hi everyone. its been a long 7 months dealing with this. i tear everytime i have sex and have a general burning that extends to my backend as well. its like a constant awareness of your "down there". Any one else experience tearing during sex and or going to the bathroom (#2). its like my skin has absolutely no ability to stretch. all std (blood tests and swabs) are clear. i suffer anxiety and ocd that has been debilitating this year which may have brought on these symptoms. i havent seen much about vulvodynia and tearing in the vulva and anal area. but the specialist i saw said i have vulvodynia and vestibuldynia. everywhere i read however says there is never anything physically wrong when a woman has this condition. which makes me belibe i hhave a skin condition of some sort. any one who has vulvodynia have tearing too??
Oh wow, you poor girl! Do you use any sort of lubrication to make sexual penetration easier? There’s lots on the market, and if you’re on a budget even the good old vaseline jelly is fine to use as well. Did the doctors you saw suggest you use lubricant? Also, your skin shouldn’t be tearing like that, is it the same man each time, or a different guy? Because it may be that your partner is too rough and not stimulating you enough before intercourse.
Minamii
thank you for responding and yes ive been through all of this. lubrication doesnt help. same guy for the past year. i understand its not normal which is why im posting this to see if vulvodynia sufferers deal with tearing .
When i first got vulvodynia, but didnt yet kniw that was what i had - i just thought my skin was left sensitive after recurrent yeast infections, i would tear after sex. i tore in three places once. A biopsy of the skin showed inflammation, which is consistent with vulvodynia. Perhaps the inflammation makes the skin more fragile. I also found it made my skin more sensitive - every medical cream i was given to out on there just stung me. Of course once i was diagnosed with vulvodynia i stopped having sex. The only way to cure it is to stop everything that aggravates the hyperactive and hypersensitve nerves - no sex, no pressure from sitting (use a donut cushion), no exercise or long walks, preferably nothing touching that area at all (dont wear underpants just a skirt or baggy jogging bottoms when possible). Once you stop everything that aggravates the nerves you then set about damping down their overactivity with amitriptyline and western / medical acupuncture and reducing their hypersensitivity by retraining the in a very controlled way to register touch as touch and not pain using manual desensitisation. Pelvic floor exercises help too.
Doing all those things I was able to be pain free after 1.5 years and able to have proper sex again after 6 more months. My consultant dermatologist said that 1.5 years was about the minimum time to cure vulvodynia. She told me she was very impressed that i had managed that and that i had such determination. She said the women who have it for many years are those that don’t bother to stop doing everything that aggravates the nerves - they get impatient with the time it is taking (neuropathic pain takes a long time to get rid of) and have sex or ride their horse, They also dont try everything that is known to help, like i did (it is time consuming, but worth it to be pain free).
If you click on my name you will see my posts - the one titled ‘how i cured my vulvodynia’ tells my success story. Others have told theirs too. I know of several women who have followed what i did and are now pain free, or well on the way to becoming pain free (they message me).
I had the same problem and I’m finally starting to get it under control! The prognosis initially seems dire but it isn’t necessarily. My vulvodynia stems from endo nerve inflammation and after a year of painful sex/urination/general movement, I realised that my vaginal opening had actually shrunk and I was having excrutiating pain with sitting (which hadn’t been there before).
I suspected that my pelvic floor muscles were in spasm through “guarding” and had the fortune of stumbling across a physiotherapist who specialised in vulvodynia and pelvic floor health. In my first session she confirmed that my pelvic floor muscles were hypertonic and that it had caused a lot of scar tissue in my vagina, basically my muscles were injuring themselves. She conducted a painful myofascial massage internally and by the next day I could sit without pain. Every night I repeat the same massage using coconut oil and I’ve literally felt the scar tissue softening and stretching. Combined with amitriptyline I’m now at a pain level of around 2 and after increasing my dose i’m hoping this will disappear entirely. I’m now able to comfortably insert and move around 1 finger when previously even the super tiny tampon wouldn’t get past the opening! Urinating is much easier and so my bladder pain has improved as well. I never “tore” per say, but there was always spotting and little tiny fissures after any friction. This has gone now too. There is hope!
Just to add, I was massively inflamed so much so that it was initially thought to be dermatitis - which it never was so the normal appearance doesn’t occur in every case.
thank you so much for replying to me!! this made me feel so much better. you have no idea. i didnt know vulvodynia could actually cause physical findings. i thought it was only nerve related. this calmed me down alot
yes i have fissures too!! thats really what they are. thank you for replying
yes, my tissues were visibly inflammed and reddened, delicate and sensitive.
Many women have found that physio helps. i didnt have it myself but i did my own pelvic floor exercises and internal massage (lots of coconut oil!).
There is also a secondary complication of vulvodynia - because you expect it to hurt when you have sex, you tense up, the muscles of the vagina tense up (vaginisimus), so you do get hurt physically (lesions internally and externally). After my nerves had gone back to normal it took me another six months to be able to accept a penis without pain (from tense muscles) or tearing