Tag: Women’s Health

  • Admitting Defeat? #Periodically 26

    Admitting Defeat? #Periodically 26

    Technically speaking, it’s been almost two months since I last shared a personal update on my tricky situation. Why the hiatus? I’m not sure. I guess my oversharing side took a backseat and I decided, for the first time in a year, to just dwell on things in private. When I write these blogs I poke fun at my situation and force myself end on a positive note. By not writing about it, I’ve had a lapse in perspective and lost my sense of humour about it all.

    Also, the longer I left it the more there was to cover and now I’m not entirely sure where to start. With the good news, perhaps?

    The Third Pill Pack

    So I had a painless period. I don’t mean that to sound so nonchalant – it was a huge deal. I was scared to mention it in case I jinxed it. In fact, the painlessness continued for a couple of weeks after that. I was nervous to admit it. Had three months on the pill really fixed things so quickly and completely? No, was the answer.

    A few days before my next cycle I started to get some of my old pain, mostly the stuff that’s localised to my right side and gets dramatically worse every time I use my right leg. My PMS has been considerably worse since I’ve been on the pill but I’ve also noticed a dramatic drop in my mood the moment I am in pain. This didn’t used to happen. While I wait to sort out psychosexual counselling I’ve just got a standard counsellor for now, and since she can’t help as much with the vaginismus stuff, she’s doing her best to help me counter pain-induced mood swings.

    Around this time, my skin decided that a little acne on the pill would no longer do and broke out into the longest, most relentless bout of acne that I’ve had since puberty. Fab.

    The Fourth Pill Pack

    Old habits die hard, and the painful/grumpy premenstrual days foreshadowed a painful period. My periods are definitely less painful, lighter and generally better than they were before the pill and for the last few bleeds I’ve got away without painkillers, which is another huge victory. What was frustrating however, was that after my period ended, the pain didn’t. I wasn’t all that upset at first because I had a follow up scan a few days after and, as always, I applied the logic that if I was in pain then the scan might pick something up. I had built up to this particular scan more than normal because it was a big deal — if the internal ultrasound showed up clear then the chances were that my gynaecologist would declare that the pill had cured me and discharge me from his care. No pressure then, ovaries.

    When I got to the hospital though, there was no one there. It was a bank holiday and the hospital was closed. I had raised my eyebrows when I got the appointment months ago, but I didn’t question it since it had been outsourced to a private healthcare provider. That was a mistake. I wanted the scan to be that week because if the pill has “fixed” me in the sense that I now grow a cyst in my pill-free week and then it gradually goes away over the three weeks on the pill, then it’s not a particularly thorough fix. Having the scan a few days after my period and being in pain was the best possible time to catch *something* in the act. There’s also the added complication that having vaginismus, even though mine is manageable, means that I have to psych myself up for a transvaginal scan.

    The let down from not having the scan was pretty bad. I was upset. What didn’t help was that the bulging pain in my side continued to get worse and worse and was accompanied by some delightful bloating, only convincing me further that if I’d had the scan that day, they might’ve found something. Even though my scan was rescheduled for a week later, I knew my luck would mean it was a no-go. (I was right).

    I’d been looking forward to this particular week (I had a free house, wahoo!) and was planning to cook and eat and write and exercise (more on that another time) but I was in so much pain, riddled with some of the worst acne I’ve ever had, miserable from the non-event scan and generally very lacklustre, so I ended up regressing seven years and lolling about on Sims 2. I didn’t even read. This was all coupled with a vague work crisis, so basically it was a nightmarish shit-storm of a week.

    When I eventually had the scan it didn’t end up being an entirely negative experience. The sonographer and the chaperone were the two women who scanned me both times they found the cysts and were supportive in the fact that they knew that in cases like this, no news is not necessarily good news. Bizarrely, the sonographer, before inserting (is that any better than ‘penetrating?’ *cringe*) the device, gestured towards my vagina and asked, “are you alright with all that now?” and I WISH I had asked what she meant. Had she realised I had vaginismus way back when? I’ll never know.

    I tried to write off *that week* as a bad week and to carry on after I’d had the scan but the pain was stubborn to shift. I just felt a bit like a sick person again, lying down after dog walks and needing to catch my breath after the simplest of tasks. Pain is knackering. I think chronic pain flare-ups are always harder to handle after getting an ‘all-clear.’

    Pain Management 

    Bracing for the inevitable discharge letter from my gynae, I went to my new, new, new GP to discuss what my options were now. Five weeks or so ago I would’ve been happy with how things had improved on the pill but now I know my pain can still flare up just as much as it used to even though I’m on the pill. While the flare-ups are definitely rarer occurrences, I’m not really happy with this as an end point. There’s also the fact that the scan really hurt, penetration still hurts. It’s still intrusive and upsetting and I’d really just like to be done with it all now.

    Because of this, my GP has finally convinced me to focus on pain management. I feel like I’m admitting defeat because I really want to know what is causing my pain, plus I’m scared that if I never find the cause then the underlying problem may never shift. But honestly, I’m exhausted. Even if it’s only for a little while, pain management seems like the right thing to do, especially with the way my mood is correlating with my pain. So for now, I’m on amitriptyline, a low dose antidepressant that *may,* over time stop me feeling pain. It sounds scary and the list of side effects is TERRIFYING (spontaneous lactation?!) but I’m on such a low dose of the stuff that I’m not too worried for the time being.

    Since I’m going to be staying on the pill as part of this pain management programme, and it’s been long enough that my skin should’ve have calmed down or improved, I’m now on a new night-time gel for my acne. These two treatments combined have a load of risk factors that mean I should avoid sunlight and alcohol — fun summer 2018 for me then — but they’re not hard and fast rules. I’ve also been taking Evening Primrose Oil at my mum’s request since it used to help her PMS and acne. My PMS was particularly bad last week so I doubled my dose of EPO to no avail… worth a shot, eh?

    Let’s hope these guys can work together!

    I’ve definitely let things, pain and otherwise, get the better of me over the last few weeks, which is so frustrating because I have some really exciting things going on and coming up. I want to be able to enjoy it all, so pain management seems like the right way to go.

    Check out my latest review for A Younger Theatre here: Consent, Harold Pinter Theatre.

  • Review: It’s Only Blood – Anna Dahlqvist #Periodically 25

    Review: It’s Only Blood – Anna Dahlqvist #Periodically 25

    Last week I attended the launch of gender, sexuality and human rights journalist Anna Dahlqvist’s book It’s Only Blood: Shattering the Taboo of Menstruation. The conversations on the night, between Dahlqvist, the founder of Bloody Good Period Gabby Edlin and the audience were interesting enough, but the book itself stands out as an enlightened piece of writing about the profound impact that period taboos, period poverty and poor menstrual hygiene have on menstruators’ lives.

    The book was originally published in Swedish and has been translated into English by literary translator Alice E. Olsson. Olsson was at the launch and discussed the fun (and struggle) of translating some of the menstrual colloquialisms.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BjJ2uqLFo_-/?taken-by=baraliteblod

    It’s Only Blood is not a list of historical period myths, instead it’s a contemporary assessment of how reinforced menstrual shame continues to cause harm on a monumental scale. “Even though shame and silence are experiences shared by menstruators all over the world, the consequences become far more serious when an additional dimension is introduced: poverty,” Dahlqvist writes.

    The testimonies, many from school girls and activists from Uganda, Kenya, Bangladesh, India, America and Sweden, are combined with Dahlqvist’s research of UN legislation to highlight the fact that inaction when it comes to menstrual hygiene, education and resources means that many human rights are being violated, and yet, there’s a distinct lack of retaliation by politicians. The book is also coloured with Dahlqvist’s personal anecdotes and descriptions, which makes this serious book palatable – it’s rare to get a non-fiction book that you can’t put down.

    “Power over the period is a necessity, a precondition for participation in public life,” Dahlqvist writes, in reference to the serious social and educational issues poor menstrual hygiene can bring about. When school girls don’t have access to running water or locking doors, their options are rather bleak. If they bleed in public they’ll experience immense shame (the weight of which is only heavier when menstrual myths maintain that seeing or touching menstrual blood is bad luck), returning home to secretly clean and change a cloth at lunchtime, avoiding school entirely or hoping, at risk of infection, that one cloth or pad can survive a whole school day. Unsurprisingly, this has a profound and direct impact on their education. The book also explores how, contrary to popular opinion, these problems don’t go away as menstruators leave school.

    One particularly interesting part of It’s Only Blood is the connection Dahlqvist draws attention to between infections, like UTIs and Bacterial Vaginosis, which can be caused by poor menstrual hygiene, with HIV and HPV (leading to Cervical Cancer). Society, including period product providers, encourages menstruators to aspire to be clean and fresh while simultaneously not letting anyone around them know that they are bleeding. With all this shame and secrecy, it’s no surprise then that students in Malawi dry their menstrual protection under their mattresses or that in Bangladesh, one women hides her cloths in the roof, rather than drying them in sterilising sunlight. It’s a public health issue, why aren’t we treating it as such?

    Not only is Dahlqvist’s book intersectional in the stories that it tells, it also covers the intersections of menstrual hygiene with poverty, politics, commercial business and cultural and social stigmas. If you’re already active in combatting period poverty It’s Only Blood will spur you on and if you’re new to the discussion, the book will motivate you to join the ranks. Activists’ stories of feats large and small show how desperately change is needed, but also how in some cases, how little it takes to dramatically improve things.

    It’s Only Blood perfectly showcases how menstrual shame causes problems for everyone and why shattering the taboos will undoubtedly improve individuals’ lives and society in broader terms.

    Buy It’s Only Blood from Wordery by clicking here.

  • My Vaginismus & the Vaginismus Network #Periodically 23

    My Vaginismus & the Vaginismus Network #Periodically 23

    I had a different blog planned for this week but after a rather special evening on Friday I’ve had a change of heart. Today I want to talk about something I’ve only touched upon before – Vaginismus. 

    In #Periodically 18 – “Can I examine you?” – I spoke about how my gynaecologist had informed me that as well as the unidentified shit storm working its way through my womb that I had now also developed a “superficial problem” – vaginismus. But that’s the first and last time I mentioned it. Since then, I’ve turned the blog’s focus towards the hormonal adventure I’m going on in an attempt to resolve the internal issues. Given that #Periodically is a blog where I very graphically talk about the inner workings of my reproductive system, why did I stop talking about vaginismus? It was a diagnosis I was neither expecting nor knew much about, but when I started #Periodically I wrote, “I don’t want to write about it after the fact, because after the fact might not be for a long time. I want to write about it while it is happening.” The same is true for vaginismus, so let’s do that. Today I want to talk about vaginismus, what it is and how an evening with a group of extraordinary women at the Vaginismus Network completely transformed my feelings towards it.

    Vaginismus is the uncontrollable clenching of muscles in and around the vagina upon penetration. It can be compared to shutting your eye if someone tries to stick something in it. It’s a reflex, a physical reaction and not one that you have any direct control over. Most of the time it results in penetration, whether that’s a finger, a cotton bud, a speculum or a penis, being impossible and/or incredibly painful.

    The pelvic examination where my gynaecologist noticed I had vaginismus was painful and uncomfortable, more so than normal. When he said that I had vaginismus I was surprised because I don’t think it’s something I’ve regularly experienced during sex. I can think of one, maybe two occasions where I now think “oh, is that what was happening there?” It’s probably also relevant to note than this was nine months after I stopped having sex, for a variety of reasons, including the fact my deep dyspareunia (sex that hurts deep inside) was too much to handle, physically and otherwise.

    This means I developed vaginismus after having had normal and healthy (sort of) penetrative sex in the past. On Friday, I learnt that there’s a word for this too – “secondary vaginismus”. Many who suffer from vaginismus have never been able to endure let alone enjoy penetration, going overdue for pap smears and not being able to use tampons – this is primary vaginismus.

    My gynae gave me the news and said I would need therapy, physio and maybe anti-depressants. In reality he only referred me for therapy, which I started last week after a four month wait. I’m still not having sex but I have had the displeasure of noticing vaginismus on my own for the first time. Why? Menstrual cups! Just when I thought I had mastered them, something bloody well changed. There I was, cup in hand and sort of in vagina. As I tried to get it in place I experienced that horrendous, breathtaking pain for the first time since I last had an internal ultrasound or sex. I immediately removed the cup, steadied myself and caught my breath. When I tried again, lo-and-behold my vagina was closed for business. Rock solid and painful, nothing was getting in there. So it was nickers down, on the loo with a menstrual cup in one hand that I had my first personal encounter with vaginismus.

    Like I said, I have only just started counselling, so I’m at the beginning of a weird “journey” to discover why my body is doing this and how I can stop it, but I personally think that what I’m displaying is “harm avoidance behaviour”. My vagina is closing to prevent further pain inside – it’s quite clever really. There are of course other reasons it could be happening, from the whiplash I’ve experienced from surgery to ultrasounds (all of which have involved something entering my poor vagina) to something I haven’t even realised yet. It does add a further complication to my situation though. As my GP(s) and I concentrate on finding a solution to the internal pain worsened by penetrative sex, I now have to deal with the very real possibility that if and when I next try to have sex, it might not be able to happen. Man, that’s piling a lot of pressure on any future relationships I may have!

    I am lucky in so many ways. My vaginismus is secondary, meaning I know that sex can be a positive experience and that my vagina is, or at least once was, capable of opening. My vaginismus being secondary also means that I have a definitive time span in which to search for what changed to trigger my vaginismus. My vaginismus is apparently sporadic, or it only happens when there’s serious internal pain, meaning that most of the time I can use menstrual cups – tampons pose something of a different challenge, however. It’s likely that my vaginismus will be triggered by sex, but since I’m not currently dating or having sex it’s not a problem I have to deal with at the moment. I have time.

    On Friday I attended the Vaginismus Network’s first meet up in London. I didn’t know what to expect when I walked into the Sh! Women’s Erotic Emporium, but what I found was a room full to the brim with brilliant women who happened to have vaginismus. For most people there, including me, it was their first time meeting others with vaginismus. What was really empowering about the event was that as united we were with the spasming of our vaginas, everyone was completely unique in their experience, not only of the condition but of life, work and relationships. Vaginismus can affect anyone with a vagina, it holds no prejudices. For some it’s easy to pin point what causes vaginismus, for others it’s easy to speculate (like me) and for a few there’s literally no obvious reason why it’s happening, which can make recovery all the more tedious and complicated. Founders Lisa and Kat have created something incredible. As you know, I attend my fair share of female health related events and talks, but this was different. It was like being at the start of a revolution. Some of the ideas being spitballed at the event could be game-changing. It’s certainly spurred me on with that “secret” project I’ve been working on lately.

    In my very limited experience with vaginismus, the impression I’ve so far got from discussions about it (with people who have no experience of the condition or even having a vagina) is that it’s a case of women needing to relax, to lighten up or to be less uptight. Holy moly it felt good to bitch about those judgements with people who really got it. And the truth is, now that a few of us know that we’re not alone in our thoughts on vaginismus, we know that we have to go out and talk about it – otherwise no one is ever going to understand, let alone start researching the damn thing. Friday night saw a barrier come down, so while our vaginas might not want to open, now at least we can open our mouths to talk about vaginismus.

    My experience is new and manageable for the time being, but for many of the people I met on Friday, this is not the case. I am so grateful to have found a group like the Vaginismus Network so early on, imagine what could change if the same was true for everyone? A huge thank you to Lisa, Kat, the inspirational and hilarious psychosexual therapist Sarah Berry and the Sh! Women’s Erotic Emporium for creating such a safe, supportive and fun environment – you’ve already made a difference bigger than you know. Keep an eye on the Vaginismus Network – it’s one to watch for sure.