Re: Vaginismus in peri and postmenopausal women journal article

[Elizabeth]

I found it to be a VERY sensitive subject for me to talk comfortably with my gynaecologist about. Part of the problem for me at the time was I was trying to talk about the most intimate aspects of my husband and my sex life and I was looking at a male doctor and one much younger than me too!! I was able to tell him I had extreme pain with intercourse and he prescribed an estrogen suppository to use twice a week. This of course didn’t help as I had vaginismus but didn’t know it yet. The next couple of visits I became more desperate and determined and started giving him more details. One of them being that it had reached the point where any penetration was usually impossible due to the pain. This doctor did eventually diagnose me with vaginismus. He gave me a pamphlet from vaginismus. com and then sent me along my way as he was not able to help me further himself. I then found a good physiotherapist and then Dr. Pacik’s website.

Questions the gynaecologist could’ve asked me to speed up my diagnosis: describe your pain; while attempting intercourse, describe your anxiety level on a scale of 1 – 10; is your partner able to achieve any penetration and if so, how much.

What may be helpful to others to do before their doctor’s appointment would be to jot down on a piece of paper details you want the doctor to know about but feel you may forget to mention and/or are too embarrassed to discuss with him/her. Take the paper with you so you won’t forget any important points, or pass the paper to your doctor to read……whatever it takes! Hope this is helpful! 🙂