I've just received my results from my first smear test which say that I have low risk/mild abnormalities. They haven't rang me yet, will have to wait until Monday until I can ring them now as it's Friday night. I am worried because I am going travelling for 12-18 months in less than 7 weeks time and would like to get it all sorted out before I go. Do you think this is possible as long as there are no complications? Really don't want to cancel my trip and lose a lot of money just waiting for an all clear, which I'm hoping it will be!
That's a really tricky one. Mild changes can be 'treated' with a watch and wait approach but they would def need to be looked at again sooner than 18 months. Get some good travel insurance! I had to have treatment (not cervical related) in Australua when I was travelling and if I remember rightly it was accessible and reasonably cheap. If they decide to treat you for low grade I doubt it will be in the time scale before you go. Like I say tricky! Get some advise from your GP on this one and enjoy your travels!
Thanks for your reply. I've just received another letter today saying that I have been booked in for a colposcopy appointment in 5 weeks time, less than 2 weeks before I go away on my travels. If I receive bad news from that or don't even hear anything just before I plan to go away I don't think I'd want to go and get treatment in Australia as I am going alone and would want support from family and friends. Will ring up on Monday morning as 5 weeks seems like an awful long time to wait, a lot of people on here have said they only had to wait 1-2 weeks. If not then I may have to see if I can go private and get the process done quicker :/
If you are able to be flexible you may be able to get in on a cancellation. I had my appointment early just by ringing regularly and asking if they had any cancellation appointments.
Hi Nellie, that's good to hear I'll try doing that tomorrow morning, hope they can fit me in otherwise I don't know what I'll do! :/ So stupid of me booking my smear test 10 weeks before I go travelling and thinking that was a long enough time frame :(
Kind of true?! luckily managed to push my colposcopy forward 4 weeks to today (although it's my birthday!). She had a look and said it did look like mild changes and took a couple of biopsies to confirm this. annoyingly because it's only mild they wouldn't perform the treatment and said to be checked up in 4-6 months to see if it's cleared up by itself. I told her about how I'm moving to Australia in 6 weeks and she was lovely and understanding but said it could be 6 weeks til I hear back about the biopsy and that I'll have to have another colposcopy in Australia to check to see if it's cleared by itself. Now I'm home I'm annoyed with myself, wish I'd asked for treatment today even if I had to pay for it as I'm just going to be worrying now and may have to fork out lots more when I'm out in Australia with no family and long term friends for support. Do you think it's a good idea to ring up tomorrow and try to get treatment privately seeing as they won't do it for mild changes on the nhs? I can't stop worrying :(
The reason they don't want to treat you now is because mild changes often go back to normal on their own. This is why if they can confirm (via biopsies) that the changes are only mild, they won't do anything, they will wait for a year and have another look.
Even if it makes it easier for your holiday, I would not have unnecessary treatment if I were you. Any treatment still means removing part of your cervix. If you should have moderate abnormalities in a couple of years' time they would then have to remove another bit .... and so on. OK, so this is worst case and most people only need one treatment, but there are ladies on here who have had three of four and once you get to that level, the risk of fertility problems or more drastic treatment being needed increases.
So I guess what I am trying to say is I would not put yourself through treatment that has a good chance of being unnecessary. Far better to book in for a colposcopy in Australia in a year's time, and see whether you need any treatment then.
Thank you so much for your reply! I feel a lot more at ease now. My doctor did tell me that mild changes often clear up on their own but I thought it was purely a money related reason that they wouldn't perform treatment. Knowing that many sessions of treatment could cause infertility has definitely put me off requesting for it now unless my abnormal cells get worse in the future.
I feel a lot more relaxed about my trip now thank you!
