Hi all,

I know there must be so many threads for this but I wondered if anyone has been in a similar situation. I'm freaking out, as many of us are, and would love to talk about it. 
 

I had my first smear in 2018 (age 26) it came back borderline/minor changes which I was really surprised about and cue freak out number 1. After a chat with my GP at the time they've calmed me down saying that this is very common, goes away by itself, changes take years to progress etc etc. So I was due another test in a year. Same results. Due another test in 6 months or a year (cannot remember now). Same results, so it's always been at the back of my mind and I would always be so disappointed it's not came back clear but because they never invited me for any follow up tests I'd just put it at the back of my mind and try to carry on until the next one. 
 

I live in Scotland and they only started testing for HPV fairly recently. So my smear ib 2020 came back as high risk HPV positive (I never received a vaccine and didn't even know there was one until recently, which they also told me it's too late to get one! Which it isn't, not according to the guidelines, so I will be talking about this with them or private again, I know it won't cure the one I have but can protect against other strands in the future) but no cell changes found. So this was really confusing to me. After the initial freak out about HPV, learning it's very prevalent etc, I was then focused on what the previous tests meant. Were the minor changes picking up HPV or cell changes? 
 

My recent test was last month, came back still as high grade HPV positive and cell changes were also found. This time they're sending me for a colposcopy. Cue another feel out

I read some of the posts before and it seems like even if you have minor changes but also HPV they instantly refer you. But Scotland didn't test for HPV until recently. So it's possible I've had HPV since 2018 and before that WITH the minor changes that they just didn't inspect! I found that one-off "no cell changes found" very out of ordinary and wonder if it was a false negative. My fear now is that I've had my cells changing continuesly for YEARS and them just not looking into it because they didn't test for HPV it doesn't help that other posts also talk about the severity of the cell changes and the Scottish letters do not state the levels so you're left in total darkness. 
 

My appointment is on the 13th of December. Some days I'm okay and calm and some days I'm freaking out. I'm so worried about what's happening, I'm really worried about the colposcopy mainly as I've heard if they do the treatment on the day, they use local anaesthetic that hurts a lot and I have chronic pain conditions that have my body extra sensitive to pain I've called a nurse to talk about it a bit but she was really unpleasant and didn't make me feel reassured at all. 
 

Sorry for such a long post! I don't know if anyone has had a similar story with always having not all-clear results but being not referred for further tests for 5 years. I'm worried they left it for too long. I know cells take forever to progress but it's also been a long time and i don't know if I had this before 2018 as well. 
 

thank you all and I hope everyone is well