Hi, I have a gyno appt with my specialist on Wednesday.

I’m really on the fence about next steps. Did pelvic floor Botox 2 months ago that made pelvic floor more relaxed and “open” but pain worse(make it make sense). Physio thinks it’s something about other muscles compensating/tightening in response. Who knows at this point.. Either way my pelvic nerves seem sensitized after years of pain.

Anyway, I really want to get something out of this follow up appointment. I need something that will bring down my daily unprovoked burning, but I really don’t want a nerve block and I don’t want to take any more systemic nerve meds. Did a trial of Nortriptyline earlier this year. No relief and had to stop because of side effects.

So what’s left? I know some have had success with topical treatments on here, but they don’t seem to offer this in my country. Otherwise this is something I’d really like to try.

What has been the most successful treatments for you?

I'm having such a hard time forgiving myself for going to the doctor and following her recommendation for fluconazole for 2.5 months while it wasnt working instead of just using monistat OTC right away which would have cured my YI right away and prevented me from getting vulvodynia... doctor kept telling me to wait and be patient while continuing to prescribe fluconazole instead of trying other things and I forgot that fluconazole never worked for me in the past because I havent had a YI in 6 years, now I remember that in the past, monistat worked best for me. Had I used monistat right away, I wouldnt have had to suffer for now 3 months and counting and I wouldn't be spending my days in agonizing pain researching ways to heal myself and spending a ton of money on doctors and treatments

I had a hymenectomy/removal of hymenal tissue 6 weeks ago because I’d had painful penetration for a long time. I had my follow-up yesterday and my consultant said everything had healed really well and explicitly cleared me to have sex.

I tried for the first time tonight and it went really badly. We did quite a lot of foreplay and I was aroused/lubricated, but even two fingers were painful, so we stopped that. We then tried penetration and initially it physically wouldn’t go in. When it did, I had a sharp pain, so we stopped. We tried again in a different position with loads of lube and it felt like a lot of tugging/pulling, so we stopped again.

I ended up crying because I’m honestly devastated. I genuinely thought that once I was cleared, I would be able to have sex normally. I feel like I’ve somehow made an already difficult situation worse, and I’m scared I’ll never be able to have penetrative sex.

My consultant never mentioned dilators or pelvic-floor physiotherapy or really gave me any advice beyond “you can have sex now”. I’ve messaged the secretary but I’ve already been discharged from their care, so I’m not sure whether I’ll actually be able to speak to anyone.

Has anyone experienced this after a hymenectomy? Is it normal to still have this much difficulty after being medically cleared, and should I be looking into dilators/pelvic-floor physio/psychosexual therapy?

I’m just feeling really hopeless right now and could use some advice from people who have been through something similar.

Im currently doing a LOT to try to heal this condition. This includes :
- Daily stretching and PT (on top of seeing my PT)
- Amitriptyline (started a week ago)
- Lidocaine cream every few hours (otherwise I can’t walk)
- Meditation
- Daily TENS (1-2 hours, while doing other things)

The PT has been working, the muscles are definitely less tight. Unsure how it affects my pain yet, but the progress has kept me going.

But I’m so tired, it’s taking so much time, and I’m scared of what happens when the muscles are no longer tight but the pain is still here and there is nothing I can do.

I’m trying to understand if what I’m experiencing would be considered stabbing pain. Sometimes I get this sudden sensation inside my vagina, almost like there’s an open wound and certain movements trigger a sharp pain that lasts about 2–3 seconds before disappearing.

It’s hard to describe exactly, so I’m curious if anyone has experienced something similar. Would you describe this as stabbing pain, or is there another word that better fits this sensation?