Before you consider surgery for an abnormal pap, watch this.
Today, I want to share important information about abnormal pap smears that your doctor might not be telling you.
I am a licensed naturopathic doctor, as well as a certified professional midwife and nutrition specialist. I’ve been practicing as a women’s health expert for over 24 years, specializing in helping women with abnormal pap smears.
Your doctor is likely NOT telling you that your body can protect yourself from high risk HPV virus types that cause abnormal cells and cancer, even if you are re-exposed to the virus.
The Fundamentals of Pap Smear Testing and Cell Analysis
A pap smear is something most women know of as part of their annual exam. We go to the gynecologist – and by the way, you can also go to a midwife in most states, as midwives are licensed to offer women’s healthcare, including pap smears. It’s a screening exam covered by your insurance, but many women don’t realize exactly what’s being tested and what it means if you get an abnormal result.
During a pap smear, they take a sample of cells from the face of your cervix and from inside the opening of the cervix, what’s called the endocervical canal. This is usually done with a small plastic spatula or a gentle brush that lifts off cells from both areas. These cells are then taken to the lab where a pathologist examines them under a microscope.
When pathologists look at cells under the microscope, they can look and see, based on the shape, size, and coloring, what part of the body the cells are from. It’s actually really interesting – I love studying histology. Every cell in the body has a slightly different look, so when a pathologist looks at the cells from the cervix and endocervix, they can tell what a healthy cell looks like: nice and round shape with a small nucleus and a pink color under the microscope.
I’m so grateful that we can do pap smears and that this screening exam exists. I’m hoping technology in the near future is going to make pap smears even more accessible for women because this is an amazing tool that allows us to identify abnormal cells on the cervix before they turn into cancer cells.
Understanding Progressive Cell Changes and Abnormalities
There’s a spectrum of abnormality when it comes to pap smear results – referred to as cervical dysplasia.
When you hear “abnormal pap smear,” that’s not just one thing. It’s a gradation from completely healthy cells to slightly inflamed cells, to more inflamed and maybe abnormal shaped cells where the nucleus is starting to get bigger, gradually looking more and more like a cancer cell.
The progression from normal cells to cancer cells tends to be slower, usually occurring over years, although there are cases where it progresses more quickly. That’s why we do pap smears on a regular basis, like every year or every two years, depending on your risk factors. Your doctor will tell you how often you need to have a pap—your age plays a role, as does your sexual activity and number of sexual partners. If you’ve ever had an abnormal result, you may need to go in more often.
Let me explain the terminology you might see on your results. The progression starts with mild inflammation, or what’s called ASCUS (atypical cells of undetermined significance) on a pap result. ASCUS is inflammation, which is one of the initial phases or stages of abnormality. Next is CIN 1, which is considered a low-grade abnormality that the body can heal. The body can make new healthy cells on the cervix and heal if it has the right support.
CIN 2 and 3 are considered high-grade, more advanced abnormalities in the cells, getting closer and closer to carcinoma in situ, which is the step before it becomes carcinoma or cancer.
If you have a pap that comes back abnormal, then the doctor is likely to recommend a biopsy where they usespecial imaging to see where the abnormal cells are likely located on your cervix and then do a biopsy of those areas to be able to look at those cells under the microscope.
Medical Interventions and Their Limitations
If high grade abnormal cells are found on a biopsy, your doctor is likely to recommend a procedure to remove those cells. They may mention a LEEP (or LLETZ) procedure, conization (or cold knife) procedure, which removes part of the cervix, or in some cases, a hysterectomy to remove the whole uterus and cervix.
However, what they often don’t tell you is that these procedures can have lasting effects and limitations.
One crucial thing doctors often don’t mention is that LEEP procedures can cause scar tissue, especially if you need repeat procedures. They might not tell you that removing part of your cervix can affect your ability to carry a pregnancy. That’s why it’s so important to catch these changes early and do everything we can to prevent progression and avoid the need for these procedures.
What many doctors won’t tell you is that even after these surgical interventions, the abnormal cells could still come back because the procedures don’t kill the HPV virus.
99% of cervical cancer is caused by high-risk HPV virus. This wasn’t always known, but research from the past couple of decades made it very clear. Even if we remove the abnormal cells and cancer, the virus is still living in your body and can cause abnormal cells again.
I’ve seen women who have had a hysterectomy and then six months or a year later end up with abnormal cells vaginally or on the vulva, or it could happen rectally. This risk of of recurrence is something they often don’t tell you about, and to me, that’s really important for you to know.
Yes, it’s important to remove the high grade abnormal cells, but that’s not a complete solution. We need a much more comprehensive approach to help prevent recurrence. And your doctor is NOT likely to tell you that.
Natural Remedies for Cervical Dysplasia
Your doctor is not likely to tell you about a traditional herbal-nutrient treatment to remove abnormal cells from the cervix, called escharotic treatments.
I offer these abnormal pap smear treatments through my office, and I have found them to be very successful in helping to eliminate abnormal cells and heal the cervix without scar tissue or damage. I’ve helped hundreds of women to heal from CIN2-3 over the past 24 years using escharotic treatments.
Let me share a story about Jessica, who came to me after just getting married. She was hoping to soon have a pregnancy when she went in for a pap smear and found out she was testing positive for high-risk HPV and CIN 2. The doctor was recommending a LEEP procedure, but she didn’t want to risk damage to her cervix. She didn’t want to put her dreams of having a family on hold or risk complications from surgery.
When she contacted me, we talked it through, and I showed her exactly what I do to help other women heal their cervix and fend off the virus. Through our work together, she was able to heal her cervix completely, clear the virus to negative, and go on to have a healthy pregnancy and baby.
This is possible because the human body has natural healing capabilities that we can support and enhance.
Comprehensive Testing and a Natural Approach to Treatment
When working with patients, I look at multiple factors that your standard doctor might not consider.
We often need to do specialty tests that aren’t available through standard labs to understand exactly what’s happening in your body. We check for things like leaky gut and food sensitivities that might be causing inflammation, vaginal microbiome health, hormone levels including estrogen and progesterone, and liver detoxification of estrogen.
Your doctor might recommend some basic supplements like folate and green tea—and yes, there’s research on these, and I include them in my protocol—but a lot of times that’s not enough. This is especially true in persistent cases where women have been battling HPV and abnormal cells for years, and have had recurrent infections or even cancer. In these cases, we need to think beyond a couple of supplements.
We need to look at hormone levels—estrogen, progesterone, cortisol, insulin function—these all play a role in your ability to clear HPV and prevent abnormal cells. Past stress and trauma exposure can make yoususceptible, but it’s possible to recover from stress and trauma in order to prevent that susceptibility.
We can learn how to reset our nervous system, not just through mindset changes but by using herbs and nutrients that reset cortisol levels, adrenaline, serotonin, dopamine, and GABA. These are the messengers in our nervous system that help us to be resilient to stress.
Avoiding Abnormal Pap: Understanding the Role of Prevention
The standard medical approach often leaves women feeling helpless and afraid, waiting months between check-ups to see if things have gotten worse. My role is to help avert problems before they become serious or recur. I want to help you prevent abnormal cells from getting worse and definitely prevent them from progressing to cancer. If you’ve already had cancer, I want to prevent it from happening again.
While standard gynecological care can help with removing abnormal cells surgically, and treating cancer through surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, what’s missing is help to stop the HPV virus from causing abnormal cells over and over again.
Your doctor will likely tell you that HPV could cause cancer, and scare you by telling you it could get worse, then tell you to come back in a few months to recheck and see if abnormal cells developed, and if so, that you need a procedure.
But they’re not likely to tell you about the things you could do to prevent that from happening, such as diet changes, lifestyle modifications, nutrients, herbs, probiotics, and other natural approaches.
It’s important to understand – and your doctor is not likely to tell you this – that YOUR BODY CAN CLEAR HPV to NEGATIVE.
Our bodies have built it mechanisms to help us fend of HPV. So if the virus is present, there is a failure in one or more of those systems.
My role is to help you find out why your body is susceptible to the virus, so we can address those factors and prevent abnormal cells.
The thing that doesn’t happen with standard standard care is helping you clear HPV to negative, even if re-exposed. When we do that, you can gain your freedom from fear that HPV will cause cancer.
Comprehensive Healing Approach for Abnormal Pap Smear Results
How can we help your body clear the HPV virus?
We need to look at the areas of the body that are meant to protect you from HPV and find out if there are imbalances or insufficiencies that are leaving you vulnerable. Sometimes we need to do specialty tests (that you can do at home) to understand exactly what’s happening in your body.
We check for things like:
- Is there leaky gut?
- Are certain foods causing inflammation?
- How is your vaginal microbiome?
- What are your hormone levels?
- How’s your liver detoxification working?
- Do you have nutrient deficiencies
We need to test these things to know where the issues are, and then we can address them using diet changes, nutrients, and herbs in safe, effective doses individualized to you.
It’s not just about taking a single supplement. And it’s not one size fits all.
In persistent cases, like women who’ve been battling with abnormal cells for more than 10 years, have had recurrent abnormalities, or even cancer that has recurred, I have to think big and comprehensive.
I have to be a detective and figure out exactly why and where the virus is sneaking in, and how we can patch up those holes so it can’t sneak in anymore. When we help you recover and replete yourself, restore your health, you’re going to be able to protect yourself much better.
Success Stories and Long-term Results
I’ve been successful helping women of all ages, from 20 to more than 70 years old.
This isn’t just something that happens to young women or women with multiple partners—it can happen at any age and even with a single sexual partner. We have a greater than 90% success rate with women who follow my protocol completely.
The only times we don’t see success is when patients aren’t able to fully implement the protocol or when they’re under extreme stress that compromises their immune system.
As long as we can address all the underlying factors that are making you susceptible and help you understand what you need to do going forward to take better care of yourself, you can prevent recurrence and maintain your health.
This is your body, your cervix, your life—you get to decide. You can say, “Wait a minute, this virus isn’t going to control my life and put me into a state of fear and anxiety and stress. I’m going to take charge and get the information I need to change the situation.”
I’ve seen case after case where women who have taken this approach have been able to heal themselves and set themselves free. I want you to know that healing is possible, and you have more control over your health than you might have been led to believe.
If you are ready and would like to start taking the first steps towards clearing HPV, I encourage you to sign up for my Say Goodbye to HPV Program. You can access it from anywhere in the world because it is online videos, with handouts, recipes, resources, as well as live sessions and a private app, where I teach you to implement my protocol in 12 weeks.
You’ll also get access to order the specialty testing I mentioned, as well as vaginal suppositories. I’d love to teach you how to heal and protect yourself from HPV.
If you are looking for supplements to start your journey to get HPV to negative you can find my HPV Support Bundle.
You can also go to clearhpvnow.com. There, you’ll find lots of resources and stories from women I’ve worked with. You can see that this approach really works, and it can work for you too. Or you can set up a one-on-one appointment here.
To learn more about my approach to healing using my Stress Recovery Protocol which involves optimizing cortisol and adrenaline levels to heal the adrenals, as well as neurotransmitters, using nutrients, herbs and C.A.R.E.™ – my proprietary program to support clean eating, adequate sleep, stress recovery and exercise – I encourage you to read all about it in my latest book, Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.
Thanks so much for joining me here today. Please make sure to comment if you have questions or any thoughts, and also to subscribe and put on your notifications so you don’t miss my next video. I look forward to connecting with all of you very soon.
Remember, you are worth it. Your health is worth it. And you have the power to make positive changes in your life that can have a profound impact on your health and well-being. Don’t let fear or misinformation hold you back.
We’re here to help you!
Connect with Dr. Doni:
- Facebook https://facebook.com/drdoniwilson
- Instagram https://instagram.com/drdoniwilson
- YouTube https://youtube.com/DoniWilsonND
- Newsletter: https://doctordoni.com/www (Weekly Wellness Wisdom)
- Podcast: https://doctordoni.com/podcast (How Humans Heal)
More Resources from Dr. Doni:
- Stress Type Quiz: Assess your adrenal function
https://doctordoni.com/quiz - Dr. Doni’s Book: Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health
https://doctordoni.com/book - Dr. Doni’s Facebook Group: Stress Warrior Stress Resiliency
https://facebook.com/groups/stresswarrior - HPV Recovery Guide (FREE)
https://doctordoni.com/ddpp/hpv-guide/ - FREE Masterclasses with Dr. Doni
https://doctordoni.com/masterclasses - FREE Guides from Dr. Doni
https://doctordoni.com/guides
Personalized Solutions:
- 14-Day Detox Program: You can start this transformation program anytime
https://doctordoni.com/detox-program - Say Goodbye to HPV (12-week Program): Begin the journey to freedom from HPV today!
https://doctordoni.com/hpv-12-week - If you’d like to meet with Dr. Doni one-on-one for your health, request a Health Breakthrough Session: https://doctordoni.com/breakthrough
Disclaimer: This specific article and all other Content, Products, and Services of this Website are NOT intended as, and must not be understood or construed as, medical care or advice, naturopathic medical care or advice, the practice of medicine, or the practice of counseling care, nor can it be understood or construed as providing any form of medical diagnosis, treatment, cure, or prevention of any disease.