I have no judgement on it. I'm a scientist, so reasonably literate, but I'm not a medic. Thank you for your insight. So, for me as a Swedish-residing female.. should I be seeing a gyno yearly? To me that seems excessive. I'd like to start having some kids in the next year or so. I'm otherwise healthy. In the UK I had…

Thank you. Very interesting to see how this differs between countries. I've been going for 3 yearly (all ok) smears since 21 (i'm 34.) Anything else I should be doing? I haven't had the HPV. I was too old!

and urgh, I feel for you.. a very incompetent doc made me bleed for five days..and it was horrid ! BUT please, please please attend to any abnormalities... I'm a scientist and it would take me about an hour over vino/magaritas to explain how yes, yes ,yes, they need to check these things out... but urgh, they need to.…

I feel for you. BUT if it's abnormal, you need to let those docs do their thang. I know it's horrid, and urghh, invasive, and just generally nasty, but really, if there's an abnormality, they need to know.

Wow. I never had an internal exam to be put on BC. In the UK ( my hometown, as it were) you can get BC on the NHS. For cervical smears it's a state funded (i.e. free) pap smear every 3 years from when you're 21. I can't say I enjoy them, but I can say there's been a HUGE difference in whether I found it…

Bear with me, I'm not American. And my feet will be shuffling in shame and apology if you say "yeah I had a condition that madated this" but annual? Why annual? In my native UK it's 3 yearly. Not sure how often it is here in my adopted Sweden but good lordy lord, the second but of post I got after my Personnumer, was…

depends which branch of the family it was.

Yeah, I kind of agree with you. This story made me feel very squicky. I mean YES, anyone who says this kind of stuff to someone (and in front of their kids, or even worse TO the kids, for the love of...) is a moron. BUT... this is putting her kids on the web... and that to me feels..unpleasant. I just don't know. I…

That's going in my "Eyebleach" folder. Thank you (also, quelle breedage? Scots fold?)

I am not entirely au fait with the "hot pocket" being a Brit, but I imagine it is a microwaveable (or toaster-friendly) good that can be raised to a temperature akin to that attained by superheated plasma, or perhaps the corona of a small star. In such a case (and I'm a lady, so I don't have one of these appendages) wo…

a 20p piece if you're british. If it doesn't cover the slightly raised rim on the outside, your tread is too bare. Now imagine me saying that in Kenneth Williams voice. You're welcome.

I very much doubt I would find you ugly. Unless you're mean, selfish, cruel and uncaring, then I would imagine I would find you perfectly lovely.
We are all beautiful. Ok so we're not all beautiful in the 'stunning perfection' way that Lupita is, but we generally have one or two things about us that are great. Our…

Fellow pasty lady here! And after a swedish winter I'm almost transparent. Things have been dredged from the Marianas trench that have more pigment than me.
She's stunningly beautiful. I mean really, utterly gorgeous. And she rocks those brights. I guess we just have to find what suits us. For me, it's earthy greens,…

Been similar here...very little snow and not that cold. I'm used to walking everywhere, having survived without a car in British cities for many years ! We don't even own one right now. That may change if we move out to the backwoods ! Eating out is pretty expensive here too, although I think Norway is even worse ! I…

As far as I know, you can't get that here. I stock up back in the uk or when I go abroad (I travel quite a bit with work.) it is indeed used to make all sorts of stuff, including krokodil I think, but seriously, your average user just wants some bloody sudafed to stop their nose running or lemsip to make a bad cold…

Yup, in fact in my office we regularly get whomever is off to the USA to bring back meds. Even simple over the counter stuff isn't available here... I wanted some difflam for a sore throat and they looked at me like I'd asked for crack.
There's lots of stuff I like about here, and some stuff I don't, but on balance,…

Fear? Fear of the 'other' ?
I am now an immigrant. I moved to sweden recently and I now understand how hard it is to emigrate. It's tough.

I so bet we've met /been on the same project. This makes me happy. Keep on !

Yes,I absolutely agree. Ukip are scary. We need to recognise where this fear comes from. Then we need to assuage that fear. I know as well as you do that this is very difficult in the uk. We've been hugely enriched by immigration but our overlords have been using immigration to depress wages. It's a very difficult…

Yes..it's very difficult. It's a tough decision and I think that if your mum needs a good pain med, then ask. See her care provider and discuss your concerns. My dad has horrible rheumatoid arthritis and he has been very well served with a a TNF alpha inhibitor. He's gone from 29 pills a day to six. See your care…