Not always a happy ending / men can be in pain too

[Dishaz]

I’ve been browsing through the forum the past couple of days and I’ve read lots of positive stories here. Many of you seem to have overcome vaginismus. I’m happy for you guys, but therapy does not always end well. So here you go, here’s my personal – not so great – experience. Who knows someone of you might recognize herself in what I have been through.

My name is Dishaz. In my religion, penetration before marriage is forbidden, so I had sex for the first time when I was 21, on the first night it was allowed 🙂 My husband has another belief, but he respected my wish to wait.

We were both looking forward to that moment so much! I stopped using the pill a month earlier and my hormones were going crazy – I don’t know if you’re allowed to say that as a woman, but my husband was SO hot I already wanted to jump him during the ceremony 🙂 Biologically, I was MORE than ready to have sex. But it didn’t work. He couldn’t get in. It was as if my vagina was locked and someone threw away the key. After a few more tries I knew something was wrong and I talked about it to my mum, and before I knew I was explaining things to a doctor who simply replied to me that it was a shame for my husband (!) and that he was going to try to help him (!). The fact that I was in pain didn’t seem to be important. I ended up going to a therapist and did exercises with a dilation set.

The first few months I was making progress, and I really thought I was on the road to recovery. But once I reached a certain stage, I couldn’t continue anymore. Whatever I tried, the next dilator hurt, and I stayed on the same size for months, as if it was a video game with an end boss I couldn’t defeat and kept me locked in the same stage forever. In my country you only get a limited number of visits to the therapist per year in your medical insurance, and it was simply too expensive to continue at my own expenses. I ended my therapy in November and restarted a few months later when my insurance allowed it again, with another therapist. The result was the same, I got stuck at a certain size and wasn’t able to move on. My therapist told me this sometimes happens and that there was nothing she could do for me.

In the mean time I knew I could have sex, but I was SO SO SO tight it hurt terribly. And this is something I’ve never read before on the forum, but when you’re so tight, it hurts your partner too. Each time we had sex, he ended up having multiple tears on his foreskin and frenulum because of me being so tight.

After all these months of waiting, kids became a hot issue. Not only because that was our wish, but also because our family kept asking about it. We had no other choice but to have sex if I wanted to get pregnant. It became one of the most terrible periods in my life. I used ovulation tests to limit the amount of times we had to have sex, and my husband made sure he didn’t ejaculate for the rest of the time to make sure he could produce a more than decent amount, hoping that would increase our chances, because we knew we couldn’t to it as much as other couples. There were times we were both crying at the same time while having sex because it hurt us so much. We weren’t making love, we were hurting each other 🙁 I’m sure at some point our neighbors must have thought we were fighting or so. But here in my country the tendency is that women need to whine less, and be stronger, so I did what I had to do.

I got pregnant after two months but the whole process was so traumatic for both of us, sex is still not on our list (our son is almost 1 year old now).

A few weeks ago I got in contact through Facebook with another mom who lives in the same city, and she told me almost the same story: she was diagnosed with vaginismus but got stuck at a certain dilator size as well. When she wanted to get pregnant, her husband had to penetrate her forcefully, otherwise they couldn’t have sex.

I’ve learned recently that some American couples with vaginismus use syringes and self insemination, but neither of my two therapists have ever said anything to me about that method and I’m not even sure this was something they knew.

I really should try start training again with my dilation set, but I cannot find the courage.

[itsmelina]

A pretty popular ‘trick’ among vaginismus patients trying to get pregnant is a long period of abstinence for the partner + lots of foreplay and getting him a few times near the edge of an orgasm with masturbation. This causes most men to ejaculate as soon as penetration starts, limiting the time he needs to be inside you.

[Jess567]

Hey Dishaz, sorry to hear that your therapy experience did not go well. I’m currently still in therapy for vaginismus and I too have experienced getting stuck at a certain size and not being able to progress for a long time. Which is incredibly disheartening and frustrating.

Obviously, everyone is different, but I wanted to mention a couple things that helped me in case they may be able to assist you as well. I’m finally making progress again after lots of stretching (my hips are tight and stretching them also helps loosen my pelvic floor) and experimenting with the angle of insertion; it helps me to lay flat with my legs propped up on an exercise ball. But the biggest thing is that I recently went to a new gynecologist and was diagnosed with vulvodynia on top of the vaginismus. She prescribed me topical gabapentin that I apply in my vagina, and this has helped tremendously, more than anything else. There was always a spot that was rather sore and tender and I couldn’t push past without a lot of pain and the gabapentin has mostly resolved this. I’m not saying that you have the same reason for not progressing as me but that there may be more treatments/options out there to help you. I know you had physical therapists, but have you had an appointment with a gynecologist who has experience with vaginismus? It sounds like the doctor that you went to was more concerned with how it impacted your husband and wasn’t very understanding towards you. Unfortunately, it can be hard to find doctors familiar with the condition and I don’t know how insurance and medical visits work in your country but if you are able to find a gynecologist who has worked with vaginismus patients before, they may be able to provide some other treatment options to help you make progress.

I hope that things are improving for you and I’m sorry that you are going through this.

[recessivegenequeen]

Hi Dishaz – thanks so much for sharing your story and I’m really sorry to hear you’ve had so much pain. You shouldn’t have to suffer so much for sex and I know you are brave because of all that you’ve endured to have your son.

The other women here have added some really great advice, and I just wanted to also throw in that you might be a great candidate for the Botox treatment that the Maze clinic and other facilities offer. This is what I needed to finally kick my vaginismus because the botox helped stop my muscles from tensing so tight whenever anything came near my vagina, and it also helped my brain understand that penetration was possible, You can read all about it here:
http://mazewomenshealth.com/painful-sex-vaginal-pain/vaginismus-treatment-under-anesthesia/

I know it probably feels helpless at times, but there are still strategies you haven’t tried. I hope you’ll look into them so you can have more peace of mind and less pain if that’s something you’re interested in!