His and Her Health

Ever since I had my first child I've had very painful tearing during intercourse. When I had my daughter, I ripped all the way from the vigina to the rectum and had to be stitched back up. I'm fine with lubrication but no matter how hard I try to just take it slow, I rip open each time. It takes atleast a week or two before I heal back up and can have sex again. Its getting to the point where my husband and I have sex about once a month now. Its been 25 yrs and I'm about ready to just forget about sex altogether. I've talked with my doctor and she prescribed the hormone patch as well as a vaginal hormonal cream, as I am now in menopause. So far the hot flashes are subsiding but the ripping is still happening.
I've never heard of anyone else experiencing this. Why is that? Anyone?
Help!
Trish

Here is an article that may help,
www.bermansexualhealth.com

You also will find very informative articles at our companion site www.redhotmamas.org .

TOB2,
I am wondering how much scar tissue you have from the tearing and stitching? I can imagine that after a tear like you describe, that there would be pain with intercourse. There is probably weakening of the pelvic floor muscles now alonog with this.
niva

Hi Niva,
Yes, thats what I was thinking. With repeated ripping, it would seem like there's got to be a tremendous amount of scar tissue. The question is what can be done for it. I'm hoping that the surgery that one women is having from a different message board will be an option for me. Its called perineaplasty. Have you heard of this? The woman who posted it under the name "LadyLane". She hasn't written anything beyond having the surgery. I was hoping to hear about the results. Have you heard anything about this?
Trish

Thanks moderator for the websites you suggested. I haven't seen anything about vaginal tearing in them yet, but I'm still looking.

you probably have a condition know as vulvar granuloma fissuratum-which is recurrent tearing at the posterior fourchete. It can be very successfully corrected with surgery (if performed by a very experienced vulvovaginal surgeon.) However, the tissue must be adequately estrogenized before surgery.

<small>[ 08-23-2008, 11:27 PM: Message edited by: Moderator ]</small>

Thank you Dr. Goldstein,
Can you tell me the best way to find a surgeon in that field in my area?
Trish

contact the NVA or the ISSVD. the closest is probably Dr. Nyirjesy or Dr. Whitmore in Philadelphia or myself in DC or New York.

<small>[ 08-27-2008, 05:00 AM: Message edited by: Moderator ]</small>

Before you go under the knife. Please read about my story. I had about 3 years of persistent vaginal tearing with intercourse. I am in my mid 20s now. Just a small area recurring in one spot about 1/2 cm at the entrance to my vagina. The specialist I saw encouraged me over and over again to let her cut on me and I insisted that we exhaust all other options 1st. The area was injected with steroids. I used numbing creams and steroid creams. I tried using a vaginal dilator every day. It eventually occurred to my doctor that my longterm use of the pill caused a 'negative feedback loop' on my bodies normal hormonal control. Basically, since I was taking hormones orally everyday in the pill for almost a decade, my body got used to not producing estrogen on its own. I had no other symptoms of being estro deficient. Apparently vaginal tissue takes a long time to regenerate so I stopped taking the pill (the estrogen creams didn't do the trick) and I started being able to have intercourse without pain. It has now been 1 year exactly since I stopped taking the pill and I have no tearing or pain during intercourse. So, before you go under the knife, if you are long term birth control user, please give this a try!

Im having the same problem and created the post: Painfuls ex: 6 o'clock fissure. I never thought of the pill. I have been on it for 10 years now.

This is interesting to me because one of my specialists said the pill lowers your natural estrogen and the lower dose pills, even more so, so to go off of it or increase the estrogen or pill.
Yet my other specialist (both vulvodynia) said one had nothing to do with the other, and the pill is not the culprit. That i am too young (40 now) and is not the cause but nerves are probably from something else. With all this conflicting information what do you do? The pill they mentioned also has many protective/good qualities aside from no pregnancy which is a concern since spermicides/condoms irritate most women with this. So is it the pill or just coincidence? OR is it the type of pill? What brand were you ladies on? Maybe that will help us! I did mircette, got better on yasmin and worse on yaz (both lower dose more problems). Thanks!

<small>[ 06-07-2009, 10:37 PM: Message edited by: Moderator ]</small>