Few women relish the experience of changing into a paper nightgown, placing their feet in stirrups and having a stranger investigate their nether regions. Nevertheless, getting a Pap smear is an essential part of annual health screenings for women. Some women experience more severe side effects than others, such as mild to moderate bleeding. Others feel dizzy, or even develop nausea after a Pap smear procedure.

Here’s how to evaluate whether your nausea after a Pap smear is typical or whether it represents a need to call your OB/GYN.

Normal Side Effects After Pap Smears

Your cervix contains a ton of nerve endings, so some discomfort when undergoing a Pap smear is perfectly normal. And that goes beyond the unsettling feeling of exposing your most personal regions to relative strangers. The intrusion affects your nervous system, helping to explain why you feel sick after a pap smear. 

The vagus nerve, the longest of 12 cranial nerves, runs from the base of your skull all the way down to your pelvic area. This nerve is responsible for sending impulses to the gut. When you feel as if you’re about to pass out, the queasiness you feel is due to the action of the vagus. Feeling sick after a pap smear is this nerve sending the following signal to your brain: “Something is going on down here. We may need reserves, so shut down digestion and other pesky minor tasks until we figure it out.”

When you get a Pap smear, the doctor takes a little swab of cells from your cervix. Pro tip: If this causes discomfort, count the ceiling tiles, hum a favorite tune or both to relax you. Since the doctor is scraping a sensitive organ, this action sends messages up the vagus nerve to the brain.

Sadly, dismissing female pain is all-too-familiar in medicine. Most research studies only investigate men, but women’s bodily systems are significantly different — including variations in the nervous system. Simply put, it is wildly unfair for practitioners to dismiss your discomfort. 

If you experience more than mild discomfort, please, speak up. For one, you can ask for a local anesthetic to make the experience less painful for you. Two, you contribute to the missing pieces of the research puzzle. For example, it was only in August of 2024 that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began recommending anesthesia for IUD insertion after countless women protested that the discomfort was far more than “mild.”  

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So, Is Nausea After Pap Smear Procedures Normal?

Considering the action of the vagus nerve, nausea after Pap smear procedures is completely reasonable. It isn’t necessarily common, but nor is it rare. If the symptom proves disconcerting, you can speak with your OB/GYN, but you shouldn’t feel overly concerned.

What symptoms do warrant a phone call? If you experience unusual bleeding following a Pap smear, talk to your physician, especially if it continues more than a few hours after your appointment. Definitely contact your doctor if bleeding continues for more than one day, unless you’re starting your normal menstrual cycle.

Rarely, women experience pain following a Pap smear. If you experience abdominal discomfort, try eating a probiotic-rich diet, including fermented foods, before your exam. Some women find relief from procedures like acupuncture as well, although many do well with an over-the-counter pain reliever.

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Home Remedies for Nausea Relief

If you do experience nausea after a Pap smear, what can you do to treat it naturally? One remedy to try is homemade ginger tea. While many commercial ales contain no real ginger at all, this tasty tea helps settle upset stomachs quickly.

Eating a banana also can quiet an upset stomach rapidly. Bananas contain high levels of potassium, which helps smooth muscle tissue function. Bananas also contain fiber to keep your digestive tract flowing regularly.

Finally, adding a few drops of specific essential oils to a diffuser can help alleviate nausea. Try a few drops of spearmint or lavender essential oil to quiet your tumultuous tummy. You also can suspend a few drops in a carrier oil, such as coconut oil, and dab a bit under your nose for discreet aromatherapy.

Since the issue often lies in your nervous system, tricks that calm it can often quell nausea quickly. Your breath is a fabulous tool. Try inhaling for a count of four and exhaling for a count of five or six while lying down quietly. Deep, rhythmic breathing activates the parasympathetic side of your nervous system — the rest-and-digest portion. 

Another trick is to gently massage the area around your tragus when feeling sick after a pap smear. Your tragus is the little flap just in front of your ear, and your vagus and trigeminal nerves meet near this area. You don’t have to press hard — just enough to move the delicate skin and muscle tissue to activate the nerves. 

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Making Your Pap Smear Less Stressful

Many women who experience nausea after Pap smears do so as a result of psychological factors as much as physiological ones. Feeling nervous before a gynecologist’s appointment is typical. However, it can make any side effects from procedures seem more severe than they are.

Prior to your appointment, do your homework first. Go online and research what you can expect if you’re having a pelvic exam for the first time, or if several years have passed since your last visit. Set out your clothing the night before, and wear your most comfortable duds.

Strive to get an appointment first thing in the morning, if possible. It’s easier to keep your courage if you lack time to mull over your fears, and you run less risk of ending in the waiting room for a long time due to a backlog of other patients. If it helps you to have support, take a friend or family member with you.

Write down your concerns before your appointment, so you don’t forget what you hope to discuss. If you routinely start feeling sick after Pap smears, ask your OB/GYN for recommendations. They may prescribe a short-acting dose of anti-nausea or anti-anxiety medication. Sip some chamomile tea to calm your nerves before getting in the stirrups.

This isn’t to say that feeling sick after a pap smear is all in your head. It’s simply an acknowledgement that your mental state can influence your experience. For example, scientists recently discovered that your amygdala, your brain’s fear response center, directly impacts your Brunner’s glands, tiny structures in your small intestine that tell your gut how much mucus to make. 

This pathway helps to explain how ongoing mental stress creates and worsens stomach disorders. Awareness of this mechanism alone may ease nausea after a pap smear, if only by convincing you that a calm mind will make the procedure less uncomfortable. 

However, an association between mental stress and feeling sick after a pap smear doesn’t necessarily indicate causation. There is a fine line between positive thinking and self-gaslighting. If you experience more than mild discomfort, speak up. Know that your experience is valid and seek a second opinion if your gynecologist makes you feel uncomfortable or dismisses your concerns without investigating them. 

Beating Nausea After a Pap Smear

Getting regular Pap smears is a critical component of female reproductive health. Pap smears protect your fertility, identify sexually transmitted diseases and detect cervical cancer early when doctors can treat the disease effectively.

Still, side effects such as nausea after Pap smears make many women hesitate to book their annual visit. Don’t allow fear to keep you from protecting your reproductive health. Your fertility and health depend on paying regular attention to matters down below.

Originally published August 19, 2019. Updated September 25, 2024