Today I went to see my doctor (Dr. Goldstein at the Center for Vulvo Vaginal Disorders). He performed an exam where he did the Q-tip test again, took a culture (because I thought I might have another yeast infection since I was experiencing some pain aside from my usual pain) and then discussed his findings with me.
The deal is that this time when he performed the Q-tip test I rated the pain from 3-6 as opposed to last time, when I rated it from 4-9. This means that the pain has decreased somewhat simply from me going off of my birth control pills and applying the estrogen/ testosterone cream. I am 25% better, so this is a good thing. However, I still have a ways to go.
The doctor and I have determined that I will continue with this treatment for the next 3 months, at which time the maximum benefit that I could potentially reap from this will be apparent. At that time, if I still feel pain, I may need to get a surgery (the vestibulectomy). So we will see.
Last time, when they took my blood, my hormone levels were in the dumpster. Now, the way birth control pills work is that they depress hormone levels to begin with. But apparently, I had a really weird reaction to the birth control pills in that they depressed my hormone levels more than they do those of others who are on the pill who don't get this kind of side effect. And the pill I was on, for those who are curious, is Yasmin (the generic is Ocella). So, to quote Dr. Goldstein "your hormone levels reflected those of a menopausal woman." Here I am, barely 25, and I've got the hormones of a 50-year-old menopausual woman. So the fact that I wasn't getting lubricated or aroused (my libido was not a happy one) was solidly due to the fact that my hormones wouldn't really be allowing for that.
They took my blood again this time, and the hope is that when they run their tests, the hormone levels should be back to normal.
I also learned that it's possible for yeast to be excreted via the rectum because if you eat a high-sugar diet (as I am wont to do), yeast can come that way. So even if I don't have a yeast infection in the vagina, I could be feeling irritated by yeast due to my diet- so I should stop eating lots of sugary foods, if I can. (This because he saw that the external part of me, the perineum, looked a little irritated- potentially by yeast).
Anyway, getting off the birth control pills meant that my vaginal tissue is a lot healthier now, looks less atrophied, and is all around happier.
Apparently there are actually studies that have been done that show that sexual dysfunction is often linked to the use of hormonal contraception.
There's a bunch of fun side effects to having low estrogen levels. I wonder whether my moodiness this past year has been because of this. Gosh, that sucks- to be ingesting something into your body, thinking that you just want to get settled into your marriage, and yet that same thing is making you moody, depressed, anxious, unable to get lubricated as much as you should be and potentially dry and in sexual pain (in the worst case scenario).
Anyway, I HOPE that I can just get totally cured through this treatment and I won't need the surgery at all, but the doctor said that even if I do need the surgery, everything I am doing to get the tissue as healthy as possible is really important as the first step. So either way it's good.
Showing posts with label female sexual dysfunction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label female sexual dysfunction. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Saturday, July 14, 2012
FSD in DSM-V
So I read in The New York Times (article link here) that Female Sexual Dysfunction is being added to the DSM-V, the psychiatric manual.
The weird part is, they seem to be defining female sexual dysfunction as having a low libido or lack of desire or not being able to reach orgasm. First off, I'm a bit confused as to why that's a psychiatric disorder. Much of the time, there are actual reasons for why people feel that way (ranging from anxiety/ abuse to hormone issues and so on). Although I guess you could argue that depression is also at times just a chemical issue. But what I don't get is- what about the female sexual dysfunction that people like me are experiencing where we actually have physical reasons for what is going on with us? True, taking a pill won't fix us, but it would be helpful for it to be considered a real thing that insurance would cover therapy for, even if it's just talk therapy.
The weird part is, they seem to be defining female sexual dysfunction as having a low libido or lack of desire or not being able to reach orgasm. First off, I'm a bit confused as to why that's a psychiatric disorder. Much of the time, there are actual reasons for why people feel that way (ranging from anxiety/ abuse to hormone issues and so on). Although I guess you could argue that depression is also at times just a chemical issue. But what I don't get is- what about the female sexual dysfunction that people like me are experiencing where we actually have physical reasons for what is going on with us? True, taking a pill won't fix us, but it would be helpful for it to be considered a real thing that insurance would cover therapy for, even if it's just talk therapy.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Lonely
Your Eyes Open- Keane
Reading the comments on this blog should make me happy, not depressed. Except, of course, that there are those of you who really have no concept of what I'm dealing with and think that with enough effort of will I can just make it go away or fix it. This is very frustrating because it's really not helpful to read that you think I should seperate from my husband or divorce him. Or for you to tell me that I should just change my attitude and my thinking, perk up and be cheery.
I was just thinking that I feel very lonely and very pressured. I know that other people have much worse things going on in their lives but this is my life and this is the thing that ranks highest in it. I'm in a lonely place and sometimes what people say just makes it worse. What I really need is love and support and sadly the only person who can give me that is the same husband I'm mistreating since it's just him and me in this together. Also because I trust him and I don't trust therapists, especially because (even though this isn't their intent) they give me the ugly feeling that they earn their keep off of my suffering.
Reading the comments on this blog should make me happy, not depressed. Except, of course, that there are those of you who really have no concept of what I'm dealing with and think that with enough effort of will I can just make it go away or fix it. This is very frustrating because it's really not helpful to read that you think I should seperate from my husband or divorce him. Or for you to tell me that I should just change my attitude and my thinking, perk up and be cheery.
I was just thinking that I feel very lonely and very pressured. I know that other people have much worse things going on in their lives but this is my life and this is the thing that ranks highest in it. I'm in a lonely place and sometimes what people say just makes it worse. What I really need is love and support and sadly the only person who can give me that is the same husband I'm mistreating since it's just him and me in this together. Also because I trust him and I don't trust therapists, especially because (even though this isn't their intent) they give me the ugly feeling that they earn their keep off of my suffering.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Somewhere Only We Know
Somewhere Only We Know by Keane.
Many people have special places. These are places that have impacted their lives in important ways. The place you were when you found out you got your first job. Or the place where you first kissed. Places full of magic and joy.
For some reason this song caught my attention. I feel like my husband and I need to travel to that place, to somewhere untouchable, someplace only we know- in order to get ourselves back together. There's been so much stress on our lives, whether it's due to work, family issues, the sex issue, how the sex issue is sapping away all of our money that I just find myself being avoidant. I don't even want to deal with the sex issue anymore. I just want to leave it alone completely.
My husband's more persistent. He wants me to choose some method of pursuit: continuing with sex therapy, pelvic floor therapy, working with dilators- something. He wants me to be actively doing something, not just assuming everything will fix itself. It's really hard to actively do something when you're trying to just push away, deny or avoid the fact that you even have a problem in the first place.
I like to pretend that the pain will just go away on its own. Then I do a bedikah and just the insertion of the finger or the tampon hurts and I remember that the pain isn't imaginary. It's really there. And I get frustrated and angry. I've even become avoidant with bedikahs. I only do the first and seventh days; I don't like having to do the in between days. (I have no one's psak to do this- it's just something that I'm doing because I don't feel like I can deal with things otherwise.)
I just want to run away from myself and from my life. I want to go 'somewhere only we know' with my husband and live in that fantastical in-between teenage/adolescent phase where you have all the sweaty joy of kisses and making out with none of the penetrative pain I know comes after.
I know running away from my problems isn't really a solution. I know being avoidant isn't one, either. But I'm in a dichotomy where what I know in my brain isn't working with how I'm feeling. I feel like if I just avoid the issue, it will go away. Of course it won't and in the meantime my husband (even if, as those of you who are reading have suggested, I pleasure him in other ways) will be really frustrated. Regarding that whole issue of pleasuring my husband in other ways, I feel (unfairly/ wrongly maybe) used when we do that. Like my hand or my body is some sort of object that, if rubbed against, satisfies a need. It leaves me feeling dissatisfied and unclean. I know that none of that is fair and that there's no reason to think that way- and yet that's how I think. This is aside from the fact that at this point I have some sort of aversion to all things sex- the smell, the stickiness of the semen, the rubbing - everything.
Running away is often portrayed as a romantic solution. Go run away with someone you love or elope and that's supposed to be a good thing. In this case, of course, the real issue is to stand and confront the issues, not to run from them. But even though I know that, I have absolutely no desire to do it. I just want to be safely cocooned somewhere in the loving/ warm part of our marriage (the conversations, massages, kisses, touch) and away from everything else I dislike (stickiness, feeling used, pain upon penetration, my body hating me and me hating it back. Like in that Gemara/Talmud where the butcher chops off the hand that accidentally cut him- it's stupid, but it's still what you do when you're mad. You just become self destructive.)
If I had to take my husband 'somewhere only we know' to try to work this out, where would I take him? Where would we both feel safe? I feel like it would have to be someplace in nature. Maybe sitting on the top of a sand dune staring out at the beach. Or watching a sunset from the beach. Or sitting at the top of a snow-covered hill with a sled beside us. I don't know- there's something cozy in my mind about us two together there in the vastness of nowhere- just us, but so much space all around us. Of course, there's only so much that talking can do for us. There comes the point of action and doing and that's where I'm not really motivated. I'm resenting my husband for making me perform these potentially growth-oriented steps even though I know it's for our own good. I guess I'm getting a preview of how kids sometimes feel towards their parents...
Many people have special places. These are places that have impacted their lives in important ways. The place you were when you found out you got your first job. Or the place where you first kissed. Places full of magic and joy.
For some reason this song caught my attention. I feel like my husband and I need to travel to that place, to somewhere untouchable, someplace only we know- in order to get ourselves back together. There's been so much stress on our lives, whether it's due to work, family issues, the sex issue, how the sex issue is sapping away all of our money that I just find myself being avoidant. I don't even want to deal with the sex issue anymore. I just want to leave it alone completely.
My husband's more persistent. He wants me to choose some method of pursuit: continuing with sex therapy, pelvic floor therapy, working with dilators- something. He wants me to be actively doing something, not just assuming everything will fix itself. It's really hard to actively do something when you're trying to just push away, deny or avoid the fact that you even have a problem in the first place.
I like to pretend that the pain will just go away on its own. Then I do a bedikah and just the insertion of the finger or the tampon hurts and I remember that the pain isn't imaginary. It's really there. And I get frustrated and angry. I've even become avoidant with bedikahs. I only do the first and seventh days; I don't like having to do the in between days. (I have no one's psak to do this- it's just something that I'm doing because I don't feel like I can deal with things otherwise.)
I just want to run away from myself and from my life. I want to go 'somewhere only we know' with my husband and live in that fantastical in-between teenage/adolescent phase where you have all the sweaty joy of kisses and making out with none of the penetrative pain I know comes after.
I know running away from my problems isn't really a solution. I know being avoidant isn't one, either. But I'm in a dichotomy where what I know in my brain isn't working with how I'm feeling. I feel like if I just avoid the issue, it will go away. Of course it won't and in the meantime my husband (even if, as those of you who are reading have suggested, I pleasure him in other ways) will be really frustrated. Regarding that whole issue of pleasuring my husband in other ways, I feel (unfairly/ wrongly maybe) used when we do that. Like my hand or my body is some sort of object that, if rubbed against, satisfies a need. It leaves me feeling dissatisfied and unclean. I know that none of that is fair and that there's no reason to think that way- and yet that's how I think. This is aside from the fact that at this point I have some sort of aversion to all things sex- the smell, the stickiness of the semen, the rubbing - everything.
Running away is often portrayed as a romantic solution. Go run away with someone you love or elope and that's supposed to be a good thing. In this case, of course, the real issue is to stand and confront the issues, not to run from them. But even though I know that, I have absolutely no desire to do it. I just want to be safely cocooned somewhere in the loving/ warm part of our marriage (the conversations, massages, kisses, touch) and away from everything else I dislike (stickiness, feeling used, pain upon penetration, my body hating me and me hating it back. Like in that Gemara/Talmud where the butcher chops off the hand that accidentally cut him- it's stupid, but it's still what you do when you're mad. You just become self destructive.)
If I had to take my husband 'somewhere only we know' to try to work this out, where would I take him? Where would we both feel safe? I feel like it would have to be someplace in nature. Maybe sitting on the top of a sand dune staring out at the beach. Or watching a sunset from the beach. Or sitting at the top of a snow-covered hill with a sled beside us. I don't know- there's something cozy in my mind about us two together there in the vastness of nowhere- just us, but so much space all around us. Of course, there's only so much that talking can do for us. There comes the point of action and doing and that's where I'm not really motivated. I'm resenting my husband for making me perform these potentially growth-oriented steps even though I know it's for our own good. I guess I'm getting a preview of how kids sometimes feel towards their parents...
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Sex Therapy
So my husband and I had our first meeting with our sex therapist. It was in a really lovely little room with swiveling swirly armchairs like you would get in nice coffee shops. We sat next to each other in the swiveling chairs and the therapist sat across from us and we told our long story. It seems like there are a lot of factors (at least in my case) that make it likely that my sexual dysfunction has a psychological component. These are:
-Family issues: Members of my family were not so thrilled that I was marrying my husband. Possibly even though I went through with the marriage, I had a lot of difficulty taking that final step of consummating it or having an enjoyable sex life because of the weight of their disapproval.
-Power issues: Sex in my mind is synonymous with power. Women seduce and ensnare men or men seduce or use women. Because sex in my mind is tied up with power, I am not interested in being powerless and 'submitting' to it as it were.
-Virginity issues: I was brought up with virginity being really important and anything that could spoil your hymen (tampons, fingers, gynecological exams) was bad. So basically I was told all my life to keep my vagina closed and now I have to switch over to it being open and I'm having difficulty processing that.
-Emotional issues: I have trust issues in general because people have disappointed me. Maybe these carry over to my man as well and emotionally I can't achieve the intimacy for the sex to work well.
-Anxiety: I was really anxious about my knowledge or lack thereof of sex before my wedding and of what the hymen was and how to do stuff and I now have a body memory of that fear/ pain.
Best of all (I say this sarcastically), there's the possibility (which I don't consider a possibility) that I was abused when I was younger and I just forgot it. I find this very hard to believe because my family was hypervigilant about that sort of thing but my husband pointed out there's always babysitters. I don't think babysitters would do that and I think it's extremely unlikely, but whatever, it's a possibility.
Anyway, our homework from the sex therapist is to find two hours a week to have a physically romantic and intimate date/ spending of time together with actual intercourse totally off the table. I guess this is probably to take the anxiety out of this experience and for me to develop trust with my husband.
Comic Relief
I did a bit of research and discovered there are other blogs out there like mine. This is exciting because I think that maybe I can create a sexual pain support group online (even if I can't seem to find one offline). Here are three that seem promising:
-Living with Vaginismus
-"Down There"
-Buaslbutterfly's blog
The things that I really enjoy about skimming through blogs like these are the comical ways people are talking about their experiences. (If you don't life, you cry, right?) Stuff like "My vajayjay is broken" or "Living with Vaginismus: When a Vagina Rebels" or mantras like "Defeat Sexual Pain!" just make me smile. I kind of have the idea of creating a Livestrong bracelet that says something ridiculous like "FSD (that stands for Female Sexual Dysfunction) FTW (for the win)!" Something to remind me to stay strong and that other people are out there dealing with this and that we can make it funny.
I was thinking how jewlry is so expressive. We have jewlry to say all kinds of things- I love you, I support the fight against Breast Cancer, Live Strong etc- why don't we have jewelry about this? There should be jewelry about sexual pain, supporting those with sexual pain and defeating sexual pain.
It occurs to me maybe I should explain why a support group for people dealing with sexual pain would be useful. Well, partially because then we could all help support each other (the comic relief idea where people make it funny) and also because when the only people who know about this are you and your spouse, it's just really hard. And it's easier to relate to someone else having a hard time alongside you rather than your (amazing) spouse who doesn't actually know what the pain feels like.
I also discovered that there's a memoir someone wrote about living with her (seemingly super severe and much worse than mine) sexual pain. It's called The Camera my Mother Gave Me. I'm planning to read it; we'll see if it's any good.
-Living with Vaginismus
-"Down There"
-Buaslbutterfly's blog
The things that I really enjoy about skimming through blogs like these are the comical ways people are talking about their experiences. (If you don't life, you cry, right?) Stuff like "My vajayjay is broken" or "Living with Vaginismus: When a Vagina Rebels" or mantras like "Defeat Sexual Pain!" just make me smile. I kind of have the idea of creating a Livestrong bracelet that says something ridiculous like "FSD (that stands for Female Sexual Dysfunction) FTW (for the win)!" Something to remind me to stay strong and that other people are out there dealing with this and that we can make it funny.
I was thinking how jewlry is so expressive. We have jewlry to say all kinds of things- I love you, I support the fight against Breast Cancer, Live Strong etc- why don't we have jewelry about this? There should be jewelry about sexual pain, supporting those with sexual pain and defeating sexual pain.
It occurs to me maybe I should explain why a support group for people dealing with sexual pain would be useful. Well, partially because then we could all help support each other (the comic relief idea where people make it funny) and also because when the only people who know about this are you and your spouse, it's just really hard. And it's easier to relate to someone else having a hard time alongside you rather than your (amazing) spouse who doesn't actually know what the pain feels like.
I also discovered that there's a memoir someone wrote about living with her (seemingly super severe and much worse than mine) sexual pain. It's called The Camera my Mother Gave Me. I'm planning to read it; we'll see if it's any good.
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