparently the blood and cramping isn’t too unusual, but all of it combined makes me think the symptoms I’ve experienced are due to my something in my cervix.

However, I’ve only been sexually active for three years, and apparently cervical cancer takes at least that long to develop and usually much longer, so that makes me feel a little better.

I’m not really sure what I’m asking for here, I’m just worried and I guess I would like some support and to know if anyone else has had/is going through a similar experience. Thanks xxx

Hi Caramarina,

I never never found smears pleasant but the one before last was incredibly painful, I bled a little and had such bad cramps for 3-4 days afterwards that I had to be prescribed some hardcore painkillers. I normally have a pretty high pain threshold and was really worried that it could mean I had cancer, especially when the results came back as 'high grade'. Anyway, I was convinced that I had lots of symptoms and ended up having the abnormal cells removed at colposcopy by LLETZ. The results confirmed only pre cancerous changes. I just wanted to reassure you that it is not always a bad news story, and that hopefully your smear will come back ok, and if it doesn't it might be just the case of a small procedure to sort it all out. You are very unlikley to have cancer at your age, which is why they do not normally test before 25. Big hugs, I hope you get your results soon x x