[60istheNewfifty]

First, let me say I am sorry you went to a medical professional for help and ended up feeling badly about yourself. I am not very adept at comforting others, but please believe me when I say that is my intention here. I hope you are able to use the situation as a learning tool to help you become a stronger advocate for your health. I do know exactly how you felt, I had a similar issue and outcome in the past. In that regard, after 42 years of going to GYN’s for various (sometimes “off the grid”) problems myself, I’d like to help you understand how doctors think. Not saying it’s wrong or right, just saying that understanding them is a tool you can use to help yourself. Does my mechanic need to know that I want my car’s brakes fixed so I can drive it as the getaway car after a bank robbery? Well of course not. He only needs to know that the brakes don’t work properly – and all cars have brakes and all brakes should work – so that he can wrap his mind around the facts and do his job to the best of his ability. When a doctor asks you questions of a personal nature, they are not really asking you to tell them what your emotional/social/dating life is like. They want to know about your body, as in the human organism, so that they can fix something that’s wrong or cure a disease. For a female problem, they don’t want to know what or who you are having sex with in the context of “sex”. A GYN is not a sex therapist and they will tell you that in a flying minute. (I have had some tell me they are also not nutritionists and also not “hormone specialists” either, so you have much future humiliation to look forward to around age 50). In your case he only wanted and needed to know if your body was functioning as it was designed to. Do you see what I’m getting at here? There are times when there is no need to make yourself more vulnerable than you already are. My suggestion for you would be to find another doctor and during the discussion of your issues limit the conversation to how your body is not functioning as it was designed and intended… which means, on the most basic level, it cannot be penetrated by a male body part. You might want to throw in some detail on the difficulty you had when you tried to insert the “male body part.” Don’t get into the whole hardware/toy thing… provide the facts in the context they can understand and advocate for your body in order to get the healthcare you deserve.

[60istheNewfifty]

I will take that as a “yes, I am intact.” Detaching the hymen surgically is done under anesthesia, you will never know it happened. Normally, when you have sex for the first time, the hymen detaches naturally. That’s called “losing your virginity.” For some girls it does not happen as it should, the tissue of the hymen is too tight. It is a barrier to the vagina. The surgery is actually a very old procedure that doctors of my generation still remember. I am old, so I am aware of its history. Back in the day, if a spinster (older single woman) happened to get married late in life, her doctor would suggest doing this so that her wedding night would not be painful. (This has also been documented in literature in the novel “Tim” by the late Colleen McCullough, if you would like to read about it from that point of view. Beautiful story.) And, my older cousin married for the first time at age 50. She was still a virgin and her doctor did this for her. She was able to enjoy her wedding night without trauma. Perhaps GYN’s down here in the South are a little more clued-in.

I will also tell you that I have spent over 40 years dealing with my own GYN anomalies and in 1998 asked my doctor to circumcise me. Why? I needed to take charge of my body. I was 38 at the time and had never had an orgasm during sex. I bet you didn’t know that this was a procedure either, did you? It’s not what is done in Africa, it’s a legitimate procedure to removal the excess clitoral hood covering the clitoris so that sex can produce an orgasm in the woman. It changed my life overnight and all I had to do was ask. My doctor barely blinked, I was home the same day. So I hope this will encourage you to take charge of your body and at least rule out a physical cause that very likely could be linked to your mental and emotional barriers to sex.

[60istheNewfifty]

Hi Sam786. Are you still intact? (hymen in its original place?) Your problem sounds similar to one I read about earlier this year in Israel. You may want to ask your doctor to test you for a problem with your hymen, or (since that type of testing can be tricky) just ask for it’s removal to rule that out as the cause. Sometimes the hymen can be very resistant to detaching causing pain and resulting in aversion to sex, exams, and tampons. If your hymen has not detached on it’s own there is a simple outpatient procedure that will safely detach it for you so you can get on with your life. You don’t need to suffer. I hope you will pursue this simple treatment.

[60istheNewfifty]

Thank you so much for the encouragement! But you are quite the brave young lady yourself. I can’t imagine having the obstacles you suffered from such an early age and for so long… how dreadful. So happy for you that you have achieved fulfillment while you are still young enough to really enjoy it.

As for me, I am just happy to report that I was not suffering some sort of spontaneous UTI… which, given my past history, would not have been improbable. I had UTI’s constantly for most of my sexually active years until my 40’s when for some reason it stopped. Go figure. So after 18 months with no sex whatsoever of any kind, it crossed my mind. However, my discomfort as I described subsided on its own after 48 hours. And I too am hoping a doctor will weigh in on my suspicions. If not, I can always get a pelvic exam from my GYN. Since I am on HRT now, and still have a uterus, it would be wise to do. My concern thought is he will, as he has before, tell me that my bladder is fine, there is no prolapse anywhere… and if that happens, then what the hell was going on with me after London? The mystery continues….

[60istheNewfifty]

So I am trying to get my bearings and want to be sure I’m in the right place. Is vaginismus the same as or related to menopausal vaginal atrophy? Because that is the dragon I am trying to slay and I have a few specific situations I’d like to discuss somewhere in this forum, if this is the right place.

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