Disclaimer: I am sick while writing this, and I did not proofread, so this is raw, authentic, unfiltered me!
Well, it’s been almost a year since my last blog post, so I thought it was time for an update. And, I have exciting news! Last week I had my first visit with a pelvic floor physio. This appointment was months in the making, since my summer job and university schedule prevented it from happening sooner. But at last, the day was here!
I felt super super nervous going in to the building. I’d spent all morning mentally preparing myself for the certainty that she was probably going to have to give me a physical examination, which meant poking around a bit, which meant pain. I felt beyond ready, though.
The physio worked in this tiny little office in a much bigger health centre. She was nice but serious, and I spent the whole session trying to make her laugh before finally succeeding towards the end.
The session started with her asking a bunch of questions about my health. Not the normal questions your doctor would ask. She wanted to know if sitting down hurt, if I peed a little bit when I sneezed, and “which one of these images does your poo look the most like?” Normally I don’t mind oversharing, but I honestly couldn’t even answer that last question.
Then, yeah, she examined me “down under” (after asking me if it was okay, of course). The first thing she noticed, before she even looked at my cooch, was that I wasn’t breathing correctly. I might have just been nervous, but she pointed out that I was breathing with my chest, rather than my stomach. This was the first sign of what diagnosis was to come.
Then she tried to measure how much my pelvic floor muscles moved. She asked me to relax them as best I could, then move them like I was trying to pee, and then pretend I was holding in a fart. Her results: pretty much zero movement. My muscles were so tense all the time that I couldn’t flex them any further. And she did the classic move of poking around a bit, which naturally hurt like hell.
I just want to take a second to describe what vaginismus feels like. I’ve never gotten an IUD, for obvious reasons, but I imagine they feel pretty similar. It’s a sharp pain, like a stabbing or tearing sensation. I always think it feels like being ripped open. Afterwards, I told the physio that I felt “rearranged”, which understandably concerned her. But I’m getting ahead of myself now.
So after a bit of poking and prodding, the physio had a eureka moment, and started poking my stomach. Surprisingly, that also hurt. I’ve always felt really uncomfortable with things touching my thighs and stomach, so I guess it makes sense. It’s not my vagina that’s the problem after all, it’s my stomach! Turns out I’ve been tensing up my stomach (I suspect so I look skinnier) and that has in turn tensed up my pelvic floor. Bingo!
So I left the physio with my newfound knowledge and some tips about how to breathe properly and stretch out my stomach and pelvic floor. I’ve already noticed that my stomach sticks out a bit more, which will take some getting used to since I’ve always been insecure about being chubby, but at this point I’m too happy to mind.
Final thoughts? Expensive, but worth it. Unfortunately ACC doesn’t cover physio like they do counselling, so I had to pay the whole $150 out of pocket, which the physio was just as mad about as I was. This will be a pricey journey, and she was the cheapest physio I could find!
I’m also kind of glad that I’m single right now (don’t worry, my boyfriend didn’t leave me for a girl who didn’t have vaginismus). My physio said it’s good to be able to take your time with this, and not feel any sort of pressure from your partner. I don’t think I’ll start dating again for a while. It’s time for me to focus on myself.
Kyla Forbes-Kean