What is cryo? Thanks.

cryosurgery - it's when they freeze the cells off the surface of your cervix

At what point do they decide to do this? Is it am attempt to get rid of the cells so you no longer get abnormal results? I have been recieving abnormal ASCUS results for a while and I had no inconclusive biopsy. So, I am just trying to understand the terms and what others are doing and what stage they are at, thanks.

I had a bad pap smear with atypical cells, dysplasia, etc. I think it was CIN II or III, I don't remember and would have to check my old medical papers. They did a biopsy first and then wanted to do surgery, but I said no. I went to a better doctor who did cryosurgery and froze the bad cells off. I have had good pap smears pretty much ever since and that was 24 years ago
:angel:

I had this done before. I had a standard biopsy once and it went really bad, I had extreme pain and bleeding.. It came back OK, but when i had another pap it showed minor changes again.. The dr didn't want to do another colposcopy (sp) because of my reaction to the last one, so he did cryo. Although i was told that in my case, it was uncommon to have cryo, so I'm not sure at what point it becomes the treatment of choice.

For my, cryo was a lot easier than the colp was. It was weird, they froze the cells but it wasn't an instant freezing as I expected, they had to hold this wand on my cervix for a set time (I think mine was 2 min, although I've heard it could be more in other situations).. It was not very painful but instead uncomfortable and weird.. Afterwords, the melting process was probably the strangest part of it all. I've had two paps since and *knock on wood* both have been fine.

I think it depends on the Doctor and how much you want something done. My previous doctor did not want to do it because she felt that getting abnormal PAP's for 4 years was no big deal since I didn't have HPV. I was not comfortable with this and changed doctors. The new one felt it was best to try and clear it up since it had lasted 5 years. He did the Cryo and we will rePAP in March. So basically it's what you want done to feel comfortable.