Vaginal dilators

[cardamomginger]

To cut a long story short, 3 lots of major surgery to repair multiple birth injuries have left me with both pelvic floor spasm and tight bands of scar tissue in my vagina. My physio wants me to start using femmax dilators to stretch things out and desensitise.
Anyone used these? Any words of advice? To be honest, I am utterly ground down by this whole saga, and this is the last thing I want to be doing. I'm already using the Neurotrac stimulator every evening, but that's kind of OK as I can mentally switch off. But this, where I've got to concentrate and actively seek out the painful and tight bits? No thank you .

I'm afraid I don't have any personal experience, hopefully someone will be along soon who has, but I had a friend who used dilators. She hadn't had children but couldn't even use a tampon initially and had to use the dilators so that she could eventually begin having sex with her DP (she was in her 20s at the time). She said it was very uncomfortable and difficult to keep going, but with alot of support from her DP she was able to stay the course and get things right back to normal.

Do you have anyone who can support/encourage you with this? Sometimes it can be exhausting to keep going after so much surgery and pain and someone encouraging can make all the difference. I wish you all the best with it.

Thank you . DH is great, but after 3 years of this we are both worn out talking about it and thinking about it. I'm having trauma therapy at the moment. She's great, so I hope I can get some support there. But at the end of the day it's just me and the sodding dilator. I did ask the physio if I could just go to Ann Summers and get a rabbit. She said yes, but it might be a bit big to start with. I guess it could be something to aim for .

Yeah, I haven't been through it but know what you mean about it gets exhausting discussing it. It can really skew your perspective. I remember my friend had to do just a tiny bit and then put it away for a while, and then another tiny bit and then put it away again.

I remember my friend said rewarding herself made a big difference - choc, films, dinner out or whatever. Do you think that might help? So rather then see it as a massive obstacle that has to be achieved all in one go, just give yourself small goals of once a week/fortnight (sorry - don't know at all if those time-frames are reasonable!) and then rewards once you've achieved them?

Yeah, I haven't been through it but know what you mean about it gets exhausting discussing it. It can really skew your perspective. I remember my friend had to do just a tiny bit and then put it away for a while, and then another tiny bit and then put it away again.

I remember my friend said rewarding herself made a big difference - choc, films, dinner out or whatever. Do you think that might help? So rather then see it as a massive obstacle that has to be achieved all in one go, just give yourself small goals of once a week/fortnight (sorry - don't know at all if those time-frames are reasonable!) and then rewards once you've achieved them?

oops! obviously very keen to help!

Thank you . I have to try every day . But realistically I'll start more gradually than that. Your idea of treats is a good one. I've just successfully (YAY!!!!) toilet trained DD and a small present for every wee worked well.

Well done you! Good luck with it. and as your first reward!

cardamomginer how are you getting on. i have similar problems to you as a result of of surgery an anterior and posterior repair and tvt operation in Sept o9 and a later hysterectomy . i have bought myself a smallish rabbit which i can tolerate but i find sex so painful that I avoid it. i feel very sad to think this side of my life might be over. I have also got various sizes of dilators which I am trying out. I can tolerate the first three sizes but the last size really hurts me and leaves me feeling very sore. If I wear tight jeans I feel the pain starting.

Actually I think I remember you from mumsnet a few years ago. i was in a real state and ended up taking a lot of pain meds for severe pain upon sitting etc. I have managed to give up all the pain meds but this is my last hurdle. Perhaps we can encourage each other.

I hope you are getting on ok

Hello All, I am unsure how to reply to forums so please accept my attempt here even if it is somewhat distorted. After my baby was born I was having loads of problems but my Health Visitor was really very helpful, I see that a lovely new mom called 'Cardamomginger' has mentioned Ann Summers on here, so I shall share my midwife & Health Visitors suggestion to me with you all:- Get the vagi-wave because that would be the easiest solution for me because that has been designed to be used when sleeping. I did and it worked for me because it is urgo-nomic plus there is NO STETCHING (thank God!). I had support from midwife & Health Visitor advising me to get this product because they were getting excellent feedback from new moms, so I felt I had to share this with all you lovely lady's because us moms must stick together and help one another. I am in the UK by the way if this makes a difference to my comment.

Sorry coco I missed your post completely! Yes, I do remember you. I'm so sorry you have had such an awful time .

I've been using the femmax size 3 (i.e. one size down from largest) and after one month, things had improved a lot. My physio said that the scar tissue feels normal and ha stretched out. When I first stated using it, it was painful and I found the whole experience pretty distressing - putting something in your vagina with the express intent of finding areas of pain and then working into that area, thus causing more pain, is just horrible! But towards the end of the 4 weeks, it was getting much less painful. Still a bit uncomfortable, but it was OK. The news from my physio that the scar tissue had stretch out really gave me a lift.

I'm now using the largest size. I'm having some problems with it. I also have pelvic floor spasm, and I think it is this that causes the most problems, rather than it coming from any scar tissue.

Thanks for the tip wyn. I had a look at the website (although it is pretty hard to find a description of what it physically does!). No good for me - I specifically NEED stretching to ease the scar tissue.