A Year Later!

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been a year since I overcame vaginismus!  What a year it’s been.  I officially become a woman and learned how to use tampons.  I have been missing out!  We went to a concert recently while AF was visiting and had I not been using tampons I would have been miserable.  I am able to have exams every year with no issues. In fact I had my yearly exam this past week and got a fist bump from my gyno because I have been doing so well.  A lot has gone on over the past year, too much to formulate into thoughts to put into a blog!  We started working on our baby making process and that has been an interesting journey.  I don’t want to go into details because not a lot of people know the specifics and I want to keep it that way J  We FINALLY got an offer on our house a couple weeks ago!  Of course we had not been looking at houses because we thought our house would never sell, so we had to scramble to go out looking.  We found a house we like, put an offer in and now we’re just waiting on our buyer to get back to us on our proposal for repairs she wanted done.  Hopefully the whole shebang doesn’t fall through!

Recently I had an email from a woman who stumbled onto my blog when she google’d vaginismus.  How honored was I that she sent an email asking for advice and suggestions for her!  THAT was why I did this blog in the first place- to reach out to women out there that are too embarrassed to talk about this with a doctor they hardly know.  It gave me a chance to contact my PT to ask her for some recommendations in Indiana for this woman; it was nice to talk to her and catch up a little bit on how I’m doing since my treatment. 

I have had over 1200 visitors to my blog since I started.  Of course I helped that a long a little bit by posting my blog submissions to stumbleupon.com, so some of those people didn’t have a choice but to see my blog, but that’s ok!

I have also been asked to write a post about vaginismus and the effects it has on a woman’s sex life for glitterhood.com.  I am so happy to have my story out there for women who have been embarrassed and scared about their vaginismus. 

That’s about all I can think to blog right now.  My mind is a flutter of thoughts with everything going on with us.  

Baby Daddy

Baby Daddy.   Sperm Donor.  A means to an end.  Trying to get pregnant is going to be interesting.  We had our first ‘interview’ with a potential sperm donor last night.  Needless to say, we are meeting with our lawyer next week to educate ourselves on this process.  There are so many things we have to do in order to protect ourselves that we were a little out of our league when we met with him and had some concerns come up.  So, we will educate ourselves and meet back up with him in a couple of weeks after we all have taken some time to think about things.  Maybe he is the one, maybe he isn’t. 

In other news, at least my vagina is ready.  I am still doing my maintenance with my dilator every couple of weeks or so to keep my muscles used to insertion.  I am not sure any of that will prepare my vagina for pushing a baby out of it, but I guess it will help.  I don't think they make a dilator that big to prepare for that. 

Stay tuned for more baby daddy updates. :)

Feet in the stirrups, please

I am alive.  I have survived.  I know, you are glad, aren’t you?

I had my first pelvic exam in many years with NO PAIN!!!  My last exam was probably 8 or 9 years ago and I was crying on the table while the doctor tried the exam (she even tried numbing gel, however I couldn't even handle her touching me downthere).  After recently overcoming vaginimus, I was still a little nervous about this exam on Friday.    Dr. R is a really amazing doctor (in spite of the bow ties) so I felt ok going to him.  He must have been delivering babies the night before or doing surgery that morning.  He was wearing scrubs with his doctor’s coat over them, no socks and black dress shoes.   He came in and asked me how I was.  My reply, “I’m here”.   He put his hand on my shoulder and told me it would all be ok.   I told him that I had done 6 weeks of physical therapy and our conversation went a little like this:

Angie: “I did really well in physical therapy; I was able to overcome my vaginismus in 6 weeks.”
Dr. R: “That’s great, how did you like physical therapy?”
Angie: “I loved it! Wait, that sounds a little weird.  It wasn’t as horrible as I thought it would be.”
Dr. R: “Well! I get an ‘I’m here’ response about you seeing me, but you LOVED physical therapy.  Way to give a guy a complex.”

This exchange made me laugh, and I felt even more comfortable with him.  If you can make me laugh, my nerves get a lot calmer.   He got me into position (feet in stirrups, ass nearly hanging off the table) and then pushed a button on his phone.  A minute later his nurse comes in and asks him what he needs.  He just needed her in there with him.  This is a little odd, considering he normally doesn’t have his nurse in the room when he sees Dawn, but I think he was just making sure he had a bodyguard in case it hurt and I kicked him.   Dawn sat up by my head holding my hand during the exam (awwww).  Everything went FINE!!!  He used a smaller speculum and went slow with everything he did, letting me know what he was going to do before he did it.  This is key in vaginismus recovery.  I am in charge of everything that happens to my body.  If I needed him to stop, I just tell him to stop.  And I was 100% sure that he would stop if I asked him to. 

Once he was done, he gave me his hand to help me sit up and bowed, saying “you are my hero”.  He was proud of me! 

I told ya me and my vagina are awesome  :)

Vagina Advocate

As my physical therapy comes to an end, what’s next for me?  I have a passion now to become an advocate for women.  I want to see women get the help they deserve to live a life free of pain when having sex, to be able to use tampons, etc.   So, I started looking online to see what I can find to get involved in. 

Through my physical therapist’s website I ended up on the International Pelvic Pain Society’s website.  On the front page was an article written by Amy Stein, a leader in physical therapy for chronic pelvic pain sufferers and author of Heal Pelvic Pain, regarding a Dr. Oz show that was done in 2010 on vaginismus.  Amy  is the founder and a practitioner of Beyond Basics Physical Therapy in NYC, specializing in pelvic floor dysfunction, pelvic pain, women's health, and manual therapy for men, women, and children while taking a holistic approach to each patient's entire well-being.  Long story short, they consulted with her about physical therapy treatments for vaginismus, but never talked about it on the show as a treatment option.  I watched a video clip of the show and was sorely disappointed in Dr. Oz (not that I ever really watched his show, he kinda creeps me out anyways).  I sent Amy an email telling her I agreed with her article about how Dr. Oz missed the mark on this one.  I also asked her how I can get involved in helping women.   She gave me some suggestions and asked me to read her book and do some online reviews.  I also wrote the Dr. Oz show telling them I was disappointed; however I am not getting my hopes up about getting a response from them.  One thing she recommended has really gotten me excited.   She told me to reach out to Elisabeth Oas who does a weekly podcast on chronic pelvic pain, The Pelvic Messenger.  What a woman!  I was able to connect with her on the phone one day and immediately loved her!  She has been through so much with her health and I commend her for becoming an advocate and a voice for women everywhere who suffer from chronic pelvic pain.  She suggested a few things locally that I can do to raise awareness.  I am considering contacting a local news station to see if they would be willing to do a story about pelvic pain and all the women who suffer from it.  Also, I will be doing a short video answering questions about my vaginismus to be used in a trailer for an upcoming documentary she is producing for PBS on chronic pelvic pain.  AND, there is the possibility that I will be a guest on her podcast this summer to talk about my experience with vaginismus and overcoming it!  

I have also been able to up my blog exposure a little bit with some help from friends so I’m hoping to reach women through my blog too.  I also may be helping start a support group in the area with some women who are on the vaginismus forum that I go to occasionally.   So many things on the horizon!

If you are a woman who has pain with sexual intercourse, or you are unable to insert anything in your vagina without pain, please talk to your doctor.  If you are uncomfortable with that (or if your doctor tells you it’s all in your head), send me an email and I will talk you through finding someone who can help you.  You deserve to be free of this!   Today, for the first time in my life, I used a tampon.  Granted, it wasn’t in exactly far enough I don’t think so it wasn’t the most comfortable thing, but I HAD ONE IN!  I was giddy.  I was dancing down our hallway.  I have also been able to add in a little something extra into my sex life because of overcoming vaginismus.   I say all of this to say – YOU CAN OVERCOME THIS TOO! 

Pomp & Circumstance

Cue the Pomp & Circumstance, my vagina and I are graduating!  How do I go about getting fitted for a cap and gown?

This is my very last physical therapy session.  Dawn is sitting in a chair quietly humming Pomp & Circumstance.  As my PT comes in the room, she is also humming my graduation song.   Actually she is humming something totally different than Pomp and Circumstance but it’s the thought that counts. 

I will admit; I’m a little nervous to be turned loose on the world with a healed vagina, but I think I’ll be just fine. Just a couple of days before this last session I went ahead and scheduled my first gynecological exam in about 8 years.   March 16th is the day of reckoning - the day this whole thing is tested.  If I make it out of there alive, all is good. 

Now it’s all about maintenance.  Every 2 or 3 days I will use the largest dilator that we went up to in order to make sure my muscles haven’t regressed.  Once I have my exam I can probably go down to once a week or so just to keep the muscles used to it.  Use them or lose them as my PT says.  

What’s next?  Starting probably in September we will start trying to have a baby (yay!).   Until then, I will be doing what I can to get involved in helping women get help for vaginismus or other pelvic floor pain issues.  

4 Weeks of Awesome

4 weeks in to my physical therapy – twice a week sessions.  4 weeks of waking up with anxiety knowing I was going to have dilators inserted in my vagina that day.  4 weeks. 

On the first session of my 4^th week I went ahead and made my 2 appointments for the following week.  During my session, however, I found out that I was doing so well that the 5^th week I was able to go down to once a week.  AND, she said she thought I might be able to graduate that week!   So I went from an estimated 8 weeks in physical therapy to possibly graduating in 5!  I was pretty stoked.   Me and my vagina, we’re so awesome we’re graduating early. 

The 2^nd session of my 4^th week went a little differently.  We tried to go up to another size in my kit that was a little bit of a jump from the one I was currently using.  This dilator caused some slight pain.  I was unable to relax enough to breathe through the pain this time.  So we decided that I would purchase another one of their dilators that is slightly smaller.  This one went much better.  It’s so odd though, because to me it looks BARELY smaller than the one we tried first.  Still, the following week only one session was the plan. 

I did not in fact get to graduate the 5^th week.  I had some minor pain again so my PT decided she wanted me to focus on this dilator (size medium) for another week and come back the 6^th week for my last session.  I still think me and my vagina are awesome.  

Boycotting Mondays

My 2^nd PT appointment was on a Monday morning at 9am.  Know what I learned pretty quickly?  Not to ever schedule another appointment on a Monday.  I did not sleep at all the night before and my anxiety level was at an all-time high that morning.  Guess what my PT told us that morning – Mondays are the worst day for anxiety and more heart attacks happen on Mondays than any other day of the week.  So yeah, no more Monday appointments for me.

 

My homework hadn't been going well and I explained that to my PT.  She assured me that what I was going through was very normal.  So forget the 10 reps and just do what I can in 10 minutes.  That made me feel a whole lot better about failing at my homework. lol

This second session went as well as the first one.  We moved up to the next size dilator after working for a little while with the X small.  So now I’m on the X Sm+!  More breathing through the pressure of insertion and I haven’t experienced any pain which is good.    I will tell you one thing that is difficult – not shooting a dilator out my vagina because I’m laughing during my session.  Dawn and my PT are both really funny (I have my moments too when I’m not worrying about having a dilator in my vagina) so there are times that I am laughing pretty hard, but also trying to concentrate on what I’m doing!

One thing I want to point out is my case is mild compared to what many women experience.  I recently read on a forum about many women who have never been able to consummate their marriages because of intense pain during sex.   I have heard of women who went to PT for several weeks before they could even handle the PT touching the opening of their vagina with a gloved finger.  There are so many varying degrees of vaginismus!   Unfortunately, many women are too embarrassed to talk to their doctor about this and they go undiagnosed and without help.  I wish I could do more to get women the help they deserve.   If I were younger, I would consider becoming a Physical Therapist and specialize in this area.  But being almost 36 and wanting to try for a baby this year – it’s not feasible.  So I blog, and I hope that my blog reaches at least one woman who is struggling with this and she can get help. 

Bow Ties and Naughty Bits

In my last blog I introduced you to the wonderful world of vaginismus.  Now I will start the chronicle of my overcoming this issue.

  

My first step towards overcoming it was to meet with a gynecologist that we trusted.  My partner has seen this doctor for several years and trusts him implicitly.  So I went.  It was weird.  He wears bow ties.  BOW TIES.  And he’s not 85, he’s late 40s maybe.  And he wears bow ties.  And they don’t really match anything; they are just strange bow ties.  So, I had a consultation appointment with him to discuss my vaginismus and how to overcome it.  30 minutes of talking to a man in a bow tie about my naughty bits.  What an experience.   We never really talked about

how to get help for it, just what might be the root cause.  A few weeks later I realized that the 2^nd appointment I set up with him was for an actual exam.  So he basically was expecting me to actually work with my kit (yeah, remember in my last blog I said I was lazy?) and come back and everything was hunky dory and he would do an exam.  Yes, I cancelled that appointment.  It turns out my partner needed to have some tests done so I was going to get another chance to talk to him.  This time I asked him how he counseled his patients on vaginismus and he handed me a card for a therapist.  This therapist was an expert in helping women with vaginismus and had been treating women for years for it.  He also mentioned physical therapy, but I shook that off because it just seemed weird to me. 

So the next step - I met with this therapist (A Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist) who specializes in helping women with vaginismus and other sexual dysfunction.  I won’t bore you with the details of these visits; we simply tried to figure out if there was anything ‘blocking’ me that would cause this condition.   One day she mentions that darn physical therapy again.  She asked me how I felt about it.  My answer?  FREAKED OUT.  So she gave me the name of a physical therapist here who comes highly recommended in treating women with pelvic floor pain issues.  This was in December so I told her (quite clever if I do say so myself) that I will think about it over the holidays and make a decision after the first of the year.  I went home and talked to my partner about it and we both decided it was probably worth talking to this PT.  Oh joy.   I set up a consultation appointment for the first week of January.  Let’s think about this physical therapy thing for a sec - if you hurt your shoulder, you go to the physical therapist who touches around on and moves around your shoulder.  You hurt your knee, you go to the physical therapist who touches around on and moves around your knee.  So if I were to go to a physical therapist for vaginismus, will they? Seriously? 

The consultation.  We went for the consultation and I immediately felt this was going to be ok.  The PT was very nice and funny (I love to laugh so this was a good thing) so she immediately put me at ease.  She has treated thousands of women so I felt like I was in good hands.  I was comfortable until she said ‘now I would like to do an exam to get a baseline’.   I started to panic and according to my partner- my face went white.  I was not mentally prepared for her to look at my naughty bits that day!  I tried the ‘but I’m on my period’ excuse (it was the truth!) and she said ‘we’ll put a towel down’.   I was not getting out of there without an exam.  Seems she likes to hit the ground running.  After some hesitation I agreed and she did the exam - and it was fine (well about as fine as it could be when you have vaginismus).  The good news?  8 weeks at the most for me to be over this as long as I do my homework!  Vaginismus is a 2 way street, I have to put the work in at home and it will go well.  Yay!  Freedom in just 8 weeks!  No more planning vacations around my period, no more painful exams, and when it’s time to work on having a baby I won’t have any trouble inseminating.  And this starts my journey in physical therapy.