His and Her Health

Hello all;
I am new to this board, but I found it and reading some of the posts has been helpful. i have had painfull sex for about 9 years with my husband. i tried to do the steriod cream, take calcium supplements, but those didn't help. I had my vestibulectomy about 4.5 weeks ago in February and has only had one post op visit with my doctor. Today we tried to have sex and it hurt so bad that I started crying. Not sure if the crying was me not thinking that the surgery worked! I can't believe how much pain I am still in with it being a month since I had the surgery. It seems like it gets dry in the area and i can tell when there's pain due to the rubbing. Just curious of how long the pain is supposed to last? When did anyone have sex? Did you still have pain?
Thanks,
Malissa

mmaas, in reading the other posts from the women who have had the surgery you will see that recovery time is different for each person.Some use dilators( as recommended by their doctors) and that seems to have helped before trying to have intercourse. You might want to ask your Dr. about using them if you have not already done so.

I had the surgery. It took me a long time to recover. I was in bed for pretty much two entire months.

After those months, I went to physical therapy cause my body had to learn to not associate the pain anymore. My brain just assumed it to hurt. The physical therapy helped a lot.

I do find I am dry much of the time. We use a lot of lube but the pain is virtually gone..

I found by doing exactly what the doctor said and not rushing it I was able to have virtual pain free sex. Yes something it gets itchy and yes sometimes certain medications give me flare ups and such.

Also birth control makes the pain a lot worse. If you can poke around at different methods that helps. As soon as I stopped The Pill I felt a lot better. Im on the shot now, and it doesnt bother me at all.

I hope this helps. Its been almost a year now since my surgery and I still some nights sleep with an ice pack.

Just giving you advice that for me it took ages to get better, and that I found its best not to rush things. Even though u r so excited for it to work.

Feel better.
Ariel

Hello all,

I am new here and considering vestibulectomy with vaginal advancement. I have VV and have been suffering with burning pain with any kind of provocation, including sitting, wearing tight pants, and riding a bike.

If I have the surgery it will be with Dr. Andrew Goldstein. I was wondering if anyone else here has had the surgery with him and would be willing to email me or post about your experience. Like everyone else here, I am kind of nervous to say the least and could use some moral support for sure!


Dr. Goldstein said that the vaginal advancement covers the bartholian (sp?) glands. These glands provide lubrication and since they are covered, you lose 25 percent of vaginal lubrication. I guess that explains the dryness that ariel mentioned. But I guess less lubrication is the trade off for no pain!

In response to mmaas, it sounds like you tried to have sex too soon after your surgery. According to Goldstein, it takes about 6-8 weeks to recover and then he recommends 3 months of dilator therapy. I'm not sure where in that window of time one can resume having sex, but I'm guessing it would be somewhere toward the end of the dilator therapy. So, not to worry, it sounds like you just tried too soon.

Well, anyway I hope this information helps some ppl here. I think we need to ask our surgeons lots of questions since they may not always be forthcoming with all of the nitty gritty details.

Hope it's okay to post my email address here. Thanks for reading!!
Miriam

I am 12 weeks out and no sex yet for me. I can't even imagine doing it at 5 weeks - i could barely sit. i had a full vestibulectomy.

my doc said to wait 5-6 months and to use dilators to build up to it. i could probably have sex now but i think it would hurt a little. hopefully in two more months it won't!!

Well had my follow up with my Dr. whom did the surgery. Kinda frustrated with him Asked alot of questions at the beginning, but now thinking about getting some advice from you guys here. I'm still in pain on my right side if I'm standing. It still hurts if I poke my vulvar with the q-tip test. So it doesn't hurt as bad as it did the last time. We're at about 6-8 weeks all of the stiches are gone. I asked the doctor why it still hurts pretty bad and he said that he wasn't aggressive with removing the tissue. He didn't want my vagina to look different "i though well I'm not in the PORN industry and don't really care if it looks funny" so the doctor said that he'd like to try these injections. Not quite sure about the injections I just don't think that they'd do any good or help. Apparently these injections contain an anti-inflammatory and anesthetic. Have any of you done the injections after??
I am not taking any birth control pills right now 'cause I thought that might be affecting me and wanted to try to figure out when my periods are supposed to be. Now thinking about doing the IUD, but not sure about that yet either.
Thanks,
Maas