Jessica Wynn

Yeah, it kind of looks like a torture device.

It's uncomfortable and for some people painful.

But regular screening dramatically cuts cervical cancer deaths.

And generally, if you have a cervix, you should be screened every three years starting in your 20s.

Not surprising, women doctors have now invented better options.

Things like HPV, which is the human papillomavirus, which is extremely common and it's spread through skin-to-skin contact.

It has no symptoms, but it can lead to cancers that are now easier to screen for.

So there's tests that look directly for high-risk strains of the virus that cause cervical cancers.

There's swabs for HPV that you can do yourself with no speculum now.

And there are improved speculum designs, thank you, lady doctors, and techniques that focus more on patient comfort.

But the whole, like, women should feel pain, childbirth is supposed to hurt, stop complaining mindset, that's really slowed innovation.

Oh, yeah, of course.

Yeast infections are really common.

That's an overgrowth of yeast that normally lives in the vagina and causes intense burning and itching.

There's bacterial vaginosis, which we mentioned before, which is an out-of-balance bacterial infection.

That usually expresses itself after sex.

Yeah, that seems to be the culprit.

And women often suffer urinary tract infections.

That's not the vagina, but it's all in the same zip code.

So people confuse the three.