Photo credit: FreeDigitalPhotos.Net
For nearly three years now, I’ve felt as if I’ve been betrayed by my girly bits. I had unexplained pain in and around my vagina that was often accompanied by a raw sensation and a dull ache along my inner thighs. The pain seemed to wax mid-cycle and wane when my period came. I stopped taking the medication I had been given to lighten my heavy flow, because for whatever reason, with the blood came relief. I tried to avoid things that would spark a flare up, like sitting on a hard chair for long periods of time and wearing non-breathable workout pants made of lycra. Not that it really made much of a difference, though. I finally realized if the pain was coming, there was nothing I could do to prevent it.
The uncomfortable state of my vagina and vulva has led to numerous doctor visits, referrals that didn’t seem to make sense, and thousands of dollars spent on lab bills. And with no definitive diagnosis for the pain that ruled my life, I left every appointment with false hope and unnecessary prescriptions– antibiotics that wreaked havoc with the delicate balance of my vaginal ecosystem, and anti-fungals and yeast infection creams that have made my skin ridiculously sensitive. Not to mention the buckets for the gallons of tears I’ve cried.
Again and again, I thought back to when the trouble began, wondering if the laser hair removal I’d had could have been a culprit, but my technician, doctors, and the internet didn’t seem to think so. Or maybe the wicked bacterial infection from the embarrassing anal-to-vaginal fuck-up was the underlying issue. Maybe I still had BV or another stubborn yeast infection and they couldn’t see it; maybe the plethora of tests had been wrong. I wondered what I’d done to deserve it.
Other than Heather, I rarely shared the details of my Vagina Report with anyone. Not even Mr. K received the daily updates. The chronic pain didn’t affect our sex life, so I kept him in the dark about the severity of it. I was his sex object; his fantasy come to life, and I worried that constantly moaning about my painful vagina would tarnish his image of me; make me less sexy in his eyes. I hardly complained to him because I was the best girlfriend ever, but when I say my vagina was always in my thoughts, it’s far from an exaggeration. I was always aware of it, even in my sleep. I had dreams of painful sex with hemorrhoid cream used as lube, and nightmares of raging infections. Laugh if you will, but I woke up in tears. Not from pain, mind you, but from fear I would never feel normal again.
What was wrong with me was a question that plagued me. All I wanted was to find the answer–whatever it may have been–so I could deal with it and move past the non-stop worry. I feared I had some sort of disease or infection that was undetectable, or worse, one they hadn’t even discovered yet. I panicked over every little bump, raw spot, or twinge, spending sleepless nights on the internet trying to match it to SOMETHING. The stress of it quickly wore a ‘worse-case-scenario’ pattern through my brain.
Then I met a Nurse Practioner who took one look at my nether region and said, “That looks dermatological to me.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Nope. Change to Tone soap, Dreft detergent, and two rinse cycles.”
With renewed hope of a pain-free vagina, I wanted to jump down from the examination table and give her a super big hug–pantsless.
In a big way, she was right, and within a few days of following through with her recommended changes, I felt huge improvement and an even bigger wave of relief. As time passed, though, the pain didn’t go away completely, so I underwent a battery of repeat tests, receiving the same negative results. And when the ache escalated to it’s original intensity and the raw sensation returned, I sat on the table begging my Nurse Practioner for help, but she was already halfway out of the room, dismissing my pleas. She said there was nothing wrong with me, but my vagina said there was.
Deflated and determined to find an answer, I turned to the internets, who had been my self-diagnosis enemy in the past, but this time it gave me what I was looking for– Vulvodynia. My constant vulvar pain seemed to fall within the realm of the disorder, but when I asked my NP about it, she said there was no way to test for it and gave me a recipe for making Boric Acid capsules to reset the balance inside my vagina.
I’m sorry, what?
Vulvodynia is defined as chronic vulvar pain, possibly triggered by trauma, infections, overuse of medications, or nothing in particular. How’s that for non-definitive? Basically, it’s nerve pain, which brought my mother to mind because she suffers from Fibromyalgia. I had to wonder if there was some hereditary correlation there, and if that’s the case, thanks a fuckload, Mom.
Anyway, after reading thread after thread in Vulvodynia support groups, I noticed a lot of women–especially perimenopausal women–saw a drastic improvement in their degree of pain when taking Calcium Sulfate. Great. Another supplement to waste money on. I bought it, though, expecting nothing more than temporary relief, if it helped at all. But that wasn’t the case, and within hours of taking the first pill, the pain had disappeared– VANISHED.
I don’t know what it is about that particular supplement that wrestled my vulvar pain and won, but I do know I feel like a super huge weight has been lifted from my loins. I don’t freak-out over the raw sensation or the shooting pain through the left side of my vagina anymore because they’re gone. I still have to stay away from scented products, and lycra workout pants will throw my vulva into a bona fide hissy fit, but I’m learning to manage my delicate nature. At risk of sounding cheesy, I feel like a woman again–a sexual one, and I don’t feel my vagina these days unless I want to.
