Reply To: Realizing I had vaginismus and figuring out next steps?

[Persevere]

Hi ktc515,

For 2 years, I faced the same problems as you described. I can resonate with most of the things you mentioned in your post. I was also a very sexual kind of person but my body betrayed me every time I wanted to have intercourse with my husband. I had excruciating pain and my husband said he felt like there was a wall. I could not understand what was happening to me and lost all hope and then found this forum which gave me back my sexual autonomy in the sense that now I have control over my vagina.

There are experts in the group who can guide you much better than me. As a cured patient of vaginismus who now has normal sexual intercourse, I would definitely recommend dilation for you. You can purchase any set of dilators that you are comfortable with and try working your way up from there. It took me 5 months from the first size dilator to progress to normal pain free intercourse. The pain you feel during vaginismus is because some of the muscles down there are too tight. With progressive dilation, these muscles will gradually become less tighter until they will allow full penetration.

In my case, I had both physical pain and anxiety during any attempts to dilate or have intercourse. I am not sure whether the pain caused anxiety or was it the other way round. However, as you’ll move through dilation, not only will your muscles relax but your anxiety will reduce as well. The key is to never push through it. Listen to your body. Only when it is comfortable with a dilator, move on to the next size. Otherwise, keep on dilating. When you’ll dilate, you’ll feel a little bit of burning down there. That is completely normal as it is your muscles working out.

Vaginismus can definitely be cured and I disagree with the advice your doctor gave you as someone who got cured from it. If you have any other question, you can always post here. Best of luck for your treatment and I hope one day you’ll be able to experience pain-free sexual intercourse like me 🙂