Another Pain Video!

Can you tell I've been exploring Youtube this morning?

http://youtu.be/4b8oB757DKc

Just a video about pain in general!

Easing the pain of vulvodynia - A UBC interview with the MVP Program

http://www.youtube.com/v/AnIr9_7M05I?version=3&autohide=1&showinfo=1&feature=share&autoplay=1&autohide=1&attribution_tag=Fi3ZWuHMNEnny8QgzyTgYg

Short video, but their website is informative!

Found this funny video: "Painful Sex vs. 'Normal' Sex: The Differences Explained With Food"

http://youtu.be/IKbaNPGIamQ

Kind of cute haha, not a lot of solutions in the video, but an interesting way of explaining it for sure!

Skin Care Recommendations to Relieve Symptoms

                At the end of my assessment appointment I was given this sheet of skin care recommendations that may or may not relive some symptoms, maybe they’ll help you girls out, here they are:

1.       Avoid chemicals that might irritate the vulvar skin (i.e. soaps, douches, perfumes, over the counter vaginal preparations or feminine hygiene spray)

2.       Use soap substitutes such as gentle cleansers that are “hypoallergenic” (ex. Cetaphil, Dove or Aveeno brands)

3.       Do not use fabric softeners in your pants and underwear loads of laundry

4.       Do not use synthetic panty liners for menstruation or daily wear – most pharmacy’s or drug stores sell an all-natural brand that doesn’t dry out your vulvar skin (ex. Natracare pads), or you can purchase reusable cotton pads (can buy from health food stores, gladrags.com or lunapads.com). You could also try a menstrual cup (ex. DivaCup, Keeper Cup [rubber product] or Moon Cup [silicone cup].

5.       Avoid contact with synthetic material – only wear cotton underwear and pantyhose with cotton panels

6.       Wear loose clothing that allows air circulation. Try to sleep without underwear as many nights a week as you can

7.       Use a sexual lubricant before and during intercourse as needed (i.e. personal lubricants in liquid form; ex. Astroglide, KY Sensual Silk, O My Lubricant). Do no use a gel lubricant.

8.       Use a moisturizer on vulvar skin after showering (ex. Clinaderm, Lubriderm, Glaxal base or Replens [a good moisturizer that can also be used as lubricant])

9.       Use Vaseline jelly or Penaten cream on sensitive vulvar skin areas as a protective barrier

When your vulva is hurting:

1.       If you only have mild discomfort with sexual intercourse, apply a numbing/freezing gel to the vestibule 5 minutes before intercourse (ex. Xylocaine 2%)

2.       After intercourse, sit on toilet or in bath tub and pour cool water over vulva. Can even apply a cold ice or gel pack to the vulva for 5 minutes.

3.       Do not scratch the vulvar skin. If itchiness is a problem, try to rinse off your vulva then use an ice pack, apply a moisturizer or a barrier gel/cream.

4.       If you’re experiencing pain while urinating, try rinsing during or after urination. If it’s too painful to urinate on the toilet, try sitting in a bath and urinating (the bath water will dilute the acidic urine and make it more comfortable)

Hope these tips help some of you out! I can tell you that the most useful tips for me have been: use of a barrier cream, no bubble/Epsom salt baths, using Xylocaine if I have to wear tight pants of underwear that sometimes causes pain, only wearing cotton underwear, and for sure investing in the Natracare pads! Before, I was just using whatever pad was on sale at the drug store or Wal-Mart or wherever, and my vulvar skin would become so dry, itchy, red and irritated; I haven’t experienced any of these symptoms with the Natracare pads, although I will sometimes also use a barrier cream (petroleum jelly). These tips won’t remove your major pain symptoms, but they definitely help with the unprovoked pains and the continuous discomfort we experience daily.

In the comments, leave your own tips and tricks that have helped relieve your daily discomfort!

Third visit with Physio!

                First off, Happy Halloween! What a way to start mine off, with an 8:00am physiotherapist appointment! Oooooh scary.

                But actually! It wasn’t too bad today. We got started on the fascial tissue massage on my thighs, and at first it was uncomfortable, but I did some deep breathing and really forced myself to relax, and to my surprise, I started to feel a sensation in certain parts where she was massaging, like a string being pulled at each end and then slacking. I suppose that would be the tension being released! It was an odd feeling, not a pleasant feeling, but definitely not painful or uncomfortable.

                After my thighs she started to massage my buttocks (might be surprising for some, but I’m pretty used to random people seeing all my lower bits and pieces at this point). This was surprisingly not as uncomfortable as the leg massages and I feel like, I actually felt some of the tension release in my frontal-lower abdomen!

                Finally she massaged one of my calves, which was pretty uncomfortable, and so she ended our appointment there. She then dropped a somewhat scary (yay for Halloween) bomb on me, by saying that in two weeks she’d be trying some eletro-biofeedback stimulation. I immediately tensed up, knowing that usually EEG biofeedback is usually done with a probe inserted into the vagina, holy moly no thank you. She quickly said that some physio’s use a probe, but she does not, she uses an exterior patch and it’s non-invasive – phew! Not so scary after all, but still a little nervous to see what that’ll be like, my first experience with EEG biofeedback, I’ll be excited to write all that up for you guys! ;)

                Edit: for a couple hours after the appointment, I noticed a tingling around my vulva and deep inside I believe where my pelvis is, and also in my lower right abdomen. Not uncomfortable or painful, but tingling.

  

                Today’s total: $40.00

                Grand Physiotherapy total: $170.00

Second visit with Physiotherapist

                On Thursday I had my second physiotherapy appointment, we tried the myofascial tissue massage on my thighs again (which is all we did during the first appointment as well). The idea is to start massaging the trigger points that may cause pain. The trigger points are areas where a lot of our stress builds up. My first appointment was extremely painful, I was told my legs might bruise. They didn’t, but they felt bruised, actually… they felt like someone had punched my legs for four hours straight, they were tender for three days afterwards.

                This time was much more pleasant. She uses a rolling motion on my muscles with her hands, and she focuses on only one small area at a time. These techniques can be done at home, although I found it really difficult because honestly, who likes hurting themselves? I started small, with gentle massaging, just getting used to my own touch on my thighs. Apparently it’s supposed to hurt at first, stretching the fascia tissue and muscles, especially the trigger points which are so short and tight from stress. Fascia tissue gets sticky when tense, and sticks to our muscle fibers, and pulling them back apart from each other starts off as pretty uncomfortable, but it’s nice to know everything’s getting put back in the place it belongs in my body.

                I’m not certain how it’s supposed to help with my vulvodynia pains, other than releasing some stress points. She loaned me a book called “A headache in the pelvis” by David Wise and Rodney Anderson. A great read, although a little biased. But according to this book, supposedly there could be some trigger points inside my vagina, and the pelvic physiotherapist will eventually insert her finger to try and find and release trigger points inside. I am definitely NOT excited for this. It’ll be interesting to see if I find anything significant just from my legs being massaged/released, although I won’t know for sure as the CBT told me not to do anything more than a 3/10 on the pain scale.

                The book also talked about the pain-anxiety cycle: you are stressed or have anxiety which builds up in your trigger points, which causes pain, and therefore causing more stress and anxiety and the cycle repeats itself. Obviously breaking this cycle is hard, especially when I even find the fascial massage painful and get stressed and anxious about it!

                I believe these are the kinds of things I’ll be working on with the sexual cognitive behavioural therapist, how to change the way I think about my pain and how to reduce the pain and anxiety.

                At least we’re doing something though instead of sitting around not understanding my pain! Something’s got to help eventually :)

First Visit with Sexual Psychologist - Oct. 17

                First visit with my new sexual psychologist (cognitive behavioural therapist). Unfortunately, I was ten minutes late to a fifty minute appointment, so it went pretty quickly! Mostly an introduction, did we think we’d be a good fit for each other, and a new explanation to vulvodynia no one has been able to offer me before!

                She explained it by comparing my neural pathways to fire alarms, a normal fire alarm is there to tell us when there is a major fire in our house that is dangerous. Sometimes you get a really sensitive fire alarm that goes off every time you use the toaster, for women with vulvodynia it’s like they have five of these sensitive alarms above their toasters, there’s no real danger even though they sense there is.

                Another thing she explained to me was how bad white knuckling through the pain could be (as I’m sure many of you and I used to do). When something is painful, that’s our body and brains way of saying so not do that. Our bodies and brains start off by telling us not to stimulate our vulvas or vaginas (for whatever reason – there is a theory I’ll discuss next) by making it painful, but if we continue to push through the pain and stimulate on multiple occasions, our brain kind of says “she’s not listening, let’s make some more neural pathways,” which unfortunately for us, makes stimulation even MORE painful. Ugh. So my therapist has suggested not to do anything that causes more than a 3/10 on the pain scale (0 being no pain at all and 10 being like hospitalized pain).

                Why does our brain make us think something that shouldn’t be painful, painful!? The theory (only a theory, no experimental proof, or significant studies yet) involves stress (surprise!). It’s been noticed that a lot of women with provoked vulvodynia (PVD) have a lot of internal stress (internal stress wasn’t explained to me too well, but I believe it has less to do with life stresses and more about how you think about them and internalize your life stresses… I think), and the body’s way of trying to relieve some stress in by trying to prevent you from stressing certain parts of your body, and it starts with your vagina and can sometimes even spread to other parts of your body. The theory falls through for women like me, who have been diagnosed with primary vestibulodynia (vulvodynia), or women who were born with the condition.

                She did assign me a bit of homework in the end too, mostly just making a quick write up about my life, things I would do if I had no pain and things I avoid because of my pain. So all in all, a very informative session, and I will definitely be returning to see her in a couple weeks!

Money spent today on psychologist: $150.00

Travel Expenses today: $165.00

Total expenses today: $315.00

Total Psychologist fees up until today (not including travel expenses): $150.00