Rectocele and a lot of vaginal soreness

Submitted by MermaidDrowning on January 7, 2006 - 4:54pm
Body: 

Hello ladies, I'm very glad to have this forum to discuss my concerns and thoughts with someone. Sometimes, I feel very lonley about everything and not having anyone here in my life to talk with about this. This isn't why I'm writing but I guess it just kind of came out =)

If you remember me, you may remember that I am recovering from vulvodynia, vulvar vestibulist, pelvic floor dysfunction and I am currently living with a high rectocele.

I have done many different life style changes to help naturally heal and deal with all of my health condition. I have seen some a lot of improvements. I no longer feel a bulge at the top portion of my vagina (my cul-de-sac) but I do still have some problems. I have't had problems like this is a few months but recently, my bowel movements have begun to press into the top portion of my vagina again. I do not have a bugle but I can feel a hard mass in the upper portion pushing into my vagina. I was very deteremined NOT to strain at all on the toilet and wait for the bm to move down and out of my rectum on it's own. I made sure to exercise, drink tons of water, take a little extra fiber and make sure I got my flax seed oil in there but it took two days before the stool actually came out. (To give you an idea of my regular bm's, I usually have two-three bm's daily usually a little bit after every meal)

In the mean time, I had so much pressure on my vagina that it is intensely sore now. It hurts to sit, stand, the only way I feel at all comfotible is when I am laying down completely but it is still very painful. My bartholin's glands became blocked and swollen and since I've had a bm have drained but they are still sore. It was a really difficult few days. Taking a warm bath as well as using a heating pad helps, but only a little bit.

I continue to use the estrogen cream (a jelly bean sized amount daily) for the vulvodynia as well as my comfrey cream mix which I believe has really helped to loose that bugle in my vagina. I really make an effort to keep a correct posture, do tons of hip/pelvic strecthes and belly dance moves daily. Mostly these things keep me feeling strong, secure and healthy.

However, I'm not really sure what has set my body off balance lately and cause such pain and soreness. I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts, suggestion or tips to offer to prevent this from happening again and how to deal with the vaginal soreness and swollen glands.

Thank you everybody and I hope you are all enjoying the new year!!

Jacquie

Christine

January 7, 2006 - 6:36pm

Dear Jacquie,

I

Christine

January 8, 2006 - 8:45am

Hi again, Jacquie,

I see my logic above was a bit on the obtuse side

louiseds

February 16, 2006 - 9:07am

I've had the same thing, and I can't put my finger on anything except stressful times, and maybe what part of my cycle I am in. I have found that managing the symptoms works, until my body decides it is time to evacuate. Do all the right things, which you seem to be doing, try not to worry about it too much, be easy on yourself, stay as comfy as you can, and it will pass ... literally. Worry is a killer in this respect. Have faith in your body.

Cheers

Louise

louiseds

May 17, 2006 - 10:51am

Hi Mermaid and everyone else

Hope the body is treating you better now. Radio National in Australia had an interesting segment the other day about pain around the vulva and vagina. You can listen to it here. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2006/1636334.htm It takes about 20 minutes so sit tall or lie down and learn all the latest.

My pain comes and goes, but thankfully the thrush and urinary tract infections have now settled down. I am learning to manage my girls bits better these days and sit and stand much better too. It all helps.

One conclusion that I have come to, and it may not apply to you being young, is that we need to have patient sexual partners when we have sensitivity inflammation and dryness in the genital area. What a turn off it is to be hurried! If ever there was a reason for extended foreplay, this is it!

I've noticed that the pain and burning just dissolves as soon as I am strongly aroused without penetration. Once there is arousal there is lubrication, and there is cushioning, and there is, well, there is just better sex all round actually. :-)

What was that Poynter Sisters song? "I want a man with a slow hand ..."

Cheers

Louise

Christine

May 17, 2006 - 1:09pm

I think the psychologist-turned-vulvar-pain-researcher doesn’t have a clue, and I’m appalled that he’s looking to get more experiments funded to study the effectiveness of vestibulectomies. It’s the oh-so-familiar “When in doubt, take it out” strategy that women have been subjected to over and over again. UGH!!

I think it’s much more likely that women’s perineal tissue develops antibodies to their own out-of-balance intestinal flora (which, of course, is highly influenced by the flora of their sexual partner), and that’s why these disorders take on autoimmune characteristics. It may be a long shot, but instead of doing all sorts of things from the outside, including mutilating surgery, I’d like to see them study the problem from the inside, in a holistic way.

louiseds

May 19, 2006 - 10:52am

Hi Christine

Yeah, well some things don't change do they? I agree; it made me squirm to think that a surgical technique like vestibulectomy would become the solution that they wanted to keep developing, in spite of his admission that, in the longer term, pain management gave almost as good pain relief as the surgery. Unbelievable. No more was said about pain management. I hope more *is* said in the future.

However I was interested in the conclusion from the pain tests on other parts of the body, that the pain was not a local reaction, but was to do with the brain's reaction to pain in general. That is why the pain management therapy worked. I have seen somewhere before that genital pain seems to be like the pain of shingles. There is no injury, other than the nerves which become kind of supersensitive.

So little is known about this debilitating group of conditions. A woman who displays the classic signs of phobia before a gynaecological examination has to be in a pretty bad way, whatever medical condition she has. They are never pleasant but that level of 'fear' would be very difficult to live with on an everyday basis.

Cheers

Louise