By Morgan Conner Sadly, the starting point of this success story is not novel to me as a pelvic floor physical therapist or for many who struggle with primary vaginismus. However, this story has a happy ending (pun very much intended!) as well as an interesting middle. When Vicki (not her real name) married her husband three years ago, they …
Success Story: How Jennifer Beat Endometriosis
By Jandra Mueller Jennifer was referred to PHRC by her urogynecologist who diagnosed her with interstitial cystitis/painful bladder syndrome (IC/PBS). For more information on this condition, check out Melinda’s webinar on IC/PBS. She was diagnosed with IC in 2012/2013 because she had been experiencing significant cramping in her bladder, as well as urinary urgency and frequency. After a series of …
Enjoying Sex While Healing From Pelvic Pain
This week, long-time colleague Lorraine Faehnedrich guest blogs for PHRC. Lorraine’s bio and information on her courses can be found at the end of the post. On April 2 Lorraine will be interviewing our own Katie Hunter about how pelvic floor physical therapy can help women recover from painful sex. Stay tuned to our social media for more details! From …
Michelle’s Postpartum Pelvic Health Struggles…and Success!
By: Rachel Gelman Michelle is a 30 year old female referred by her gynecologist to us for pelvic floor physical therapy following the birth of her first child. Michelle had her son via vaginal delivery and she was roughly five months postpartum at the time of her evaluation with me. She reports she had a second degree tear with “a …
Finding Pleasure in Something that was Always Painful: Sam’s Success Story
By: Shannon Pacella Sam came to the Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center in the beginning of May this year, after her primary care physician recommended seeing a pelvic floor physical therapist as she reported having pain with vaginal penetration. Here’s what Sam had to say: “I am 41 years old, and spent most of my life completely avoiding my vagina …
Recovery From Vaginismus and Painful Sex: Martha’s Success Story
By: Sigourney Cross Vaginismus is characterized as an involuntary spasm or contraction of the muscles around the vagina. This makes it very difficult for women to insert tampons, receive pelvic exams by their doctors and can also make sexual intercourse nearly impossible and painful. It can affect women anywhere from their teenage years to later in life. Vaginismus can be …
Managing Life on or after “The Pill”
By: Jandra Mueller If you are a female reader of our blog, have experienced painful intercourse, and happened to have come to the Pelvic Health and Rehabilitation Center (PHRC) for treatment, then you are probably familiar with our talk about how systemic birth control like oral contraceptives (OCPs) or “The Pill,” may be the underlying culprit. The pill is a …
Sex Therapy and CBT for Pain with Sex
In 2012, The Journal of Sexual Medicine published an article, What we don’t talk about when we don’t talk about sex: results of a national survey of U.S. obstetrician/gynecologists. The results from the survey revealed that though Ob/gyns routinely (63%) assess their patients’ sexual activities, only 40% of them ask their female patients about sexual problems. Sexual problems may include …
Vulvodynia, Vestibulodynia, and Vaginismus: what’s the difference and why does it matter?
By Stephanie Prendergast As many as 28% of women experience painful sex at some point during their reproductive years and that sucks. Knowledge is power and May is Pelvic Pain Awareness Month so we want to provide women with useful information about the three most common diagnoses associated with painful sex: vulvodynia, vaginismus, and vesitbulodynia. Differentiating between these …
When Sex Hurts: A Diagnostic Algorithm
Most people know that I am a fan of sexy science. So when I saw that the World Congress on Pelvic Pain (WCAPP) had an entire section dedicated to sexual dysfunction I was pretty stoked. You may already be imagining some very arousing presentations; or you may think listening to a talk on intercourse would induce the same amount …
Beating the Odds: How one woman overcame a traumatic birth and had a successful second birth
Childbirth is no picnic: 85% of women who deliver vaginally experience perineal trauma and a third of those women in the USA and UK require stitches.2 The thought of having another baby after having gone through a traumatic birth can be daunting, to say the least. Returning to sex can also seem like a feat, especially when pain is involved. …
THINKING OUTSIDE THE GUT: Could Endometriosis be the culprit behind your Constipation or Bloating?
By Iris Kerin Orbuch, MD Did you know that Gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms are as common as gynecological symptoms in women with endometriosis? Do you suffer from bloating and/or constipation? Endometriosis may be the cause of your bloating and/or constipation. Over 90% of women diagnosed with endometriosis actually present with GI symptoms as their initial symptoms. Before we delve into why …
Pelvic floor physical therapy for vulvodynia: a clinician’s guide
By Stephanie Prendergast Recently I was asked to write an article about pelvic floor physical therapy for the treatment of vulvodynia, which will be published later this year as a tool for gynecologists. Since our blog readers are a combination of clinicians and people with pelvic pain I figured I would share it here too. Warning: it is …
Jagged Little Pill: Part Two
By Joshua Gonzalez, MD After reading my last post, Jagged Little Pill, many of you who have had similar suspected OCP-related problems may be thinking there’s no hope. Trust me, you are not doomed if you’ve ever taken an oral birth control and you have symptoms of vulvodynia. My goal this week is to reassure you that you’re …
Jagged Little Pill: How Oral Contraceptives Wreak Havoc on the Female Body
By Joshua Gonzalez, MD The advent of oral birth control pills in the 1960s was heralded as a huge victory for women’s rights. Finally, women could take control of their bodies and their fertility. Since then, oral contraceptive pills (OCPs) have become ubiquitous in reproductive aged women with nearly 10 million women today using The Pill as …
Gwyneth’s Goop and the Pelvic Floor: What They Missed
By Stephanie Prendergast Last week, Gwyneth Paltrow’s popular newsletter featured an article on pelvic floor muscles, which prompted numerous emails and tweets in my direction. Apparently this is a topic that makes my friends and colleagues think of me. While pondering why everyone, except for me, seems to be reading Goop, I took a look. I am glad to see …