Secret Suffering - A resource community for women who experience pelvic and sexual pain

Secret Suffering is about sex. But it’s not a “sex site.” However, I need to talk about something I’ve never heard anyone mention, including doctors and my own PT. So here goes.

First, let me say that I feel so lucky to have found a PT in Florida who performs pelvic floor physical therapy and has treated IC and sexual pain patients for years. She also treats any kind of chronic and acute pain as all PTs do. She works in a podiatrist’s office, in the back room. Kind of funny to me. All these seniors getting their calluses shaved and their ingrown toenails clipped while my most personal of body parts receive treatment. Though I must admit that my feet have always embarrassed me, due to my extended second toe. But I digress.

It seemed an uncomfortable idea to begin with. Someone, a stranger, touching me “down there.” Actually using her fingers to press on painful trigger points to release them, just like in my shoulder … only in, well, ok, I’ll just say it, in my vagina. Not to mention, I’ve heard that these specialized PTs sometimes use a dilator, which is, to me, just another name for a dildo, raising my anxiety level even higher.

But I’ve been interviewing these specialists for the book and they are all dedicated women passionate about helping other women find long-lasting relief from their pain, and very serious when discussing their work.

And just about every doctor I’ve interviewed, including some of the top experts in the field of pelvic pain, have insisted that pelvic floor physical therapy is an integral part of any successful sexual pain treatment plan.

So, I went to see the PT. The first session lasted two hours. I ended up feeling very comfortable. Plus, the loud whirring of the callous remover in the next room was somehow soothing and reassuring. Of course, I was still fully clothed and all of the treatment still theoretical.

She first checked out my back. Then she had me sit on her hand and pressed some points in my back. I was astonished to feel the pain IN MY BACK radiate directly into my pelvis! She really worked the trigger point and the pain subsided. Amazing. I felt comforted.

She hooked me up to this biofeedback machine and had me do kegels, which showed my pelvis completely tight. In fact, I was way up there even lying still. (After working on me, by the way, my pelvis was nearly at the normal relaxed level.)

Now, I’m going to be a graphic here, but if not, there’s no point to my post.

Off came my pants and she had me lie spread-eagle on the table, naked from the waist down. She was just chatting with me as we began. I’m no prude and I’m not shy, but my comfort zone was decreasing rapidly.

In she went and pressed on the exact areas where the pain during intercourse made me want to run screaming out of the room, never to let my husband come near me again. When I asked how she found then, she told me that they feel like nodules of varying types and size.

Eventually, some of the points were relieved. The first session was overwhelming. But I was a believer. Which brings me to the second session.

I was more relaxed walking in. Pretty quickly I was on the table. And here’s where the trouble began. I can only speak for myself, but I was there to find relief not only for my day-to-day living … but so I can have pain-free intercourse with my husband. So I don’t feel like there are hot pokers and burning sandpaper and knives tearing me to bits when he is inside of me.

So, the point is to have my vagina feel good, right? This time, the points released more. And she could dig deeper inside my body. A few times it felt like her arm was touching my clitoris. And I nearly shouted at her to move her arm away. I was unnerved.

It felt good. Sexual sensations welled up inside of me.

The PT did nothing wrong. Nothing different from the last session.

But my mind said it shouldn’t feel good. After I left, days later, I thought about it, uh, not in the way that was most appropriate as far as I was concerned.

I have never had a lesbian experience (not a judgement, just a fact). This isn’t about being gay. Well, I suppose in some sense it is because the sexual feelings were based on a woman’s touch. At the age of almost 53, it was not of great comfort to have the issue of my own sexuality come into question. But it was more about this intimacy and sexual arousal with someone other than my husband.

I freaked out. A lot. However, what I have learned through years of recovery from food addiction is that to keep such things a secret, not to talk about them, is the worst thing I can do.

But I was sure not going back to see her.

I finally talked to my husband. Just flat out said that maybe I was gay because it felt good. Then, I asked him to go with me and learn how to do this to me, himself.

My husband, despite the fact that we have a very uninhibited sex life so it’s not like his fingers haven’t been in there, was not willing. Just didn’t even want to entertain the idea of therapeutic trigger point therapy inside of my vagina.

He said, the PT is a professional and I should discuss it with her, and if I feel those sensations, not to panic because it’s part of the treatment.

I was aghast. Apparently, he wasn’t afraid of losing me to the PT.

Then, I spoke to my doctor. And to some of the experts. I asked them if anyone had ever mentioned this. The answer was a big, fat no. Well, either they weren’t talking or women weren’t experiencing such things and I was the only one who ever felt this way. Well, that sucked.

However, my doctor echoed exactly what my husband said, which annoyed me to no end. He absolutely felt it was ok to feel these sensations. He told me that I needed to go back and talk to her about my feelings.

So I went back. I sat down and immediately burst into a long-winded, one long sentence, emotional outburst that lasted about five minutes.

Her reaction was interesting. She laughed. She wasn’t insulted. She was kind and understanding. For one thing, she said she’d never had anyone tell her that, which made her wonder about patients who stopped treatment, because they wouldn’t necessarily give her an explanation. For another, she showed me the notes she sent to my doctor, and pointed out where she mentioned my telling her to move her arm … and that she had been leaning on the perineum, not touching my clitoris at all.

We talked through it for over an hour. And I felt much, much better about it all. So we had our third session.

But this time, we worked on my shoulder. And at the end, it felt much, much better too.

I’ll keep you updated on my progress … with all parts of my body.

Note: I really want to hear from you about your own experience with pelvic floor physical therapy.