About the book “Secret Suffering: How Women’s Sexual & Pelvic Pain Affects Their Relationships”
Our book, “Secret Suffering: How Women’s Sexual and Pelvic Pain Affects Their Relationships” is available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Click here to read the table of contents.
(We will be offering a weekly audio book chapter shortly. Please contact us if you are interested in being notified when the audio book is available.)
Read what the experts say about “Secret Suffering:”
Audio endorsement from Jill Osborne, President of the Interstitial Cystitis Network
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Read Jill’s full review of “Secret Suffering in her ICN E-Newsletter this month.
Dr. Judy Kuriansky, PhD, Internationally respected clinical psychologist, journalist, and radio advice host, TV commentator and adjunct faculty member in the Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology at Teacher’s College, Columbia University and in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia Medical School. She is also the author of many relationship books and professional journal articles:
Susan’s book is hard to put down. Her accounting of her experiences reads as compelling as any novel, except it is that much more powerful and heart-wrenching given that it is real. Fortunately, the horror of the condition is balanced by Susan’s honest revelations and helpful tips (64 in all). Further, her connection with her co-author, Dr. Robert J. Echenberg, an enlightened physician, led to revelations of a multi-modal treatment approach to this chronic pain condition. As a result, their book should be in the hands of all women and their partners who suffer from this condition – which a research study reported can affect up to 13 million women, of all ages and in all racial groups.
John S. McDonald, M.D., Clinical Professor and Chairman Department of Anesthesiology, Clinical Professor Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Chief of Staff Harbor UCLA Medical Center, President Professional Staff Association Harbor UCLA, Clinical Professor Department of Anesthesiology, Clinical Professor Department Obstetrics and Gynecology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles:
Wonderful thoughtful book … I enjoyed it thoroughly. I am so proud of you for taking the time and making the effort because you want to make a difference in other pain sufferers’ lives … because you have been through it all. Overall, life is about helping to make others happier and healthier. It’s important to realize that we are making progress yearly on the multi-systemed disease links and beginning to unravel the mystery of the pain pathways so that we can better block pain sensations.”
Lisa Martinez RN, JD, Executive Director, The Women’s Sexual Health Foundation:
Susan Bilheimer and Robert J. Echenberg, MD, FACOG have brought to our attention the challenges and severe frustrations of those with Chronic Pelvic Pain. The Secret Suffering will help women and men overcome many of those challenges and not feel so alone in their efforts to overcome such debilitating pain.
Below is a brief overview:
The burning inside my vagina feels like a blowtorch. – Interviewee for Secret Suffering
Feels like shards of glass during sex – Internet survey respondent.
Sex hurts.
That’s the bottom line for roughly 20% of the women in this country between the ages of eighteen and fifty.
Chronic pelvic/sexual pain is a devastating condition that can wreck marriages and destroy the self-esteem of both partners.
Secret Suffering is, first and foremost, the story of the women, and their partners, who are tormented by this condition. For too long, women who suffer have kept silent, gritting their teeth, hiding their tears, and enduring the stabbing, burning, searing pain of intercourse without breathing a word of this “shameful” syndrome to anyone. Or finally, pushed to the limit, a woman will just blurt out the truth to her partner, who is then forced to share the burden.
In a world that worships sexual gratification, with volumes written on achieving the ultimate orgasm or turning up the heat in long-standing relationships, such a situation can tear a couple apart. Below are comments from respondents to the Internet survey conducted by the authors about sexual pain and relationships.
I have been teased by ex-boyfriends, and pressured by them into sexual intercourse. I have been married and divorced, and my ex-husband made me feel guilty, and like less of a woman, for having this condition. I know my condition contributed to my divorce, though it was not the only factor. Since then, dating has been challenging, as I try to explain to potential boyfriends about the condition before we get into any kind of relationship.
This is my secret that I keep from everyone. I pretend that I’m normal with friends and lovers, particularly after the scorn I received from men early on. Once I get to know my partner then I tell them about the disease. In a relationship, I still suffer through the pain because I try to be a normal woman. I tell them that they have to be relatively quick with intercourse. Sensitive men get freaked out when you tell them that you have pain, and insensitive guys just don’t get it.
Eventually, the pain takes on a palpable presence, as if an ancient god to whom these mortals must bow and make sacrifice. Sometimes, the “Master” is beneficent, so the couple can freely express their love. At other times, like a tyrant with no mercy, each is pulled back to barely reach out and touch. The disorders that cause women to suffer pain in their private parts, the vagina, the vulva, clitoris, labia, urethra, are an insidious lot, wreaking havoc on the intimacy that keeps couples close.
The following comment is from a male Internet survey respondent.
My wife has been worn down by the many doctors who have failed her. She has basically given up trying to correct this situation. Our once heavy “chemical attraction” has been completely ruined. I am still interested … but she’s not! I have taken on every suggestion given to us … to no avail. I’m lost as to what to do. We may break up shortly after 15 years of sexual problems with painful intercourse.
Secret Suffering will be the first book to:
- Open the floodgates to expose the issue of chronic sexual pain, which tears couples apart and destroys both partners’ quality of life
- Present in-depth interviews of suffering couples
- Focus not just on the condition, but on how it affects relationships
- “Connect the dots” to educate women about the interconnectivity of bodily functions that creates sexual pain
- Present successful methods used by couples and professionals to keep intimacy alive
- Urge parents to look for early signs of CPP in their adolescent and teenage daughters
- Let women who suffer know they are not alone, they aren’t crazy, and provide a proven blueprint for regaining intimacy in their relationships and management of the condition
We hope that you will find help and support in the pages of Secret Suffering to aid you on your journey to recovery and healing.
“Secret Suffering” — Table of Contents
Foreword – Daniel Brookoff, MD, PhD
Preface – Robert J. Echenberg, MD, FACOG
Acknowledgements
1. Why This Book Had to Be Written
2. The Many Faces of Sexual Pain
3. Christin Veasley: Personal Pain and Professional Passion
4. Understanding Chronic Pain and Your Nervous System
5. Sexual Pain and Our Most Intimate Relationships
6. Bill: Sexual Pain from a Husband’s Point of View
7. Jennifer and Lisa: A Same-Sex Couple’s Struggle with Sexual Pain
8. The Dilemma of Single Women with Chronic Pelvic Pain
9. Our Relationships outside the Bedroom
10. Listening to Our Daughters
11. Lori: A Young Woman of Faith
12. A Tale of Two Men Who Experience Sexual Pain
13. Our Relationship with the Medical Community: The Dark Side
14. Into the Light: The New Paradigm of Chronic Sexual and Pelvic Pain Treatment
15. A Discussion of Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy
16. Amy: The High Value of Intimacy for a Cancer Survivor
Series Editor Foreword -Dr. Judy Kuriansky, Ph.D.
Appendix A: Sixty-four Tips to Relieve Sexual Pain
Appendix B: Pelvic Pain and Urgency/Frequency Patient Symptom Scale (PUF) and Vulvar Pain Questionnaires
Appendix C: About the Internet Survey Conducted for Secret Suffering
Appendix D: About the Experts Interviewed for Secret Suffering
Appendix E: Running a Pelvic Pain Management Program -Robert J. Echenberg, MD, FACOG
Appendix F: An International Plea – Agnieszka Serafin, Psychologist
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
