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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Is it common to feel extreme pain during a smear test and sex after an episiotomy?

2 replies

PawneGoddess · 05/04/2023 14:04

I'm not quite sure how to start this, other than by saying I had a 'natural birth' that ended with an episiotomy as my daughter's cord was stuck around her shoulders. It was thought that I had third degree tears, so after just gas and air I ended up post birth going to surgery and having a spinal to sew me up. It was second degree but rather complex apparently. This was 18 weeks ago.

Now I have what feels like a lot of internal scar tissue that has created ridges inside me. I also feel it's affected the shape around the vagina and feel it's made me tighter and smaller than ever. I had a smear test 15 weeks post birth which was very painful - worse than any smear I'd had before giving birth, and sex is sore at all times and mostly painful and penetration is actually quite difficult due to the scar tissue / shape.

No one talks about these things so I am unsure as to how common this is, and what can be done. I have made an appointment with my doctor but the earliest I can get one is four weeks away! I'm gutted as I feel ready to have an active sex life again and I have missed this closeness with my husband, and my daughter is now in her own room. I feel really depressed thinking about it.😥

OP posts:
Sprinkles21 · 05/04/2023 15:25

My first child I tore and wasn't stitched right I have a tiny flap where the skin crosses over and its healed tighter if we don't use lubricant it feels like I'm tearing every time I was only 21 nobody prepared me for it

Lucy158 · 05/04/2023 17:03

I had an episiotomy almost four years ago and have felt pain ever since but at the opposite side. It feels like someone scraping sandpaper across my skin if anything goes near that area!

I recently had a gynaecology appointment and she found that I was stitched incorrectly (too far over) after the episiotomy.

It's worth asking for a referral to a gynaecologist to check. I had other medical people who managed to miss this over the past few years.

I am due another baby soon (having an elective section) so I am seeing the gynaecologist again in the summer to fix this!

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