Hello everyone, I also suffered from vestibulodynia for years and years and repeatedly got the run-around from my doctor (it's all in your head, just try to relax, use lube during sex, have a bath and a glass of wine before sex, you have normal hormone levels, etc.) before finally turning to a sex therapist in desperation, thinking maybe the doctor was right and I was doing this to myself. I had my first appointment with the sex therapist, and what a relief to finally be taken seriously! She recommended I see a physiotherapist who specializes in pelvic floor pain and helped me jump the waiting list at a local clinic. Best of all: she told me it wasn't in my head so I didn't need to go back to her for "head therapy"! At the clinic I underwent several months of physio that included bi-weekly appointments and exercises that I could do at home, either by myself or with my husband. The exercises are things like stretching the muscles in a certain way using your fingers and what I jokingly call "the probe", and basically re-learning to control the pelvic floor muscles so that I could relax and tense the muscles at will instead of them just doing whatever they want. My appointments also included some biofeedback, which is basically an electrode placed inside the vagina and hooked up to a computer to monitor me flexing and relaxing the muscles. A computer program showed me in real time what my body was doing, and I used that feedback to re-program my brain into knowing what the heck was going on down there. After following the treatments (religiously) for about four months I had no pain whatsoever and my physiotherapist told me I could go ahead and have sex again. I've been pain-free for two years now, though if I do start to feel pain again I now have the tools to help myself before it gets too severe. I didn't have to use any creams or other medications during or after treatment. I highly recommend that if you have vestibulodynia and you can find this kind of clinic in your area, you give it a try. If you have questions about where I am and the name of the clinic I went to please send me an email at: vestibulodynia (at) hotmail (dot) com. (I just set that email account up for this post.) I don't want to provide my real email address, location or the clinic name here because I'm a very private person and prefer not to broadcast my personal information to the entire internet. Best of luck ladies!
Comment Reply
Hello everyone, I also suffered from vestibulodynia for years and years and repeatedly got the run-around from my doctor (it's all in your head, just try to relax, use lube during sex, have a bath and a glass of wine before sex, you have normal hormone levels, etc.) before finally turning to a sex therapist in desperation, thinking maybe the doctor was right and I was doing this to myself. I had my first appointment with the sex therapist, and what a relief to finally be taken seriously! She recommended I see a physiotherapist who specializes in pelvic floor pain and helped me jump the waiting list at a local clinic. Best of all: she told me it wasn't in my head so I didn't need to go back to her for "head therapy"! At the clinic I underwent several months of physio that included bi-weekly appointments and exercises that I could do at home, either by myself or with my husband. The exercises are things like stretching the muscles in a certain way using your fingers and what I jokingly call "the probe", and basically re-learning to control the pelvic floor muscles so that I could relax and tense the muscles at will instead of them just doing whatever they want. My appointments also included some biofeedback, which is basically an electrode placed inside the vagina and hooked up to a computer to monitor me flexing and relaxing the muscles. A computer program showed me in real time what my body was doing, and I used that feedback to re-program my brain into knowing what the heck was going on down there. After following the treatments (religiously) for about four months I had no pain whatsoever and my physiotherapist told me I could go ahead and have sex again. I've been pain-free for two years now, though if I do start to feel pain again I now have the tools to help myself before it gets too severe. I didn't have to use any creams or other medications during or after treatment. I highly recommend that if you have vestibulodynia and you can find this kind of clinic in your area, you give it a try. If you have questions about where I am and the name of the clinic I went to please send me an email at: vestibulodynia (at) hotmail (dot) com. (I just set that email account up for this post.) I don't want to provide my real email address, location or the clinic name here because I'm a very private person and prefer not to broadcast my personal information to the entire internet. Best of luck ladies!
August 4, 2009 - 6:37amThis Comment
Reply