I just made an appointment to have one done on my thyroid, and am a bit freaked out at the image of them sticking a needle in my throat (I have a bit of a needle phobia).
Is it painful, or would it be along the lines of getting a shot or a blood draw?
I haven’t had a thyroid biopsy, but I had one for a lump in my breast. It hurt about as much as a dentist’s needle. And that’s about what it was like - the doc started with a smaller needle of lidocaine, then went in slowly (to reduce any pain) with the larger biopsy needle.
I have found that guided meditation CD’s are perfect for this kind of thing (I hate needles too). I use an iTunes download called Eight Minute Meditations. Keeps me relaxed, allows me to keep my mind on something else.
Good luck on the biopsy results.
All biopsies are not created equal, and I’m sorry I can’t say anything specific about thyroid biopsies. All I can say is that I’ve had several skin biopsies and they were virtually painless. I also had a bone marrow biopsy, and it was the most painful experience I’ve ever had.
My guess (based on various experiences I and my family have had) is that this one won’t be bad at all, but it’s only a guess.
I had a stereotactic biopsy on my breast.
I don’t want to freak you out, but it wasn’t very comfortable. The local didn’t take or didn’t go in deep enough, and I just decided to grit my teeth and get through it.
They will give you a local, I assume, so hopefully it won’t be too bad.
I had a thyroid biopsy. It hurt, but not excrutiatingly.They did about five sticks, and the last was the worse, because it was the deepest. I wish they’d done that one forst and then the rest would’ve been a breeze. FOortunately for me, my thyroid wasn’t cancerous, but my sister’s, my nephew’s and my aunt’s were.
The thyroidectomy isn’t too bad either, although swallowing the big calcium pills right after is difficult because swallowing hurts. Crush up the calcium and put it in sherbet. If you have a total thyroidectomy, you might ask about radiation to kill any remaining cells. My sister (all three sister have also had their thyroids out) had hers out less than two years ago and it’s grown back. She goes in on the 30th to have it removed again.
StG
Thanks for the responses.
I think I can handle non-excrutiating-ness. As long as I don’t look at the needle. (I do hope the local works, though.)
I haven’t had a biopsy, but I did have large needles stuck into my right knee joint cavity a couple times to drain things and for imaging at the time (it was 30 years ago, so “imaging” options were quite different than today). The idea looked hideous, the reality looked hideous, but the pain management/anesthetia was excellent. It wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t painful either.
I also once had surgery while awake and concious. Again, not fun but I felt no pain during the procedure. Well, I felt the first needle stick, but no pain after that.
If you have concerns about pain during a medical procedure take a minute or two to talk to whoever is handling pain control/anesthesia. I have found doing so is typically reassuring. Worry, after all, only makes pain worse. The more calm and relaxed you can be (yeah! right!) the better off you are.
Try to distract yourself. I have never liked seeing needles stuck in me, so I don’t look. CD’s, if you can have them, provide a nice distraction. Look out the window, count ceiling tiles, daydream, whatever.
The infamous “they” had to biopsy my kidney when I was nine.
Uncomfortable as that was, it paled in comparison to the aftermath - passing dime-sized blood clots for days.
I find a fourfold breath to be just the ticket for “relax so we can hurt you” procedures. Breathe in for a count of four, hold it for a count of four, breathe out for a count of four, and then hold that empty lung space for a count of four before breathing in again for a count of four. You’d be surprised how much concentration it takes - especially the holding points after the inhale and exhale. While you occupy your mind with that, you’re also keeping your breathing nice and steady for the doctor, and the deep breaths you take as a result of the process also calm you.
I had a needle biopsy done on my thyroid last spring.
I had to be stuck several times because there were several nodules.
It didn’t hurt per se, but as others have noted there were a couple of times when things were definitely uncomfortable. This had to do more with the location and size of the nodules.
Fortunately for me, the results turned out non-conclusive and an ultrasound completed last month shows the nodules actually shrinking.
Hopefully, I will only get stuck once. (I have 3 nodules, but only 1 is being biopsied, because of the size.)
Kat - They may want to stick the nodule in a couple places, though. I don’t know what they’ll do, but be prepared. After all, a biopsy is only a sample where the needle hits. And in the case of both my nephew and my sister, the biopsy didn’t find the cancer, it was found when they did slides after they removed the thyroid. In all our cases (five thyroids removed in three years), we had trouble swallowing because the nodules had grown so large.
StG
Darn, I was afraid of that.
The place where I go for skin cancers don’t use a local when they take biopsies. I don’t recommend that.
First of all, most thyroid “needle biopsies” are aspirates of cells/fluid done through a thin (“fine”) needle, 25 gauge or less, which is where the term “fine needle aspirate” (FNA) comes from. Sometimes physicians will do actual tissue biopsies where a small solid core of tissue is removed and processed like biopsies of breast and other tissues.
Don’t assume this - ask beforehand. Some physicians don’t use local anesthetic for fine needle aspirates, because the pain of a needle stick for Lidocaine is assumed to be nearly as much as that from the FNA and because the small amount of fluid introduced with the anesthetic can obscure small lesions. In most cases neither of these objections is viable and you can and should get a local anesthetic to make you more comfortable.
This experience (an inconclusive result) is fairly common. A number of specialists in the field of thyroid cytology discourage attempts to sample numerous nodules (i.e. in a multinodular goiter) because it is technically difficult to get adequate samples from multiple lesions (and the more you try and sample, the more common it is to get inconclusive/unsatisfactory results for one or more lesions.* It also subjects the patient to more pain and risk of bleeding into the neck (this can uncommonly cause significant respiratory distress from hemorrhage pressing on the trachea). Most physicians who do FNAs will focus on larger, radiologically suspicious and/or growing lesions, particularly in patients with risk factors for carcinoma (such as history of radiation exposure).
*Thyroid fine needle aspirates can be quite helpful in diagnosing overt malignancy. Often, though, they are difficult to interpret in the instance of trying to distinguish between benign hyperplastic goiters (a very common reason for having one or more nodules in your thyroid), follicular adenomas (benign tumors) and minimally invasive follicular carcinomas (malignant, uncommon). Second opinions can be a good idea in difficult/borderline cases.
Jackmannii, M.D. (who has performed numerous fine needle aspirates, mostly while providing anesthetic beforehand, has made diagnoses on probably well over a thousand of these things and wishes he could pay someone else to look at them, for they are a pain in the neck for pathologists as well). 
Thank you for the details, jackmannii. Other than confirming the local, is there anything else I should make sure to ask about?
A question I might ask is “How many of these procedures do you do?”
To be good at thyroid aspirates (which mainly means being efficient and getting good diagnostic materia) requires doing a relatively high volume of them (i.e. on average at least a couple a week). Different kinds of docs do them (radiologists perform them under ultrasound guidance, which is especially helpful for nonpalpable nodules, but pathologists, surgeons and endocrinologists also get good results with proper training and frequency. Pathologists have the advantage of knowing the optimal ways to process the specimen).
Another point may not come up at all, but if there’s an inconclusive finding (particularly if they want to follow up with surgery), don’t hesitate to get a second opinion (which should optimally be from a board-certified cytopathologist).
Hope it goes smoothly for you.
Uterine biopsy hurt like a muthafuckah.
So does an excise biopsy on your tongue.
Thanks again.
I go under the needle next Monday. I’ll let y’all know how it goes.