Vibrators and Vaginismus

[Heather34]

Hi all. Much has been written concerning the use of vibrators in relation to vaginismus and dilating. In the first year post-procedure, I found using a dilator really, really helped me to relax while dilating. Also, as my hubby and I transitioned to intercourse, we used this together as a fun part of our foreplay and once we moved to spontaneous sex (i.e. no dilating in advance), this helped me so, so much. It was still like dilating but removed the clinical part of it and was an enjoyable shared experience. For those struggling with dilation or for those struggling with transitioning from dilating to intercourse, the use of a vibrator could be really helpful. In a prior post, the husband of a patient shared their experience and how using the vibrator helped them as a couple:

He writes:

“Exactly 7 weeks after the procedure we were able to achieve full penetration for the first time (yay!). You probably recall that not long before that we were struggling with the fact that progress was limited on the intercourse attempts – even despite good progress with the dilators. The major hang-up at that time seemed to be continued, intense, anxiety over penetration attempts. This led to difficulties with her physically pushing away and closing off her legs (despite conscious attempts not to), and strong negative reactions that she expressed as pain – but I suspect may have possibly been more emotion and anxiety than literally pain (much like the q-tip vulvodynia test).

I had an interesting idea to try to address some of this – albeit rather indirectly. I thought that she may be able to use a vibrator for clitoral stimulation to distract from the vaginal penetration – hopefully minimizing her adverse reaction. It actually worked! We went from struggling with tip only penetration to all the way in – instantly. It was still painful for her if there was much movement, but this was huge progress. Over the next several days we continued this process – only conducting one actual penetration per night, but we left it in longer each time and gently/gradually increased the amount of movement. From this point, improvement occurred very quickly. We have been continuing the same process since then and she continues to improve each time. After about a week, we were able to have intercourse pretty much normally (after using the vibrator to get initial penetration). She has been able to orgasm with and without the vibrator. Additionally, as soon as her next period came about she was able to use tampons with almost no trouble. She now just uses a little bit of lube on the tampon and gets it in with no problem. I see a marked difference in her level of anxiety surrounding intercourse and tampon use now.”

This is a great post. In the Recommended Products section, Maze Women’s Sexual Health has an excellent page on Choosing a Vibrator, including several factors (internal v. external, plug-in v. battery operated, etc.).

//mazewomenshealth.com/whats-new/recommended-products/vibrators/

[Heather34]

Hi all. One thing that helped me personally and others have written about this in the past as well is the use of a vibrator when transitioning to intercourse as well as moving up in dilator sizes. I always had the most success by being using a vibrator and being in a state of arousal and I felt like it helped me tremendously when making the step to transition. A good vibrator that is made of the silicone material and preferred in size by other forum members is the Lelo Liv.

//mazewomenshealth.com/forums/topic/lelo-liv/

[teoella]

Obviously women vibrators and lube can help dilating, you should begin with smaller sizes and then increase with a real size one. Silicone might be the best you can get, because it is more close to the natural feeling. Good luck 🙂

[Aimee Goldman, RWHNP]

We reccomend using a silicone vibrator called a Bendie to our patients who are at the end stages of dilating. The Bendie’s size is in between the last two large dilators that we use during dilation.
Our patients like the texture of this vibrator and the fact that it pulsates at different speeds.
It allows our patients with vaginismus to both dilate and have pleasure at the same time.
It also serves as a nice transition from dilation to actual intercourse.