"Hysteroscopy"

I went for a hysteroscopy at the Women's in Liverpool.  All online resources say that this is only mildly or not at all painful. Through all the pre-op conversations and meetings I have with both nurses and doctors, I was given the impression I would be given a local anaesthetic for the procedure. I walked into the room that day expecting to feel discomfort, but no pain due to the local anaesthetic I believed was going to be administered.

What happened was that I was not given an anaesthetic and subjected to a procedure that was at first uncomfortable and made me feel sick as they prepared, then as they started to dilate my cervix to put the tube in, I felt pain like I have never experienced before. I burst into tears and it took several minutes before I could calm down.

The result was that the hysteroscopy failed as I was in too much pain.

It was a horrific experience that I was not at all prepared for by the information supplied beforehand. Why any doctor would start a procedure that has the capacity to cause so much pain to the patient without an anaesthetic is beyond me.

Now I have to wait for them to re-book me for another hysteroscopy, this time with an anaesthetic. This is not good for me as a patient waiting to find out what is wrong with me, and also not good financially for the hospital as I now have to have two procedures instead of one to get a result.