My doc called this am and said that I have "significant dysplasia" and she wants to do a laser cone. Has anyone had one of these? Is it usually for diagnostic purposes or is this a treatment? I'm also just wondering what to expect. Not real thrilled with the amount of info I've gotten from the dr. I asked them to fax the biopsy results to me and there's not much info on there either. I know that alot of people know which biopsy has what grade of cin. Mine just is a blanket statement saying mild to severe dysplasia/cis. I also don't know for sure whether I have hpv. The doc is just assuming that I do. Shouldn't they have tested to see if I had the cancer causing strain of hpv?

Sorry for rambling on. I just don't have anyone else knowledgeable on this subject to talk to. My husband is making light of the whole thing and my Mom has no idea what I'm talking about. Thanks Ladies.

Hi LoLi,

I am a little confused about what you are getting done. There is a laser which kinda takes out specific chunks. There is a LEEP which takes out a cone shaped chunk. And, there is a cold cone. There are women on here who have had all of them and they are all very similar. They are all for treatment purposes and some are also diagnostic. The laser is not diagnostic because it burns away all of the bad cells. Oh, there is the cryosurgery and that freezes it all away. Even when you get the lab results, though, the follow-up paps are more important because the lab results only tell you what was cut away.

Your biopsy results are pretty consistent with what most of us get. I'm not feeling too well so someone will correct me on this, but I believe mild, moderate, and severe, correspond with CIN I, II, and III respectively. When you have ASCUS and maybe even CINI, they want to know your HPV status to know how aggresively to treat you. Beyond that, they will treat aggresively no matter what because it has already progressed. A lot of women will have dysplasia that will not progress that far. Once it has already started, though, they just get rid of it and hope that your body will be more encouraged to fight the HPV if you have it.

You seem to know a little about this already. Do you also know that smoking will make things much worse? If you do smoke, you must start cutting back and even try to quit. There is a lot of support for that here, too.

Please, feel free to ramble. It helps the rest of us to know that we are not alone and it is what we all coem here for.

Nik

Hi, thanks for your reply. I'm feeling a little better now. I talked to my doctor as well as did some more research on the net. To answer your question, I'm having a cone biopsy but a laser will make the incision instead of a knife. Hence the name laser cone. I was worried that my doctor thought things were worse than we originally thought and that's why she wanted to do this procedure. After talking to her I found out that she thinks that this will heal better than a LEEP for me. In the meantime I'm waiting for my pre-op appt. Can anyone think of some good questions I should ask?

HI, I had some kind of office procedure like 30 years ago in my GYN's office. All I can remember was he did some kind of freezing method.. I was very young and do not even recall what it was for, but I remember some cramping. Any ideas?

christy