just wondered if its my hospital, or if its a standard uk things.....

i got my post leep letter today (nearly 4 weeks since leep) and what a load of...well....waste....

i'd lareday expected it mind as i'd spoke to teh hospital 10 days ago and they'd read me the draft.

here's what it says.....

"we have now got the result of the biopsy which we took when we saw you on 26th june 2007.

it does show an abnormality. this is nothing serious but it is the sort of change we are looking for, which might have become serious if it were not treated.

hopefully we have completely removed it and no further treatmentw ill be necessary.

we would liek to see you in the colposcopy clinic in six months time to check that it has healed and to take a smear. i enclose an appointment fro this".

if i hadnt been through teh leep i';d say its mor ethe kind of letter i'd of expected after my abnormal pap!!!!!

i still do thsi day dont knwo how deep they went, if i have clear nargins, and if the biopsy was cinIII as the pap suggested....and its quite obvious teh hospital dont think i need to know. i hoep the doc understands that for me i feel the rquirement to jknow.

I had the exact same letter about a week ago which my doctor said was the standard NHS letter. Only different was that mine said CIN III in brackets next to abmormality. I totally agree with what you are saying though hon.
xx

P.s I asked my doctors all those question i.e how deep they went, if I had clear magins etc and he didnt know the answer to any of these question and neither did my gyno's secratary so I gave up asking!!!

They only thing they could tell me was that I had CIN III despite the fact I was told I had CIN II after my abmormal smear.

I was hoping for a letter to say, right this is what we haver found but its all been removed now so everything is fine

x

thanks smith, atleast i dont feel liek its just my hospital being awkward now:although i do think teh uk health service isnt helping itself.

i sa wmy gop yesterdaya fter quite an arguement with teh hospital which ended with them finally agreeing to send him a fax of my report.

even that though wasnt as indepth as all the otehr girls on here get, but atleast i know now that what the pap indicated was cinIII actually came out as cinII/high grade

in addition he said that they didnt get the clear margins tehy had hoped for.

like you i sometime sthink that the doctro and the gyno dont have a clue what i'm on about when i start asking about the depth etc, not that i ever get to speak to teh gyno otehr than whilst she performs my treatment, its her secretary that i have tio go through fro everything.

Hi there

I am from uk aswell, my answer wont be any benefit to you, but your post has made me think,
I am right at the first stage, have appt for colp on 7th august (cant come quick enough tbh)
My letter from my smear said some cell changes (borderline) so after panickin I did my research and realised borderline was a good result really, so to put my mind at rest I rang the doctor and said this is my first abnormal smear and if its only borderline why not re-test in 6 mnths.....the doctor said all letters say borderline, they cant tell if cin I, II OR III??
Having read all these posts with ppl gettin results from original smear sayin cin ect, mine doesnt say that but was told they cant tell? So confused now??
anyone able to shed any light, also my doctor read out my med report thingy and it said usual treament retest, please refer patient to colp immediately??? So they must know more surely?
I dunno? lol!

Hi

yes thats what I was told aswell! My first letter said I just had borderline abnormal cells!! Then when I went for my colposcopy I was told I had CIN II....then finally when I got my results letter which was realy vague...I was told I had CIN III!

Just thinking Becks....if the letter says that hopefully they have completely removed it etc....surely that means we have clear margins??
If they didnt have clear margins then I thought it was a definite you had to have further treatment?!

My doctor said he didnt know what the margins where as the hospital no longer publish this due to inaccuracy of results which is why they do another colposcopy??
x

i know my doctor said to me that soemtiems when teh majority is removed teh rest can heal itself within the 6 month period,s o maybe taht is what tehy are hoping fro in our acses,a nd thats why they have said "hopefully"?

i'm just going to go open minded in january i think, as i dont ahve a clue what tehyw ill do-i mean if tehyw ill just doa colposcopya nd pap test, or if tehy see cells still damaged if tehyw ill treat tehre and then.

to eb hoenst teh thought of having some cells still ermaining doesnt bother me, its teh uncertainty of what tehyw ill do when i'm next there. i'm oen of thsoe who lieks to knwo what to expecta nd then i can get my head aroudn it in adavance.

as for the pap test bamalina, this is an indication as to what your diagnosis will be, however it isnt 100% accurate, my pap test wa sdone at the sam etime as a colposcopy as i've been under the gyno since november now:wghich is why they were able to give an indication of the cin level, my original abnormal pap liek yours just said "borderline". a sit is my pap test indicated cinIII but im actually cinII.

Oh blimey, so borderline can mean anything then? eeek!
Well atleast if I have all this information then I wont be shocked by hearing anything, I think I would be more shocked thinkin everything is fine and it may not be,

I have symptoms that all is not right 'down there' anyway, so just have to wait and see!

Havin read nearly all these posts over the last couple of weeks, I do feel at ease slightly as there is so much they can do isnt there if worse case senario.
Are any of you young ( no offense when I say young) I mean early 20's? I am only 25 and I thought that was to young, but apparently not? How ignorant I have been.
Thanks for all the info ladies. xx

I'm 25 too, just turned 25 the other week!!! My doc said its actually more common between ages 16-35 so guess we were more at risk than we thought...so frightening

x

although i'm not "really young" (thats my new term for early-mid twenties" i'ms till "young" ....only turned 30 twow eeks ago. and my cousin she was only 17 when she had problems with her cervix.

as you have mentioned there is so much taht can be done, so pelase do not worry.

the main thing is keeping on top of everything, liklihood is that following yoru colposcopy youw ill either be told "all is fine" but to return in six montsh for another check, or that you have one of teh three levels of dysplasia.....is this your first pap (i knwo they have just changed teh uk system so they dont start giving them til over 25 now....soemthing i think is totally wrong!)

if it isnt than its even more likely that if anything you will only be looking at dysplasia:and whatever teh level this is treatable, although if its level one the gynos tend to opt for a watch and see approach as this can clear up itself.

level two and there can also sometiems clear up itself, but most gynos here in teh uk will terat to be on teh safe side.

having had a leep i can assure you both taht it isnt atall painful, infact teh only thing i've hated is wearing a sanitory pad fro a month afterwards,a nd being told no sex or strenous exercise!!!!

Ah Becks, same as havin a a baby then , no sex, bleed forever afterwards and no strenuous exercise!

No this is my 3rd smear, but 1st abnormal, I had my 1st child at 20, so they like to do them after that, and then had one just before fell preg with 2nd baby, and one this june just gone,

I heard it was 25, so I'm assumin its because I have children.

So is it when they do the colp they can tell, or when they/if they do a biospy they can tell......... let me try word that a bit better....... i mean with your colp can they tell cin I II or III, or is it only when they have done a biospy? sorry of that doesn tmake sense! lol! I can just about wait another 2 weeks to seeif everything ok, but then waitin after colp is gonna seem like forever!

Ah Becks, same as havin a a baby then , no sex, bleed forever afterwards and no strenuous exercise!

No this is my 3rd smear, but 1st abnormal, I had my 1st child at 20, so they like to do them after that, and then had one just before fell preg with 2nd baby, and one this june just gone,

I heard it was 25, so I'm assumin its because I have children.

So is it when they do the colp they can tell, or when they/if they do a biospy they can tell......... let me try word that a bit better....... i mean with your colp can they tell cin I II or III, or is it only when they have done a biospy? sorry of that doesn tmake sense! lol! I can just about wait another 2 weeks to seeif everything ok, but then waitin after colp is gonna seem like forever!

yeah....yet - and remember i'm only years older than you - i had my first smear at 19, so they have moved them on by a good 6 years :confused: surely its better to checka nd get lots of clears, than leave soemone six years with something!

anyway, back to your question. the colposcopy is just a camera, which lets the gyno take a closer look a t your cervix. what ill happen is she will bathe them with a liquid (it smells abit liek vinegar), and this makes any abnormal cells go white.

so at this point she will have an idea of the numbers she is looking at, and where theya re situated, but not whether it is purely inflamation, or if it is dysplasia. however they can usually tell at this point if say it was a yeast infectionw hich had caused the psmear test to coem back abnormal (and this does happen too, if say you have had a recent case of thrush!)

she will then take a small punch biopsy - this is done using a local anisthetic (not half as bad as youw oul imagine!its probably teh least painful needle i've had, and i hatee needles!), and sends this off then to the lab.

i was told 2-3 weeks for my punch biopsy result (this is teh one good thing of now being under the gyno: no more 6-10 week waits fro results!), they write out to you, but as smith and i have found, the write ups are very vague.

thatw as the procedure on my first colpscopya nyway.

my second - a sonce you are under teh gyno you have to get three all clear smears (every six months) ebfore tehyw ill let you go back to having them at yoru docs every year, and that then continues fro nine years. anyway my second was doen at the same time as my smear so that they can be sure they are taken teh cell samples from teh effected areas.

Wow thanks for all the help and advice becks and smith,

Well its 4 days until I have my colp, I just want it over and done with now, luckilly my partner has taken time off to come hold my hand!

So start to finsh how long is the whole colp procedure? Includin if they have to do a biopsy?

Becks, that's great you only have to wait 2-3 weeks for results! I was actually going to post a question on the board about how long everyone has to wait for colposcopy/biopsy results under the NHS. I'm in Essex and was told 4-6 weeks for my punch biopsy results - it will be 5 weeks on Wednesday!

I went to the extent of writing a letter of complaint to my GP about it and because I don't think he investigated my symptoms properly. I've had 7 months of bleeding now so can't believe he didn't check my thyroid or do a pregnancy test, which I thought was the norm. I don't even who who will give me my results or how. Needless to say, my GP hasn't replied!