Help! My vagina is broken!
I knew something wasn’t right when intercourse was painful all the time, but I got used to it. My friends would talk about how amazing sex was but I just nervously smiled and thought to myself, “is something wrong with me?”. Every time I had intercourse, it felt like I was a virgin all over again. I did find out I had Endometriosis so that explained why my periods were so heavy and why intercourse was uncomfortable. Despite me having Endometriosis, which can cause infertility, and dyspareunia (painful intercourse), I was blessed with having two amazing kids.
A few years after my second child, my vagina broke. Yep. It broke. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Intercourse suddenly became impossible. Almost as though my vagina had hung up a sign that said “DO NOT ENTER”. Even attempting to insert a tampon was extremely difficult. It was like anything internally felt like it was hitting a wall and the pain was intense. I went to my gynecologist and she diagnosed me with Vaginismus. Vaginismus is when the muscles of a vagina spasm when something is entering it such as a finger, penis, (I hate that word), tampons and gynecological exams. One way the therapist described it is if someone were to come up to you and punch you in the stomach every time they approached you, eventually you would flinch and your abdominal muscles would contract with the anticipation that pain was going to be ahead. I guess with the many years of always experiencing pain with intercourse, my vagina decided to call it quits. If it could talk it would say, “There’s no way in hell you’re getting near me.”
My gynecologist said I needed vaginal therapy. “I’m sorry, what? My vagina is broken? And there’s such a thing as vaginal therapy?” Apparently there is and that is pretty much what I needed. She wrote me a prescription for Pelvic Floor Therapy.
Vaginal therapy entailed using different size dilators. Vaginal dilators can be silicone or plastic and they are in a shape of a tampon. The goal is is to insert smallest size dilator that you can tolerate without pain for 10 minutes a day. Gradually you can move up to the next size dilator when the one you are using doesn’t cause any discomfort. The dilators range from the size of a finger to the size of Godzilla, which I would hope no woman on earth would ever have to encounter. I remember seeing the Godzilla size dilator, saying, “Oh, hell no!” and immediately hid that one away.
I admit, I wasn’t very consistent with my at-home therapy. One of the reasons was because of always having pain with intercourse, I dreaded doing therapy because I knew intercourse was never going to be enjoyable because my libido diminished as well as having to deal with vaginal dryness and vaginal atrophy. I was married at the time, so some might think that was selfish of me to not try to fix my condition. I needed to fix my broken vagina for myself and I just couldn’t reach that point mentally or emotionally. I threw in the towel and hung my “DO NOT ENTER” sign back up. (For the record, ladies, vaginal therapy does work. You have to stay consistent with therapy.) My Vaginismus was just one of the many reasons I created Entwine. The other reason took a chunk of my life physically and emotionally which you will get to hear all about in my upcoming blogs.
Have a story you’d like to share about your sexual limitations and related experiences? Email me at hello@entwinedating.com
