Infertility examinations are particularly uncomfortable for several reasons. Many men find it extremely difficult to go to the urologist once every few years for a check-up. However, what a woman has to go through for fertility treatment is much more than that. Depending on the clinic, you are constantly exposed to other strangers and every time you expose yourself anew under the floodlights of several people. Whilst of course doctors work with this every day, it is still uncomfortable for patients. You don't feel the same every day and, depending on your surroundings, you would certainly rather be on a beautiful beach. Many patients report that they felt completely vulnerable in larger, operating theatre-like rooms and that they have had problems with intimacy ever since. This has nothing to do with uptightness, but the affected patients feel an overkill of examinations in the most intimate setting. In addition, there are unfortunately also insensitive staff who do not take the patient's situation sufficiently into account and thus leave an additional negative feeling.
In this article I have put together a few tips on how you can handle examinations better:
1. listen to music or meditate (many clinics offer extra music) or
2. stay in dialogue with the person treating you
3. ask for as few people as possible to be present (no interns, no people running in and out)
4. take an accompanying person with you
5. address anxiety and discomfort
Personal tip: I have undergone several hundred examinations during 31 fertility treatments. It was often unpleasant and I often said nothing. Once I couldn't do it at all and that time I said so. A nurse then held my hand very tightly until everything was over and I am still enormously grateful to her for that to this day. If I hadn't said anything, the rest of the examination would have been much worse or I wouldn't have been able to finish it at all.
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