Hi,
It is natural to get worried when you hear about an abnormal PAP smear, but you should be aware that nearly 3 million women get this result in the US annually.
Although you had a Hysterectomy already, it was not a total hysterectomy and some part of your cervix has been retained, it is from this that the PAP smear was performed and which is now showing some abnormality.
An abnormal Pap smear or Dysplasia is not the first stage of cancer, it is a precancerous stage. This difference is very important, precancerous means that cancer has not yet occurred. This is what the PAP smear is designed to do, it is designed to detect cervical cancer before it occurs so that it can be cured.
The treatment for this is also fairly simple, your doctor will almost certainly ask for a colposcopy. This is a procedure similar to a PAP smear, but it will allow the doctor a wider view and allow him/her to take a biopsy from areas which show these changes. The doctor will then destroy the areas of these cells so that cancer cannot occur. SO this is a curative procedure.
Since you have been told that it is the initial stage of dysplasia, the doctor will probably perform a Cryosurgery, in which these cells are destroyed by application of cold. For later stages of dysplasia, the doctor would do procedures like cone biopsy or LEEP procedures. All these are office procedures and you can come back the same day. They are fairly painless and without much side effects.
You need not worry about cancer, the whole purpose of this PAP smear is to detect the changes in cells before they turn into cancerous cells, so that cells can be destroyed before cancer develops.
You can read up here:
http://womenshealth.about.com/cs/papsmears/a/abnormalpaps.htm
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