Reply to How to handle a GYN exam in this situation?

Forum Index » Health and Medicine

Reply to "How to handle a GYN exam in this situation?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I'm an OB-GYN nurse (more GYN, much less OB now), you are going to do totally fine. You sound like you have a good idea of what to expect. If you really want the pelvic over with first, just ask. All drs. examine in each patient in a certain order every time (so as not to skip anything), but for a first timer who is nervous, I can't imagine anyone saying no I don't do it that way. In fact, if you meet with them in their office first (many make you do that for a first ever visit), I'd say to them there "since this is my first pelvic, is there any way we can get it over with first," and if you get any kind of attitude or pushback, it may be a sign that you're dealing with someone who isn't going to be particularly sensitive during the exam.

Honestly any kind of reaction that you have is fine -- we see everything from women who are in obvious pain but when we say "are you ok, does it hurt," they just say no and power through to women who will involuntarily scream or cry upon being touched on the thigh -- before anything is even inserted to women who may just say that they feel pressure or ask if the dr. is almost done but 99% of the time do let the dr. finish. All of it is normal. None of it is "interesting" enough to talk about, as you're seeing 3-4 patients/hr for 8 straight hours. The things that get talked about are like the patient who once kicked the dr. in the balls (true story -- apparently bimanual hurt when he hit the ovaries; on the first side, she said it hurt and told him to stop. 2 seconds later he moved to the other side. Somehow she thought he wasn't going to do that since she said it hurt, and he was standing at the wrong angle. Poor guy actually had to leave the room. Then the poor guy actually had to come back and say "I'm sorry -- I wasn't able to feel the left side at all and I do need to do that again." Somehow she let him but he stood really really far away).

I agree with the PP that says this will be mostly a non-event for you, esp if you pick someone who is known to be kind and supportive. Maybe you'll have a few min of pain and say something or maybe you won't. Honestly when we see the more "violent" reactions like screaming, shaking, pushing the dr's hands away etc -- it is from virgins who are in their teens or maybe early 20s who are reacting to the idea that no one has ever seen them down there and someone is about to touch them. You may be a virgin, but with age comes a certain "maturity," and given that you feel like you need to do this for your health (you do!) and are not being forced by your mom or something, I don't think you'll react to it as some kind of "violation" that'll leave you shaking on the table.

If you go through with it (you really need to), come back and post how it went -- I bet someone else in your situation will run across this thread and it would be great for them to hear that this isn't THAT big of a deal.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics