It’s Wednesday, the day when we talk marriage! I introduce a topic, and then you follow up either by commenting or by writing your own post and then linking up! Today I want to talk about vaginismus.
Last week on Wifey Wednesday I wrote about what to do when sex is just ho hum. I received some comments asking about what to do when sex just plain hurts, and I thought it was time for a Wifey Wednesday on vaginismus, the condition when the vagina tenses up and makes sex very painful.
Here’s a heartbreaking email that I received recently from a reader:
For the first 4 months of our marriage my husband and I weren’t even able to have sex, not because of the pain but because he literally could NOT get in. I used dilators and now we can finally “get in”, but it’s still extremely painful and difficult, not romantic or spontaneous at all. It would also be great if you wrote about those of us whose husbands aren’t obsessed with sex like most men. Just last night my husband told me that he doesn’t really like sex as much as he thought he would before we were married. After spending 3 months painfully forcing silicon dilators into my body so that I could fulfill my husband’s sexual needs, having him say he doesn’t like it that much broke my heart. He said it’s not that he doesn’t find me sexy, he just feels like sex isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It makes me feel inadequate and unappealing. I know I shouldn’t feel that way, but everyone always says that all men are sex maniacs, so if my husband doesn’t care for sex it must be because I’m not good at it. You’re always telling us wives to have sex with our husbands to make them happy, but what about when they don’t even want it?
That’s so sad, and I just want to reassure this woman that she is not alone. And there is nothing wrong with her! She just has vaginismus, a medical condition that makes sex hurt that she did not cause.
As for her husband, likely the reason that he doesn’t want sex as much is because sex really is more than just physical–it’s also extremely emotionally intimate. When he feels as if you aren’t enjoying it, it’s hard for him to enjoy it, too. In a way, you both are suffering from vaginismus, and in time, once this gets better, you’ll likely find that he desires you in a whole new way!
So let’s get to the root of the problem: sex hurts for you–and that’s affecting your relationship.
What is Vaginismus?
For those who are tormented by it, it’s horrible indeed. Many of these women can’t insert tampons or handle pelvic exams at the doctor’s office, either. One respondent to the survey I put together for my book, The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, who is 29 and married for eight years, says “vaginismus put an end to sex years ago.” Today she and her husband make love less than once a month.
Before you start panicking, let me assure you that most women who experience pain when they make love don’t actually have vaginismus. It’s simply that they’re a little nervous, and so a little bit more tense than they usually would be.
The medical condition of vaginismus, on the other hand, is caused when the muscles at the top 1 ½ inches of the vagina tense up (or the bottom, depending on how you look at it—it’s really just the 1 ½ inches closest to the opening). If you’ve used a tampon, you’ve probably encountered these muscles without realizing it, because once you get the tampon passed that first inch and a half, it glides in much more easily.
These muscles tense involuntarily; you’re not tensing up during sex on purpose. Reassure yourself and your husband that if you’re having this problem, it certainly is not deliberate! In fact, it’s rather difficult to get those muscles to un-tense. But you can!
Causes of Vaginismus
The best route to a cure is to identify the underlying reason for this condition. For some, vaginismus is caused by a childhood trauma, like sexual abuse. For others, it’s a relationship issue: you just don’t feel safe and able to relax. If you take things slowly and work on why you don’t feel safe, and talk to counsellors or mentors if any past abuse issues are a factor, you’ll likely find that the pain will subside as your heart is healed.
Unfortunately, for many the causes just aren’t clear. Even worse, there isn’t very much a physician can do. But that doesn’t mean it’s hopeless. What you can try to do is to train yourself to control those muscles, and thus learn to relax them. Here’s how:
How to Overcome Vaginismus
The vagina is a muscle just like any other muscle, and it can do two counterproductive things: It can completely loosen and become almost “flabby” (often after you give birth a number of times and find you’re now too loose), or it can do the opposite and go into spasm. Thankfully, there’s now help so you can learn how to control those muscles!
Read up about vaginismus
The book Sex Without Pain focuses on women who experience pain for a variety of reasons–and helps them learn how to get those muscles to cooperate. Written by an occupational therapist, she gives very concrete exercises that usually do help you see results.
Here’s one example of what you can do to identify those muscles: When you’re peeing, try to stop the flow of urine. Feel those muscles? They’re the pelvic floor muscles, the same ones that tense up when you have pain. Everytime you pee, try to tense and relax, tense and relax, three or four times so that your body learns how to relax.
Learn to exercise the pelvic floor muscles
Other physiotherapists have even created specially designed Kegel exercise weights to help you learn how to control those muscles. I know that sounds scary–but it really can work! Most treatment programs also suggest using a progressive set of vaginal dilators that you insert, starting with the smallest, until you can get them in comfortably.
Learn to stretch yourself–slowly!
I know “vaginal dilators” sounds absolutely horrible and clinical, but it’s just another way of saying “putting increasingly larger things in there”, building up to something which is about the thickness of an erect penis.
There’s a complete vaginismus treatment kit with such dilators here, or you can just purchase a set of dilators separately, and use them along with the book Sex Without Pain. Once you’re used to the dilators, you can use this as part of your foreplay, too, and see if you can handle narrow things, building up to thicker things!
How does this help you with sex?
Once you’ve mastered the dilators and you’ve been able to use the exercise weights to build up those muscles and control them, then when you start to make love, have him enter you just a little way until it starts to hurt, and try the same thing: tense first, and then relax. You may have to spend a few minutes doing this (try to treat it like a game, and for him it will probably feel nice, anyway, because you’re squeezing him), and eventually you’ll likely find that it doesn’t hurt as much.
Believe me–this honestly can work!
When I was first married I had vaginimus and sex was excrutiating.
For me, I think the root was trust issues, but I didn’t know that at the time (and I’m not honestly sure it would have made much of a difference if I did). But I was sad, frustrated, and really desperate.
I ended up seeing a doctor, but he made everything so clinical I felt almost violated. He didn’t do anything inappropriate at all, but just having to sit there, while I was naked from the waist down, as he tried to explain my anatomy and everything that should happen was just embarrassing.
I did get a hold of a set of dilators eventually, and used them on my own. Back then they didn’t have good books or the weights that you could use on your own. And I do think that when you have this problem, being able to read about it and deal with it in the privacy of your own home is sometimes better, unless you have an awesome doctor you can talk to! It’s not like there’s surgery or anything they can really do (that’s an extreme treatment). But on your own, with the right tools and lots of practice, you can learn to control those muscles and feel less panicky and less inadequate. It can even be empowering!
Pay Attention to Your Body
If sex is painful we often want to block that out, and so we prefer not to think much about our bodies below our necks. But that’s a bad idea! You can’t learn to relax if you don’t concentrate on your muscles–all of your muscles. And you can’t feel like a sexual being if you ignore your body.
So spend some time everyday just caring for your body. Do stretches for 15 minutes a day. This isn’t a sexual thing, but it helps you pay attention to your body, and helps your body to feel wonderful! And dress your body nicely and take care of it. Don’t hate it. Embrace it, because while sex may hurt now, the route to healing will be found by learning how to make your body feel good–not by ignoring your body.
See Your Sex Life as More than Just Intercourse
When sex hurts, it’s awfully hard to look forward to. And it can make us mad: why would God create sex so that your husband wants sex to feel loved, but what makes him feel loved is something that hurts you? It all seems so unfair.
But focusing on how unfair it all is won’t help you overcome it. Instead, start telling yourself the truth about sex: I am a sexual being. It may not feel that way right now, but you are. And you were created to feel pleasure. And it is possible!
If you don’t feel pleasure from sex yet, you can feel pleasure from other things. So start thinking of your sex life as more than just intercourse. Make sure that each sexual encounter has something that will make you feel relaxed and good. Start with a bath where you’re naked together, talking. Then move on to a massage (again, naked). Let yourself feel intimate and awfully relaxed! And then learn how to make you feel good, by helping him bring you to orgasm another way. Sometimes when we have vaginismus we do the opposite: we forget foreplay altogether and just have intercourse to get it over with, and it’s empty for both of you. Instead, do the opposite. Slow things way down and learn to relax.
If you want a step-by-step guide to take you through this process, my 31 Days to Great Sex will help you talk about what you’re experiencing, help you figure out what feels good, and help you work on all aspects of your sexual relationship–not just intercourse.
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Does Your Sex Life Need a Pick-Me-Up?
Maybe it's gotten stale. Maybe it's never felt that great. Or maybe you just feel like you're missing something!
Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 25 years and happily married for 20! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 8 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
>I don't have long because I have 2 small children to tend, but I must say that I am a wife who has been through Vaginismus. If this is you, take heart, we have a great God and there is hope. My husband and I were completely unable to have sex. Now not only are we able to, but we have 2 children who are a testimony to God's grace in this area of our lives. Do some research and keep looking up!
>I am so glad you covered this subject in much more detail. I'm sure some women give up on intimacy when sex hurts, perhaps thinking that it always will. Thankfully, we have resources now to help us through these difficulties. Your blog post is a great resource!
>THANK YOU for writing this post! Seriously, I wish I could hug you and buy you a cup of coffee or something because there is sooo little encouragement out there for those of us who deal with vaginismus. A lot of doctors have never even heard of it. I so appreciate that you not only mentioned the psychological issues involved with the condition, but also stated that some women just have pain and no one knows why. Most articles I've read about this condition pretty much just say "Try to relax and it won't hurt anymore." Real helpful… not! So again, thank you. I've been married for 8 months and I'm still working on getting over my vaginismus, but dilators have helped me so much. I've gone from not being able to insert a tampon (not even the tiny skinny ones) or even my finger to being able to insert a dilator larger than… well you know. Vaginismus can make you feel hopeless and like a freak of nature, but there is hope! You CAN train your body to function normally. I would recommend to any woman who has never been able to put in a tampon to get a pelvic exam BEFORE getting married. I know pelvic exams are the scariest thing a woman can imagine (especially if you've never been seen or touched "down there") but it's not as bad as finding out on your wedding night that you are unable to have sex (or that it hurts like the dickens). Do yourself and your future hubby a favor and take care of this problem before marriage — it's way better than being forced to live in a sexless marriage for however long it takes you to get over vaginismus (and it can take months or in some cases years). And for those who are married and in the process of dealing with vaginismus, you can still do other sexy things with your husband until intercourse is no longer painful.
Oh my word, I can’t believe Sheila hasn’t responded to this ridiculous and hurtful comment. It sounds like it could just be some mean spirited person making fun of those who suffer with this horrible condition. I can’t believe anyone would actually believe this junk.
Where does the bible teach that vaginismus is God’s way of controlling the population or calling someone to be celibate? Most women don’t even realize they have vaginismus until after they’re already married so it’s not very effective in keeping women from getting married in the first place. And if that’s God’s way of keeping certain women from having sex, it sure doesn’t work very well because most women get over their vaginismus and are able to have sex. So you’d think God would be able to come up with a better way of keeping people celibate if that’s what He wants to do.
And why on earth would God want to control the population? He told us to be fruitful and multiply but nowhere did He say anything about controlling the population.
Sorry for getting huffy, but I can’t believe how hurtful and just plain wrong this comment is. I’m assuming Sheila overlooked this comment or something, because I can’t imagine she would allow something this hurtful on her blog without at least responding to this person.
Mrs. P: Thank you so much for commenting and alerting me to that offensive comment! I think I had initially flagged it in Blogger, but when the blog moved over to WordPress last week it published it or something. I don’t know how else to account for it. Anyway, if you hadn’t have commented I wouldn’t have seen that it was up, and I have now trashed it once more. You’re right; it was beyond ridiculous, and bordered on abusive. Thanks so much for watching out for my readers!
This is a great and very thorough post on the topic!
I do want to caution however, that doing Kegels repeatedly while urinating can cause urine to back up, and may lead to a uninary tract infection. Yes, doing a few Kegels while urinating is a great way to *initially* make sure that the correct muscle is being tensed…but after identifying the muscle, it really is important to do the exercises at a time separate from urinating. I teach childbirth classes, and I teach my clients to find some “trigger” that happens multiple times during their day, and use that as a cue to Kegel. It may be urinating…but I teach to wait until after the woman is done. Other suggestions for “triggers” are answer a phone at work, getting a text message, or when thinking about her hubby.
I believe that I may have vaginismus because sex is EXTREMELY painful after being married just over a year. I really really want to have a great sex life but I think we’ve only been able to get it more than 1 or 2 inches in once and we only try about once a month now because it is the most excruciating thing I have ever felt. I want to try some type of treatment program and I was wondering what anyone who has experienced it recommended. There is the ebook that sheila links to in this post but then there is also a more complex system at vaginismus.com for 100$. I am willing to spend any amount if it will make sex with my wonderful and patient husband even possible. Thank you
I know this was posted a while ago, but I just found your site now. I really appreciate some of the sex advice, and this pain with sex is something my husband and I have been struggling with since we were married. I have interstitial cystitis, which basically means that any penetration causes awful pain. It’s not something where the muscles can be trained to respond differently, because it is nerve pain (related to a deterioration of the bladder lining). I’ve been receiving treatment for over a year, and the pain sometimes is less intense-but there’s really no cure. Even nerve-block injections only numb the area for about 24 hours. I know that, as a wife, my responsibility is to have sex with my husband-but does God want me to continue doing something that causes me tremendous physical pain, not only during intercourse but for 2-3 days afterwards? Also, I know I shouldn’t lie to my husband, but if I am honest with him about it hurting he will stop-and I am not able to satisfy him. I am really struggling with having a sex-less marriage; I know it’s not God’s design, but I also don’t believe that His desire is for sex to cause my husband and I so much pain… so I don’t know what He wants me to do. I would really appreciate any thoughts or insights into this, and thank you so much for tackling such a difficult subject.
@Sammy;
I am so sorry for your pain and heartbreak! But sex is not all about the intercourse. There are many, many other ways to be intimate. You were not created solely for your husband to penetrate. Sorry to be so graphic, but honestly God created you AND your husband to provide intimacy and love for one another. Stimulate your husband in other ways and I’m sure he will be quite…satisfied, and ask him to do the same for you. And no, it’s not “wrong” or “dirty” to have other forms of sex than vaginal and missionary. Don’t be afraid to experiment in the bedroom.
I don’t know what else to tell you, honestly, other than to pray about it.
Does anyone know how to access the link to hot, holy and humorous? I would like to read the article that is mentioned but it lists as invitations only.
Hi Kelly,
J from Hot Holy and Humorous recently migrated her blog so I guess the old links don’t work! Thanks for letting me know. You can find that article here, and I’ve changed it in the original post, too.
I think it’s important to mention that there could be a legitimate physical reason for the pain, though. For instance, I didn’t have issues with sex until pregnancy with our daughter four years ago. We attributed it to pregnancy, but it didn’t go away after she was born. It got worse and worse and worse. The doctors I saw pretty much told me it was in my head and never took me seriously. It took us moving to our new area and me finding the right doctor. My new doctor listened to me and understood what I was telling me, and did in fact see a physical issue. Two of them, in fact. I ended up having endometriosis (did you know that the less you have, the more your pain?) and also had to have a perineoplasty (the muscles at the lower part of my opening were inflamed/enlarged, which caused the intense physical pain, so he removed them). The surgery was almost one year ago and I am still physically healing, but it’s so much better. So, yes, sometimes the pain can be caused by our heads….but sometimes it isn’t. So I think it’s important to make that known for women who may actually have a physical cause for the pain. 🙂
I struggled with this same problem early in our marriage and worked really hard at trying to relax. It really didn’t work and sex was extremely uncomfortable. When I had my first baby, I tore very badly and needed many stitches afterward. Unable to have sex more than 10 months after that, I finally went in for repairs to the scar tissue…the OB/GYN suggested and I agreed to do some widening of my vaginal wall during the repair surgery. Though I know that such an extreme solution certainly isn’t for everyone, it was like a night and day difference 6 weeks later when we got the “all clear” for intercourse. After over 3 years of marriage, I had sex painlessly for the first time.
15 years later, we have a great and active sex life, even though I’m still chasing the illusive “big O” (I think the early muscle trauma and pain has interfered with my ability to truly relax and “let go”) …but we have a great time trying to find it. 😉
I had Vaginismus for the first five years of my marriage. I wanted to add two things 1. It CAN very successfully be treated with physical therapy. There are PTs that specialize in the pelvic floor. 2. It can be caused by physical issues. Mine was caused by a build up of scar tissue from a fairly pelvic surgery I had as an infant.
Please check out my blog where I share my story of coping with vaginismus, painful sex & the anxiety I developed around it. My PT believes mine might be onset by my IBS and bowel issues I’ve had in the past. The pelvic floor is a very sensitive part of your body and physical therapy changed my life!
http://www.theapprehensivevagina.wordpress.com
I begin by defending King Saul.(1 Sam 1-34) In his last failure as King, he wouldn’t wait for Samuel and went ahead and did the sacrifice himself. Remember, he waited days for Samuel and in his lack of faith, assumed Samuel was dead from unforeseen circumstances. Although Gods judgment was deserved, Saul’s attitude deteriorated and he became very evil.
Now, I want to show women here, (or the man) that when sex is not happening, where is the effort to replace it? The man has no other place to go but sin. Saul could have conceded but would not. Should the husband continue to concede his absolute starvation from sex and continue to be moral by not seeking out another sexual partner? He has no other person to go to, so why do nothing about the Vaginismus? My wife has done nothing!!! it has been 7 months! add to this unemployment, depression sets in! porn temptation is easy to access. If I was rich, what would I do, leave? (we have kids) what would anyone do in my situation? Am I such a wimp that I stay in the marriage just because I am a good guy, or is it that I cannot afford divorce? I would think that a lot of women sit there scratching their heads wondering why some rich husbands flirt and have affairs in the midst of a boring, frumpy unsexy wife. (my wife is neither). After awhile, what do we do? especially when a guy like me has no man-building career to lean on…perhaps suicide or just become the guy with one talent and bury my ego and all my needs in the ground. Fun and excitement disappear and life is boring without sex. Memory deteriorates, leadership digresses and the sexless man becomes a boring, unexcited, angry, non-man. To those of you who think us men can just shut off our sexual needs, think again and ask if this is the type of man society or your family needs.
Jeff, I can hear your anger and frustration, and I can unfortunately relate to it. I often think of suicide, too. As a married person, you have a right to a rewarding and fulfilling sex life. I’m sorry your wife isn’t addressing her vaginismus. Doesn’t that seem to indicate that there is a deeper issue in your relationship and sex life? If she was motivated to be intimate with you, she would address the Vaginismus. So you need to find out what is blocking the motivation. She *also* has a right to a rewarding and fulfilling sex life; and if being intimate with you were rewarding for her, she would not be avoiding it. We are all hardwired to seek positive stimuli and avoid negative. The problem might be in your emotional connection, in your sexual connection, or it may have nothing to do with you at all. But addressing whatever is behind that is key. (If Vaginismus is her reason for avoiding intimacy, is she willing to engage in “outercourse?” If not, then you know that’s not the real issue, it’s just an excuse.)
Please don’t be offended, but your paragraph sounds very self-centered. It is impossible to know from your post if this is just because the frustration has built up to the boiling point, and I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. So that’s what I’m assuming! But be sure you are aware of meeting her needs, too. And for women, those needs start OUTSIDE the bedroom. The big ones are emotional connection, and leadership.
You also sound like you have a lot of negativity built up. That is a huge turn-off for women. I know, Catch-22, right? You wouldn’t be so negative if she’d be turned on once in a while. Vicious cycle. If you haven’t done so already, you might want to check out “Married Man Sex Life” by Athol Kay for ideas on how to relate to your wife in new ways in order to try to trigger her desire for you. Sometimes men do things, trying to get their needs met, that actually work against their goal. There’s books, a blog, and even a forum. Athol lays out a plan (Mindful Attraction Plan) for how to create real change in your relationship in order to get your needs met. And above all, be sure to read his blog post about “Leadership Moments.”
Jeff, I feel for you, as (in another thread) I related my now-nearly 5 years unilaterally imposed celibacy to this group.
My wife refuses any thought, let alone actual activity, of pleasuring each other, or any other involvement of her in my enforced lack of physical intimacy. But pain is not an issue, nor was it ever, before she decided she was “done.” Needless to say, this was not a mutual decision.
However, previous to that time, we had a mutually satisfying physical intimacy which didn’t always include penetration. If she has a physical problem, it’s different as to lack of penetrative lovemaking – but that’s not all there is.
Have you discussed the potential for alternatives, or, like my wife, has she firmly and resolutely denied any possibility of any further physical intimacy, in whatever form?
I too face the issues you describe – but without an underlying physical/medical reason…
I am not sure if I have vaginismus or not. I don’t have any trouble with inserting tampons, vaginal exams or a penis size up to 8 inches. I really enjoy having intercourse otherwise but not with my spouse. He is larger, a little more than 10 inches and also very thick. When we first got together, I hadn’t had intercourse in almost a year. When we tried to, it absolutely would not fit. I thought it was because of the time lapse. We kept trying and eventually it was able to go in but was always uncomfortable. This has been a problem for us for quite some time and has caused a divide in our marriage. I love him with all my heart but I was so unhappy because I remembered sex being so much fun and exciting. I thought it was God’s punishment for not waiting until marriage because if I had waited, I wouldn’t have anything to compare it to. I ended up cheating on my husband. The sex outside of my marriage was amazing, just how I remembered it. Is this vaginismus or does the 2+ inches make a difference?
Sorry, 2+ inch difference
I ve suffered from vaginismus ever since i got married i ve tried to go to doctors and tried some sort of therapy and we my husband and i succeeded to have sex for the first time ever after one whole year of desperate marriage however it hurt like hell i ve not enjoyed a second of it then we had our first and only child after that we tried several times to have an intercourse wz no success at all which created a huge gap between me and my partner we stoped even touching each other . Im enotionally drained my husband became a porn addict (which i cant really blame him though im so angey) now i want to get a divorce i wish i was never married
Jess, I’m so, so sorry. Please don’t give up. Most people find that this is treatable. I know how much it hurts; I know it can be excrutiating. But most people can get over it. It just takes time and trust and relaxation.
Hi..
I was violently raped as a child for a few year’s.. & I love sex but seem to blank out a lot during it..
I find it really hard to say no to thing’s he wants to do so just do it.. Don’t no if it hurts during sex because I tense up or because he fully pounds me deep..
Is odd I actually kinda like it extremely hard to the point It’s unbearable but afterwards I feel Anxious & kinda like stuck in my own thoughts.. If makes sense.. Cheers..
I had vaginismus and did not realize it until we got married. For me, there was/is no identifiable cause. Doctors didn’t understand it but eventually diagnosed me. I did physical therapy for 6 months 2x/week plus the at-home “dilator” kit from vaginismus.com. I made a small amount of progress but it didn’t solve the problem. For me and many others, it just didn’t work. Eventually, after feeling I would never be able to have sex or children, I found Women’s Therapy Center in NY. We made a leap of faith and did their 2 week program. I was cured and we finally consummated our marriage before the 2 week program was even completed. They have a 100% cure rate for those who complete the program and people go from around the world. And they deal with other female issues as well. If nothing else is working, please consider this. womentc.com
I got a reply but didn’t answear my question.. so not sure if was a message to everyone and haven’t had a reply yet..
Wanted to ask a question or to about reasons sex might hurt.. Not sure if because of assault or other things..
Yours sincerly
Sorry, I just received this reply. Did you have a question for me?
There are many reasons people have vaginismus and sometimes there is simply no reason at all. For me, I had no history of sexual abuse and my husband was the first person I had sex with. The doctors that brought me to my cure (along with amazing help from the Lord), wrote the book Private Pain that talks a lot about reasons, etc.
the most important thing you can do is seek out a pelvic pain specialist and a pelvic floor physical therapist. 18 months from our wedding till our first time successfully having intercourse. There were some very dark days. Hang in there! Keep seeking until you find an answer. I found help at the pelvic pain clinic through Kaiser in Redwood City, Ca.
I m a 19 yrs old married girl
I got married 4 months ago. it was our love married. n still we are not able to have sex. its all because of me. I feel as if it is painful. n I get very much scared. please help me….:'(
Naini, I’m sorry you’re going through this! Is there an older woman you can talk to? Or a doctor? You may just need someone to help you talk through how to have sex and get over some of the fears. Try finding someone kind to confide in. I’ll pray you find that person!
Thank you for addressing this topic, Sheila! I’m sorry if this was already mentioned and I missed it, but I had to post about it. Sex used to be extremely painful for me, and I was crushed about it, because I wanted it to be great so badly. Because of some issues after the birth of my daughter, I ended up seeing a pelvic physical therapist. I had hyperthermia of my pelvic floor with tons of knots and trigger points. My PT manually worked out the knots over a series of visits. It is very painful, but SO worth it! It gave me my sex life back. I have to be careful and build my muscles back slowly, balancing with relaxing exercises for the pelvic floor. Just a note, if you have hypertension of your pelvic floor, kegels will make it worse! If you have pain with sex, I highly recommend finding a a PT who specializes in pelvic and women’s health who does myofascial release/manual therapy.
Don’t see any way to edit my post.. hyperthermia and hypertension we’re supposed to be hypertone. Sorry, auto correct on my phone! 😉
I have been going through this since the beginning of our marriage. At first we thought it was the hyman which was not breaking. I had it surgically removed which as you can imagine was fun. But it still hurt. We have found other ways to please each other that are just as good if not better but I know this is something I need to get fixed. We don’t often have vaginal sex but did last night and I am still in pain today. I just keep putting off going to the doctor. It is good to hear other women talking about this I feel so alone sometimes. Thank you for the resources I really need them they could help. Honestly though right now even the thought of something being near my area is painful to me.
“Vaginismus, a private pain” is a great support group to join on FB. You do have to request to be in it, as they don’t want just anybody joining.
Hi, I have been suffering with vaginismus throughout my whole sexual life. I am only 20 years old and have been sexually active for a few years now but still haven’t been able to achieve painless sex. I know this page is aimed at married women but it has been one of the only pages I have read where it has made me feel normal and not question myself- I cannot thank you enough for pointing me in the right direction! I have already been to the hospital once but this wasn’t in any way useful as, probably because of my age, they only offered my lube and told me to relax! My boyfriend has recently convinced me to return to the hospital specialists for a second time but I have been told there is at least a six month waiting list before I can even get an initial appointment! Reading you page has allowed me to think about approaching the issue on my own and not to feel stupid or pathetic about how I’ve been feeling. I cannot thank you, or any of the women who have given their stories, enough for the support and motivation that this situation will get better! Sex has always been an extremely painful and a virtually impossible task for me that has greatly effected my confidence and relationship but at least now I know that I am not just being silly about it all and there are ways to move forward!
Hi there, I know this is an older post but it just popped up on my Pinterest feed and I couldn’t help but respond.
I am a Pelvic Floor Physiotherapist and although there is some great advice both in the article and in the coments I did want to clarify a few things:
Vaginismus is the inability to achieve penetration (penis, tampon, speculum for pap) but pain with intercourse-if you can have penetration- is called dyspareunia.
Both Vaginismus and Dyspareunia are treated by relaxing the pelvic floor muscles. Doing Kegels is contracting the pelvic floor muscles and is usually not indicated, infact it can make the symptoms worse. Imagine if you had a stiff and sore neck from talking on the phone with it cradled at your neck and shoulders. The last thing you would do is more strengthening or weights to contract those muscles more. What you would do is stretch and relax and change your habits.
Pelvic floor physio is no different. Treatment would involve stretching the muscles (possibly wth dilators) addressing habits (like holding in your stomach-don’t do it!) focusing on learning to relax those muscles and improve your wellness, not just below the belt, but all aspects: exercise, diet, sleep etc. prayer fits in here too. Our God is the ultimate healer. We know that prayer is essential in our lives but research is showing it too.
Conditions like Vaginismus have many contributing factors….it’s not just about vaginal muscles, and to address only that will not result in healing.
This can be a long process, but there is good help available. Seek out a pelvic floor physiotherapist that can come along side you through this process. I live in Canada and there is a searchable database of qualified physiotherapists online.