[00:00:00] Welcome back y'all to another episode of the Vagina Rehab Doctor Podcast. I'm Dr. Janelle Halliwell and y'all know what it is. I'm going to be talking about your body.
Okay. Openly and without shame. We're going to talk about sex. We're going to talk about pleasure, anatomy, Your clitoris and your vaginal health. I love talking about all of that because it has so much to do with our quality of life, the quality of our relationships, our romantic relationships, even our relationships within friendships, Because if you feel like you can't relate, if you feel like you're hiding things, if you feel like you can't even hang out because your bladder or your, your pain levels or different things are holding you back, That can totally impact your social life and your mental health, just even the way you view your body.
So when we talk about our bodies, when we talk about our pelvic floor, it's really not even about the pelvic floor. It's about our quality of life. It's about connecting with ourselves. It's about learning our bodies and [00:01:00] accessing, accessing the education that we deserve to have. about our bodies and about our pleasure.
So we're going to get into this topic today. And I get this question a lot, and that is how long will it take to beat vaginismus? I want to open up the conversation a little bit more to, other pelvic pain conditions that are very similar. So vaginismus usually is an inability to tolerate vaginal penetration, that may show up as inability to use a tampon.
Or inability to have intercourse. Maybe even inability to just put a finger inside your vagina. and it shows up with pelvic exams as well. Sometimes people do still have vaginismus and they're able to tolerate penetration, but it's excruciating. Or you have to force yourself through the vagina, right?
There's resistance with insertion. You may feel burning, stinging, or even like a tearing, stretching pain at the opening. Or you may feel like you're hitting a brick wall. but some people that have vaginismus can have [00:02:00] penetration, but it's not comfortable, right? It's not pain free. So that's vaginismus.
Difficulties with simply getting things in the vagina comfortably in and out. Then we have vulvodynia, which can cause like a burning, stinging, even itching pain on the outside of the vulva. So the clitoris, the labia, the vaginal opening right on the outside of the opening. This is vulvodynia. And it can also be caused by pelvic floor muscle dysfunction, hormonal deficiencies.
it can be caused by neuro proliferative, uh, vulvodynia, meaning there is increased nerve endings. on the vaginal opening. Generally, generally speaking, most people up to 90 percent of people with vulvodynia have pelvic floor muscle dysfunction. Usually tight and painful pelvic floor muscles driving that pain at the opening.
Not all the time, but generally, Other conditions like endometriosis generally can also contribute to tight, tense, [00:03:00] painful, and weak pelvic floor muscles because these muscles are constantly guarding and clenching because of your pain levels. There can be scar tissue, uh, that's contributing to pain.
There can be inflammation. There could be a history of surgical procedures. All of these things. There's even things like bladder pain, right? Bladder pain, tailbone pain, interstitial cystitis. There's so many things. But the point of the matter is, and that is that the, the pelvic floor is unhappy. Okay.
regardless of his vaginismus endometriosis type pelvic floor muscles, you can't poop. You got fistulas and hemorrhoids. And you're straining to poop, and you gotta push your pee out, and your tailbone hurts all the time, and sex hurts, and tampons, pelvic pain, There is hope for these conditions.
There is hope. How do I know there's hope? Because I see it happening every day. We work with so many of you that come to us suffering, and we send you away. Happy [00:04:00] with the change with the transformation with the resolve of pain and so forth So how long will it take? Okay, this is I'm gonna give you the honest answer the honest answer and what I want you to do If you enjoy this episode at the end, I'm not gonna keep you long This time is I want you to screenshot this episode This podcast and share it to your stories tag me vagina rehab doctor share to your stories on instagram because I want other people to learn about this stuff too.
Okay, don't be selfish with knowledge Go ahead and share this education. Here's the here's the truth y'all if you are Struggling with vaginismus pelvic pain vulvodynia, etc. If you're going to see an in person pelvic floor physical therapist, It should take ideal. I'm going to tell you ideal situation.
no more than three to six months. No more than three to six months. That is the amount of time that it should take to overcome vaginismus, right? You should be able to [00:05:00] get to PIV, right? Penetration in your vagina or penis in your vagina after three to six months. Now, can it take longer?
Absolutely. Absolutely. We work with so many people that come to us saying that they've been to pelvic floor therapy three, three times, twice. They went for a year. Okay. But that is not the ideal situation. And obviously they're coming to us because it did not work. So if you are at six months and you're, you're seeing significant progress, I mean, you came in on a Q tip.
Now you're on one of your big dilators. You're getting ready to transition to PIV. And you're at six months, then great. That's amazing. Keep doing it. Don't give up. Hold on. You're going the right direction But sometimes people are you know going to a doctor Sometimes it's not a pelvic floor therapist You're going to a doctor or people are promising that Botox will cure you or you need to remove your hymen are they giving you lidocaine or [00:06:00] telling you to drink a glass of wine?
if you've been trying these things and it's like five to six months. Down the line and there is no significant improvement. I'm talking about huge improvement. Okay. If you started on dilator two, the ideal improvement would be that you're on dilator six or seven, okay? After that many months. So that is generally how long it takes, and, and I'm just being real with you.
I don't want to sugarcoat anything for you because this is your life we're talking about. Many of you are trying to have kids. Many of you want to go back to dating and take your love life seriously. Or you just want to feel good in your body. Let's, let's forget about another person for a second. You want to feel good in your body.
You want to feel confident in your body. You want to feel connected to your vagina, your pelvis, your sexuality. so I don't want to sugarcoat it. but I also don't want to be discouraging So if you're like, hey, this is the only thing that I can do right now. And yes, it's been a year I've been going to pelvic floor therapy.
I've been going to talk therapy [00:07:00] I've been going to my counselor for a year and I do feel like it's helpful on some level if it is helping you on some level Then I'm not saying completely abandon ship I'm just telling you the ideal situations that we would love to see because it's all too common I hear from people that they're like I went to to XYZ For 12 months and there wasn't a significant improvement or I was going for six months.
That's a half a year And there was no, there was no great grand improvement. Listen to me. I'm not even saying a cure. I'm not saying you're completely better. And, you know, I'm just saying there needs to be a grand improvement, at least 70 percent better. let me also talk to you about what I saw when I was a pelvic floor physical therapist in person.
Most of you know by now that, um, at Vagina Rehab Doctor, we help our clients 100 percent virtual. We do not do any in [00:08:00] person care at this time. None. Everything we do is online and we are able to see our clients overcome their vaginismus. I'm talking about where your tampon to the beach, jump in the pool on your period.
Cause you got up Mr. Cup in, you got the tampon in. Okay. I'm talking about going to get their pelvic exams. No pain. I even had one client say one time, Janelle, I was so surprised. I went to my, my doctor finally got my pelvic exam. She's like 30 something years old getting her pelvic exam for the first time in her whole life.
And she's like, it was so pain free that I didn't even know she had did it. That's how pain free it was. She was expecting the pain to come. Before she knew it, the pelvic exam was done. I'm talking about a pap smear going inside her coochie, going inside her pelvic floor. And there was no pain. Generally, What you want to feel is just pressure or discomfort.
[00:09:00] There should be no significant pain with public exams. And if you are having pain, I'm talking about pain that hurts, then this is a big sign that you need guidance on how to work on that public floor. Could it also be just poor providers that are not gentle? They're not communicating with you.
They're not helping you to, to feel safe in the moment. Absolutely. So many people experience medical trauma. Right, medical abuse, and so I do want to hold space for that. Sometimes it's not you necessarily, but they just shoved it up there. Like they didn't even warn you. And if that has happened to you, I want to say sorry.
On behalf of my medical colleagues. they are not representative of every medical provider. But I do want to apologize and let you know that I can see how that has contributed to your fear. I can see how that has contributed to why you don't want to go see doctors and why you're scared to get a public exam.
But I do believe that there is hope for [00:10:00] you. So here's the other thing that I want to share, before this episode ends. And that is, if you are at this place where you've already tried everything, how much longer should it take if you try again? So let's say that, you've done dilators in the past.
You tried them. You didn't really feel like they were working. They just caused a lot of pain. You're using them over and over and you're not really seeing progress. So you just stop using them. You're like, okay, I don't want to waste my time. This is not really helping me. Or let's imagine that you went to a pelvic floor therapist and a talk therapist.
You're seeing a sex therapist and you're still not able to. Have penetration. You're still not able to get that pelvic exam without fear. You're still struggling, right? You still have pain when you try to put things in your vagina or tightness or even just fear, So if you've done all of these things, I want to let you know number one It doesn't matter how many years you've had vaginismus vulvodynia pelvic pain endometriosis [00:11:00] Your age itself or how long you struggle is not a deterrent to your healing You Can I be real?
I actually love when we get people that are like, Hey, I've had this condition for 15 years and I've tried this and I've tried that and I've tried this and I'm still not able to have pain free sex. I'm like, Oh my gosh, you're our target person. You know why? Because we're not starting from scratch. I love that.
I say thank you to all the people who worked with you before. Thank you to the pelvic floor therapist that got you through 3 and you're stuck on 4. Cause all we gotta do baby is help you get over the hump. We're not really starting from ground zero. So let me encourage you if you feel like you've done it before.
What's gonna be different? Should I try again? Yes, you should try again. What are your other options? Your only other option is to give up and to accept this life that you're living now. And I know you don't want to do that. I know you don't. what, [00:12:00] what makes us, people ask us this all the time. What makes us different, right, at Vagina Rehab Doctor?
With our one on one clients, with our group coaching, etc. And even with our eGuides and our eBooks. One, I have seen you all make such transformation that I believe, Not every provider actually believes they can help you. Let's just be honest. Sometimes we get clients or patients and we're like, ooh, mercy.
Oh, this patient sounds kind of severe. I'm gonna do my best, but I just don't know what to do, right? So I have so much confidence in our skills because I've seen it done. I've seen us help people that were married for 16 years and could not have penetrative sex and now are doing the nasty.
Okay, they're screwing. Okay, there's hope I've seen people go, eight, nine years in marriage, no intercourse, other couples, no pain, free sex. They could have penetration, but, but still having pain. I've seen them overcome it. I've seen [00:13:00] people start on a Q tip can only insert a Q tip and go to having sex with a penis.
Okay. So I know that there's hope that's number one. We have the experience. We've seen it done. We know what we can do. Number two, we, we teach you so much. We empower you with hands on skills that you can do. You can do. And when we empower you with what to do, that means you're able to do it all throughout the week on your own and the sessions with us.
Yes. That's when you're depending on our coaching, our teaching, our education. We're teaching you the strategies. The nervous system strategies, the pain strategies, right? How to loosen up the muscles, all of that. Yes, you are dependent on us in that moment, but we are teaching you how to do it to your own body as opposed to laying on the table, letting someone do it to you.
And so that is a lot of what makes us different. We also, focus a lot on pleasure and education. And community, right? So all of those things, listen, it makes a [00:14:00] very, very big difference. So no, even if you've had this condition forever and you're on the verge of giving up, giving up on your marriage, giving up on your marriage, giving up on love.
Don't give up. Okay. So just let's run it back in person pelvic floor therapy. Ideally speaking, it takes around four to six months. I know because I used to do pelvic floor physical therapy in person. Okay. Four to six months is I would say the ideal and average amount of time it takes to overcome vaginismus in an ideal situation.
Okay. I know there are people that go for years and nine months, but that's not ideal. Okay. For us, the average is. eight to nine sessions and we treat one time a week. So if you see us every single week, it should take you around eight to nine weeks to overcome your vaginismus. It has been shorter. We have people that gets a penetrative sex by visit five or visit six.
and it has been longer. We have people that book [00:15:00] two or three more sessions and then they're able to cross over rarely, maybe 3 percent of people. Just don't get there, right? Either they, if their mental health is really a struggle for them There's a lot of anxiety and depression and they just cannot Handle this right now.
Okay, so that's that's a barrier or Timing right people start and then there's a surgical procedure that they need to Handle or there's something happening with a family member and they stop Or, some people just don't make that hump over into penetrative sex. Meaning, we've worked with a couple of people.
I would say about two people so far out of over a hundred. More than that. That are like, hey, I'm done with my dilator set. I can dilate upside down. I can stick it in my vagina, in and out. I don't have any pain with these dilators. My finger, dildo, everything is good. But then when it comes time to transition to a person, they freeze.
And that is a potential barrier as well, right? We can't have sex for you. [00:16:00] Dr. Tina actually said this to our vaginismus group last week. She was like, we can't have sex for you once we prepare you and give you the tools. And show you exactly what to do how to transition The foreplay even the game plan the very night you're going to have piv.
We do this with our clients We say do this do foreplay for this long have your partner do this Have them do this at the opening of your vagina. We listen we give you all the tools and At that point, it's still you that has to make the leap, right? So, very rarely, less than, less than two percent of people are frozen and they are, they're having a difficult time sort of leaping over into sex because they've had fear of it for so long.
They've failed so many times, are, they're experiencing a lot of shame, disconnection, Um, they, they just don't know how to sort of let go that's, that's a possibility, but it happens so rarely that I would encourage you to hold on to faith and hope. I know you have fears. I know you doubt. [00:17:00] I know you don't believe it's going to work for you, but Generally all of our clients believe that same thing and they overcome. so you can overcome too, and you can beat, you can cancel vaginismus and move on and embrace the life that you deserve to live. All right. Thank you so, so much for listening to this episode. Send me a message on Instagram if you've enjoyed this.
Or if you want to hear something new from me, let me know and send me a five star raving review, right? Scroll down, leave a review and let me know what you like about this podcast. I'll talk to y'all again next Monday. Thanks for listening. Bye bye.