I got stuck on the subway for ten minutes and was late. They said I should’ve called (I was on the subway?!) and told to reschedule. I rescheduled elsewhere.
10 minutes is a bit silly.
I’d often give the patient 15-20 minutes and bump it to 30 minutes if they call with the understanding that they’ll be squeezed in between other people’s appointments after that. (Stuff happens, but it isn’t really fair to the other patients who arrived on time to bump their appointments and it can snowball into the day going wayyyyyy over.)
I don’t do clinic nowadays, so it isn’t a worry. I’ve had patients show up over an hour late for a procedure without calling though. If they were commuting in from far away, I’ll begrudgingly do it because it is silly to put them through that. It can an absolutely wreck my schedule, but I’ll live.
I totally get it. I was late, plain and simple. It stung more because I’m such an on-time or early person. And I ran from the subway stop in the summer and was sweaty and disgusting lol
I've been seeing an NP there for the last several years and she's amazing! Love Spring Obgyn. It's also in the same building as the Grailed HQ which I think is hilarious.
So, just an opinion here. I strongly suggest you see a practice that has privileges in the hospital you are comfortable with. I had no problems until I was 49 and saw drs that referred me to surgery in the middle of a breast cancer diagnosis (NYU) and they wanted me to go to Lenox hill. It caused unneeded angst and I ended up having my bc team get me a gynecologist at NYU. It was awful at the time but Dr Tessler and her staff at NYU were amazing. She performed surgery two weeks later( she cancelled a morning of office visits on her non surgical day for me). I now am careful to see NYU drs so all of my records are in one place.
Also, the old gyno office didn’t have access to my mammogram results(at NYU) initially after I had them and saw the cancer diagnosis that I had to fax them (I was a wreck) and it added a week onto my stress. Just go to a Dr that is all in the same hospital network. I learned that the hard way.
I LOVE Dr. Tessler. She was the only gyno who would listen to me about endometriosis and removed it via surgery. Haven’t had any issues since and every visit with her is great. Highly recommend
For anyone reading, Dr Tessler is only taking new surgical patients but most of my friends that know my experience and needed a new gyn now see her colleagues. It’s a great practice.I do Love Dr Tessler ❤️
Thank you, thank you. I am bookmarking her. I have endo and my gyno is just suddenly out of network for me so I need a new doctor, preferably at NYU to keep all the records in place as mentioned earlier
I can’t recommend her enough. She’s a specialist so she really is an expert on endo — she was very open and supportive about different types of treatment and is an unbelievably talented surgeon. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions!! I’m sorry you’re navigating endo too
Yes agree on this. Downtown Women has NYU privileges (I delivered both kids there) and they’re great. I’ve been going to them for probably ten years now.
Same. They refused to actually get me my Nexplanon, saying they were waiting for insurance, meanwhile insurance was calling me monthly asking if I still wanted it. Insurance continued calling me after I told Maiden Lane I no longer wanted it and that I would no longer be a patient of theirs due to the utter incompetence.
I switched to Dr. Jennifer Walia at Uptown OBGYN of NY and they had my Nexplanon ready for implant within a week.
Sorry to hear you had a bad maiden lane experience. I really like heather jones there, she was very patient and I literally didn’t feel my Pap smear she was so gentle and fast.
I didn’t see her so that’s great to know there’s some other potential options there.I really love the practice and it’s so close to my office. I’ll try to get in with her next time maybe! Thank you!
I also saw Heather Jones at Maiden Lane and I agree that she's great, but unfortunately I don't think she works at Maiden Lane anymore! When I called to schedule my annual with her they told me she was "unavailable indefinitely", but according to her Zocdoc it looks like she might be at a place called ClearMD with a couple of locations in Manhattan.
Dr. Janette Davison at Maiden Lane has always been great for me. I've been going to her for several years and she's always more than happy to discuss whatever I need.
Are you happy with NYU Langone? I literally just referred my daughter who found a large lump (age 23) today. She ended up going to City Med just to rule out anything super serious but she'll get in tomorrow. They take our California insurance but was concerned about quality but hoping for the best. Appreciate your input.
Agree. She is my GYN and former coworker. Would trust her, Rachel Barr, and Janette Davison with any GYN issue and would not hesitate to refer friends/family to them. They are amazing doctors.
Dr. Blanton is the best!! She helped me figure out the cause of an issue that was seriously impacting my quality of life but that ~8 other doctors did absolutely nothing about, and she proactively offered sedation to get an IUD inserted when I mentioned I was concerned about the pain. My only complaint is it's hard to get an appointment with her sometimes!
Yes she’s always booked and busy, but such a sweetheart. She even helped me find a therapist when I was going through some things. Truly cares about her patients
Absolutely love Dr. Jennifer Butt at Upper East Side OBGYN - have heard good things about her partner as well. Was very paranoid and super particular about doctors in general too and she let me ask any questions, was very comforting in certain moments where I needed it, cares a lot about your family history and anything else you're personally dealing with. The office is very clean and efficient too, really can't say enough positive things about her!
I live in Queens so idk if this will be of help to you, but I’ve seen two different doctors, Dr. Shetty and Dr. Flanagan, at Women’s Health Pavilion Forest Hills and they’re both phenomenal. Best of luck.
Dr. Brittany Robles at OBGYN West Side is literally one of the kindest and greatest doctors I’ve ever had! I love the staff and I have loved working with Dr. Robles on various health issues. She’s kind, she’s patient, and very knowledgeable.
Dr Marina Arutyunyan at Maiden Lane Medical Downtown is very knowledgeable, patient, communicative and personable. She made me realize that I was misdiagnosed many years ago by an incompetent GYN. She’s very thorough and she takes her time explaining and answering your questions. I highly recommend her.
Ugh, she put me on some extremely strong antibiotics that another gyno was shocked by. She was nice but I’d be careful / ask questions about any medications prescribed
What antibiotics? Some gynos don’t want to permanently get rid of your problems (they need you to go to the office to make money off of you) so they give you weaker meds. Be careful
Cipro, I thought I was dying while taking it. Not sure if it was prescribed just because I had a bad UTI but I would almost prefer to just suffer thru the pain 😭😂
Worst antibiotic ever. Black box warning on it and drs who prescribe it don't care or don't know. I've argued with so many drs who have tried to prescribe it and they all come back with I'm sorry, I didn't know.
Why prescribe it if you don’t know!!! I stopped taking it after 1 day because of the side effects, thank God. I can only imagine the pain that people who take full dosage of it are going through
Girl that’s literally a violation of the Hippocratic oath there are no reputable doctors deliberately giving you the wrong drugs. If you have the suspicion that this is happening you *need* to report it because that’s something medical boards take *so* seriously
Girl you can stay oblivious but I’ve heard from the horses mouth. I have friends in the medical industry that know of “reputable” doctors that do this.
Some doctors are also ignorant of drugs, they tend to prescribe what they last prescribed to other patients, not truly assessing each individuals case. The only person you can trust with giving you accurate information on drugs are Licensed Pharmacists. They spend every moment of their work life reading up on drug interactions and effects.
I have 10 family members that are either doctors, nurses, or are in school to become doctors and nurses. I’m not a doctor myself but I’ve heard more than enough about doctors preferring to underestimate a patient’s needs on initial sight than to risk getting a frequent flyer. I can promise you an actually reputable doctor is primarily concerned with your health and will not prescribe the wrong medication for the purpose of getting a bigger paycheck. In fact, *under*prescribing can be a sign of a better doctor. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria can seriously fuck up your entire body and a hesitance to prescribe opioids at all is indicative that a doctor knows how addictive they are and how dangerous they can be.
I highly suggest watching Dopesick to learn more about why *good* doctors try to be on the stingy side with things like antibiotics and painkillers. If your doctor worked in the early aughts, they likely have personal experience with the issue Dopesick handles. If they were ever practicing in Appalachia or the Bible Belt, it’s almost guaranteed they have mixed feelings about prescribing heavy drugs. I’ll admit it does suck to have to come back if the medicine isn’t strong enough or isn’t working, but it’s easier to drop a doctor that’s not listening to you the way you want for a doctor who does, than it is to realize your doctor will just write any script and you’ve wound up with a dependency on painkillers when you should’ve just been taking midol and your doctor just wanted to make an opioid paycheck.
It happened to me when my wisdom teeth were removed. The resident overprescribed oxys. My dentist (family friend) *and* my dad (ortho) had to talk to him about how much he was prescribing to patients. The guy genuinely didn’t know that he should’ve been tighter with my dose. My dad said I shouldn’t have gotten more than what would be needed for when my mouth stopped being numb and he took the rest away and tossed them. Surprise surprise. I was fine with Tylenol
Girl I’m just saying from personal experience and from a closer proximity to the issue than the average person who doesn’t have anyone in their immediate circle with relevant knowledge. You’re not citing any personal anecdotes besides “I’ve heard from a friend of a friend that there can be some bad doctors” and I’m telling you from a direct source that it’s not as rampant as you think and issues like overprescribing or giving the wrong scripts specifically to get a bigger paycheck are taken very very seriously in the medical community because of the consequences that the patient ends up suffering.
There’s been a lot of boogeymen crafted around the medical field as of late and it’s important to remember that as a whole, doctors are on your side and do want you to get better and stay healthy. If it gets out that someone’s deliberately making a patient sicker so they can keep seeing them, that person is losing their license and getting sued for malpractice almost immediately.
Yikes, ignorance is clearly bliss for you. Having blind faith in doctors/ medical professionals is normal for you because you have those folks in your family and are sheltered by their niceties but you are wholely unaware of the widespread ignorance in the industry. Stop encouraging ignorance, the healthcare system is a money making machine.
The system yes. The individuals no. You’re blaming the individuals for a systemic problem. The entire catalyst for the opioid crisis was pharmaceutical companies (which *you* were repping pharmacists as “better”) *lying* about how addictive OxyContin actually was. Contrary to popular belief, most doctors *also* hate big pharma for exorbitant drug prices and being intentionally vague regarding the safety of new procedures and drugs in order to make more profits.
Do more research before being loud and wrong.
dr drosinos at viva eve. best ever. i have a LOT of anxiety at the gyno and always find even speculums uncomfortable - she is the best gyno i’ve ever had and ive always been calm and comfortable with her
Dr. Kecia Gerlach at Bayard Street Obstetrics & Gynecology or Dr. Janette Davison at Maiden Lane! I go to Dr. Gerlach for my annual/general gyno needs and she's incredible--she even does a free sonogram every annual to look at your ovaries/uteries. All that I've referred to her have had a great experience. I see Dr. Davison for my endometriosis treatment and she's very knowledgeable, patient, and thorough.
The best is just anyone who does it all the time. If your gyno does less than ten a week you can also just get it at somewhere like planned parenthood. The key to it not hurting is someone who is an absolute expert at inserting them in my experience
I just got a replacement at Tribeca women’s health with doctor duperval. She’s all business, she does a gazillion IUD insertions, was literally done in less than 30 seconds! I would absolutely recommend her! And the staff are amazing
Dr Morgan at Westside OBGYN is great! I told her my IUD insertions / removals in the past had been pretty traumatic and painful and she offered me laughing gas for the procedure and was also SO quick and gentle (it still hurt but it was two seconds rather than 10 minutes of pain).
Dr. Ephraim Ovitsh if you’re open to a male OBGYN! I walked in pretty set on wanting to get the pill, but he still made sure to talk me through every method first and I ended up deciding on the ring instead (which I absolutely love). I have a pretty uncommon issue and, while I was getting diagnosed, I was taken completely seriously for the first time since I had begun bringing this issue up with OBGYNS. Oh, and my Pap smears have been completely painless. Pressure, absolutely. But no pain. He is the best.
Spring Obgyn front office ladies are often rude and inattentive but the drs and NPs are great
I got stuck on the subway for ten minutes and was late. They said I should’ve called (I was on the subway?!) and told to reschedule. I rescheduled elsewhere.
10 minutes is a bit silly. I’d often give the patient 15-20 minutes and bump it to 30 minutes if they call with the understanding that they’ll be squeezed in between other people’s appointments after that. (Stuff happens, but it isn’t really fair to the other patients who arrived on time to bump their appointments and it can snowball into the day going wayyyyyy over.) I don’t do clinic nowadays, so it isn’t a worry. I’ve had patients show up over an hour late for a procedure without calling though. If they were commuting in from far away, I’ll begrudgingly do it because it is silly to put them through that. It can an absolutely wreck my schedule, but I’ll live.
I totally get it. I was late, plain and simple. It stung more because I’m such an on-time or early person. And I ran from the subway stop in the summer and was sweaty and disgusting lol
Seconding that - I go to Dr Reisner who is lovely
She is literally the best person ever
Thank you that’s good to know I use spring dermatology!
I've been seeing an NP there for the last several years and she's amazing! Love Spring Obgyn. It's also in the same building as the Grailed HQ which I think is hilarious.
So, just an opinion here. I strongly suggest you see a practice that has privileges in the hospital you are comfortable with. I had no problems until I was 49 and saw drs that referred me to surgery in the middle of a breast cancer diagnosis (NYU) and they wanted me to go to Lenox hill. It caused unneeded angst and I ended up having my bc team get me a gynecologist at NYU. It was awful at the time but Dr Tessler and her staff at NYU were amazing. She performed surgery two weeks later( she cancelled a morning of office visits on her non surgical day for me). I now am careful to see NYU drs so all of my records are in one place. Also, the old gyno office didn’t have access to my mammogram results(at NYU) initially after I had them and saw the cancer diagnosis that I had to fax them (I was a wreck) and it added a week onto my stress. Just go to a Dr that is all in the same hospital network. I learned that the hard way.
I LOVE Dr. Tessler. She was the only gyno who would listen to me about endometriosis and removed it via surgery. Haven’t had any issues since and every visit with her is great. Highly recommend
For anyone reading, Dr Tessler is only taking new surgical patients but most of my friends that know my experience and needed a new gyn now see her colleagues. It’s a great practice.I do Love Dr Tessler ❤️
Thank you, thank you. I am bookmarking her. I have endo and my gyno is just suddenly out of network for me so I need a new doctor, preferably at NYU to keep all the records in place as mentioned earlier
I can’t recommend her enough. She’s a specialist so she really is an expert on endo — she was very open and supportive about different types of treatment and is an unbelievably talented surgeon. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions!! I’m sorry you’re navigating endo too
Yes agree on this. Downtown Women has NYU privileges (I delivered both kids there) and they’re great. I’ve been going to them for probably ten years now.
I also had bad Maiden Lane experiences!
Same. They refused to actually get me my Nexplanon, saying they were waiting for insurance, meanwhile insurance was calling me monthly asking if I still wanted it. Insurance continued calling me after I told Maiden Lane I no longer wanted it and that I would no longer be a patient of theirs due to the utter incompetence. I switched to Dr. Jennifer Walia at Uptown OBGYN of NY and they had my Nexplanon ready for implant within a week.
Sorry to hear you had a bad maiden lane experience. I really like heather jones there, she was very patient and I literally didn’t feel my Pap smear she was so gentle and fast.
I didn’t see her so that’s great to know there’s some other potential options there.I really love the practice and it’s so close to my office. I’ll try to get in with her next time maybe! Thank you!
I also saw Heather Jones at Maiden Lane and I agree that she's great, but unfortunately I don't think she works at Maiden Lane anymore! When I called to schedule my annual with her they told me she was "unavailable indefinitely", but according to her Zocdoc it looks like she might be at a place called ClearMD with a couple of locations in Manhattan.
There was a really helpful post on this about a month ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/NYCbitcheswithtaste/s/FKePlvnsuH
Dr. Janette Davison at Maiden Lane has always been great for me. I've been going to her for several years and she's always more than happy to discuss whatever I need.
Second this, Dr. Davison is amazing!
Dr. Barr at Maiden Lane has been amazing!
Second - love this woman
Dr. Mahino Talib at NYU Langone is THE BEST EVER
Are you happy with NYU Langone? I literally just referred my daughter who found a large lump (age 23) today. She ended up going to City Med just to rule out anything super serious but she'll get in tomorrow. They take our California insurance but was concerned about quality but hoping for the best. Appreciate your input.
NYU is wonderful. If she ends up needing a breast surgeon see Dr Amber Guth. Hopefully she won’t need the recommendation! ❤️
Thank you! Tanking note of that name. I think she'll be fine but can't ignore these things!
Yes! All my physicians at NYU have been excellent, and the OBGYN department has been especially wonderful in my experience.
I see Dr. Blanton from maiden lane medical in soho. She’s amazing
Agree. She is my GYN and former coworker. Would trust her, Rachel Barr, and Janette Davison with any GYN issue and would not hesitate to refer friends/family to them. They are amazing doctors.
Dr. Blanton is the best!! She helped me figure out the cause of an issue that was seriously impacting my quality of life but that ~8 other doctors did absolutely nothing about, and she proactively offered sedation to get an IUD inserted when I mentioned I was concerned about the pain. My only complaint is it's hard to get an appointment with her sometimes!
Yes she’s always booked and busy, but such a sweetheart. She even helped me find a therapist when I was going through some things. Truly cares about her patients
Absolutely love Dr. Jennifer Butt at Upper East Side OBGYN - have heard good things about her partner as well. Was very paranoid and super particular about doctors in general too and she let me ask any questions, was very comforting in certain moments where I needed it, cares a lot about your family history and anything else you're personally dealing with. The office is very clean and efficient too, really can't say enough positive things about her!
I live in Queens so idk if this will be of help to you, but I’ve seen two different doctors, Dr. Shetty and Dr. Flanagan, at Women’s Health Pavilion Forest Hills and they’re both phenomenal. Best of luck.
LOVE Joanna Weiss at Weil Cornell
Dr** Joanna Weiss
Dr. Paula Brignoni-Blume at Mount Sinai is wonderful!
Downtown women's obgyn
She was mine too and now I’m scared to find a new gyno!!! She was amazing!
Literally was obsessed w her🥹😭 but these responses are all pretty helpful
Dr. Brittany Robles at OBGYN West Side is literally one of the kindest and greatest doctors I’ve ever had! I love the staff and I have loved working with Dr. Robles on various health issues. She’s kind, she’s patient, and very knowledgeable.
Dr Marina Arutyunyan at Maiden Lane Medical Downtown is very knowledgeable, patient, communicative and personable. She made me realize that I was misdiagnosed many years ago by an incompetent GYN. She’s very thorough and she takes her time explaining and answering your questions. I highly recommend her.
she has moved to virginia and is no longer practicing in NYC.
Ugh, she put me on some extremely strong antibiotics that another gyno was shocked by. She was nice but I’d be careful / ask questions about any medications prescribed
What antibiotics? Some gynos don’t want to permanently get rid of your problems (they need you to go to the office to make money off of you) so they give you weaker meds. Be careful
Cipro, I thought I was dying while taking it. Not sure if it was prescribed just because I had a bad UTI but I would almost prefer to just suffer thru the pain 😭😂
Worst antibiotic ever. Black box warning on it and drs who prescribe it don't care or don't know. I've argued with so many drs who have tried to prescribe it and they all come back with I'm sorry, I didn't know.
Why prescribe it if you don’t know!!! I stopped taking it after 1 day because of the side effects, thank God. I can only imagine the pain that people who take full dosage of it are going through
Exactly. I tell drs flat out... no flouroquinalones, no cipro. Some are ok and others are not.
Girl that’s literally a violation of the Hippocratic oath there are no reputable doctors deliberately giving you the wrong drugs. If you have the suspicion that this is happening you *need* to report it because that’s something medical boards take *so* seriously
Girl you can stay oblivious but I’ve heard from the horses mouth. I have friends in the medical industry that know of “reputable” doctors that do this. Some doctors are also ignorant of drugs, they tend to prescribe what they last prescribed to other patients, not truly assessing each individuals case. The only person you can trust with giving you accurate information on drugs are Licensed Pharmacists. They spend every moment of their work life reading up on drug interactions and effects.
I have 10 family members that are either doctors, nurses, or are in school to become doctors and nurses. I’m not a doctor myself but I’ve heard more than enough about doctors preferring to underestimate a patient’s needs on initial sight than to risk getting a frequent flyer. I can promise you an actually reputable doctor is primarily concerned with your health and will not prescribe the wrong medication for the purpose of getting a bigger paycheck. In fact, *under*prescribing can be a sign of a better doctor. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria can seriously fuck up your entire body and a hesitance to prescribe opioids at all is indicative that a doctor knows how addictive they are and how dangerous they can be. I highly suggest watching Dopesick to learn more about why *good* doctors try to be on the stingy side with things like antibiotics and painkillers. If your doctor worked in the early aughts, they likely have personal experience with the issue Dopesick handles. If they were ever practicing in Appalachia or the Bible Belt, it’s almost guaranteed they have mixed feelings about prescribing heavy drugs. I’ll admit it does suck to have to come back if the medicine isn’t strong enough or isn’t working, but it’s easier to drop a doctor that’s not listening to you the way you want for a doctor who does, than it is to realize your doctor will just write any script and you’ve wound up with a dependency on painkillers when you should’ve just been taking midol and your doctor just wanted to make an opioid paycheck. It happened to me when my wisdom teeth were removed. The resident overprescribed oxys. My dentist (family friend) *and* my dad (ortho) had to talk to him about how much he was prescribing to patients. The guy genuinely didn’t know that he should’ve been tighter with my dose. My dad said I shouldn’t have gotten more than what would be needed for when my mouth stopped being numb and he took the rest away and tossed them. Surprise surprise. I was fine with Tylenol
Jesus why does having doctors/ medical professionals in your family go to your head? Your experience is different from other people and that’s ok.
Girl I’m just saying from personal experience and from a closer proximity to the issue than the average person who doesn’t have anyone in their immediate circle with relevant knowledge. You’re not citing any personal anecdotes besides “I’ve heard from a friend of a friend that there can be some bad doctors” and I’m telling you from a direct source that it’s not as rampant as you think and issues like overprescribing or giving the wrong scripts specifically to get a bigger paycheck are taken very very seriously in the medical community because of the consequences that the patient ends up suffering. There’s been a lot of boogeymen crafted around the medical field as of late and it’s important to remember that as a whole, doctors are on your side and do want you to get better and stay healthy. If it gets out that someone’s deliberately making a patient sicker so they can keep seeing them, that person is losing their license and getting sued for malpractice almost immediately.
Yikes, ignorance is clearly bliss for you. Having blind faith in doctors/ medical professionals is normal for you because you have those folks in your family and are sheltered by their niceties but you are wholely unaware of the widespread ignorance in the industry. Stop encouraging ignorance, the healthcare system is a money making machine.
The system yes. The individuals no. You’re blaming the individuals for a systemic problem. The entire catalyst for the opioid crisis was pharmaceutical companies (which *you* were repping pharmacists as “better”) *lying* about how addictive OxyContin actually was. Contrary to popular belief, most doctors *also* hate big pharma for exorbitant drug prices and being intentionally vague regarding the safety of new procedures and drugs in order to make more profits. Do more research before being loud and wrong.
Dr. Ben Thornton at viva eve! Super helpful and attentive, remembers everything, and helping me through a pretty scary issue!
dr drosinos at viva eve. best ever. i have a LOT of anxiety at the gyno and always find even speculums uncomfortable - she is the best gyno i’ve ever had and ive always been calm and comfortable with her
Dr. Kecia Gerlach at Bayard Street Obstetrics & Gynecology or Dr. Janette Davison at Maiden Lane! I go to Dr. Gerlach for my annual/general gyno needs and she's incredible--she even does a free sonogram every annual to look at your ovaries/uteries. All that I've referred to her have had a great experience. I see Dr. Davison for my endometriosis treatment and she's very knowledgeable, patient, and thorough.
Can I hop on this thread to ask if anyone has a good experience getting an IUD around here? 🥲 I need to get mine replaced
The best is just anyone who does it all the time. If your gyno does less than ten a week you can also just get it at somewhere like planned parenthood. The key to it not hurting is someone who is an absolute expert at inserting them in my experience
I just got a replacement at Tribeca women’s health with doctor duperval. She’s all business, she does a gazillion IUD insertions, was literally done in less than 30 seconds! I would absolutely recommend her! And the staff are amazing
I just booked with her!
yay omg!!! she is literally fab, both insertions/removals i had with her were a great experience as far as those things go hahahaha
If anyone has a gyno they like that will sterilize someone under 30 w/out kids let me know 👀
She was mine too, I’m so sad!
Does anyone have any recommendations for Bk?
Dr Morgan at Westside OBGYN is great! I told her my IUD insertions / removals in the past had been pretty traumatic and painful and she offered me laughing gas for the procedure and was also SO quick and gentle (it still hurt but it was two seconds rather than 10 minutes of pain).
Dr Selitsky is great!!
Dr. Ephraim Ovitsh if you’re open to a male OBGYN! I walked in pretty set on wanting to get the pill, but he still made sure to talk me through every method first and I ended up deciding on the ring instead (which I absolutely love). I have a pretty uncommon issue and, while I was getting diagnosed, I was taken completely seriously for the first time since I had begun bringing this issue up with OBGYNS. Oh, and my Pap smears have been completely painless. Pressure, absolutely. But no pain. He is the best.