People often ask if sexual trauma is at the root of dyspareunia (pelvic & vaginal pain). It is not simple because every person is different.
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The Psychological Side of Vaginismus
“I feel broken.” While no two patients are the same, that refrain is one of the most common we hear at Maze from those who struggle with vaginismus. Vaginismus is a condition experienced by individuals with female sex organs and is marked by an involuntary tightness of the vagina during penetration. There are different stages …
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What Is Your Ask?
Many women who have been treated for vaginismus often experience a new set of emotions that they had previously never felt. A recent patient at Maze Women’s Health had a successful outcome in treating her vaginismus. She then realized that in a certain way, the vaginismus, pre-treatment, had served to protect her. How so you …
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Vibrators and Vaginismus
Besides starting with a V, most people would probably say that vibrators and vaginismus really have nothing to do with each other. But I’m here to tell you otherwise. Usually when we think of vibrators, we think of the models that go inside a vagina and, as a result, we don’t usually think of them …
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Vaginismus and the Single Girl
Vaginismus is a condition where the pelvic floor muscles surrounding the vagina involuntarily spasm. This makes penetration of any kind painful, difficult or seemingly impossible. There tends to be a fear component as well. Searching for the reason you have vaginismus is usually pointless. What’s not pointless is getting treatment because it’s very treatable. It …
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Why does tensing your body during sex cause more pain?
This is something many women have experienced. Sometimes it is a response to something that happened in the past where you experienced pain. (It could be something you don’t even remember.) On some level, it caused you a bit of anxiety because you were fearful it would happen again or that it would hurt even …
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Post-Menopausal Pain
Many women who come into our center feel as if they’re alone with their issues, or that we’ve never heard of their situation before. In reality, many questions and symptoms we hear from our patients are very similar to the next person! Here is one question we hear quite often from post-menopausal women: “Sex with my partner …
Continue ReadingPain in the “V”.
Pain inside or around the vagina is a common complaint from our patients. Many of our patients have visited several medical providers with no answers. Vaginal pain can be an extremely disruptive and debilitating condition. If you google vaginal pain you’ll often come across different conditions that start with the letter “V”. Vaginismus, Vulvodynia, Vestibulodynia …
Continue ReadingYou are NOT crazy — really!
I had a medical appointment recently that made me understand my patients so much better. For the past year and a half, I’ve been having some weird medical symptoms that have been making me miserable. I’m in pain often, but the pain moved around and was somewhat hard to define to doctors. I spent the …
Continue ReadingInspiration.
I am often inspired by my patients, by their courage to face their issues, by their commitment to the process of getting better and often by their fearlessness to do things that are completely foreign and that make them feel incredibly uncomfortable. I saw a patient yesterday who did all of the above. When we …
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