She felt like her vulva was on fire

What can you do if you have pain that’s so intense that it feels you’re being burned? Now what do you do if you have this pain but it’s on your vulva and no-one can figure out what it is so they send you home? And, they tell you that it’s all in your head?

Thousands of women have a painful disorder called vulvodynia. The pain can be sharp or burning – or both. It can be so severe, that even walking is difficult. Most women with vulvodynia can’t even consider having sex, that would be much, much to painful.

I came across this story in the Globe and Mail, Dismissed and undiagnosed, where a woman did experience the above scenario. She was having severe pain and after some treatments and a misdiagnosis of interstitial cystitis, she was told that her pain was all in her head.

The thing is, it wasn’t all in her head. The problem wasn’t with the woman who had the problem, it was with the doctors who didn’t recognize it. Vuvlodynia and the associated disorders, which can also cause pain in the vagina, are estimated to affect up to one in every six women in the United States. The issue is so important that in 2006, the American College of Obstetrics, together with the American Academy of Family Physicians, sent out information to 150,000 physicians, hoping to educate them on the diagnosis and treatment of vulvodynia.

The Globe and Mail article does a good job of explaining the issue and there’s some great information on it at The Vagina Dialoges, if you’d like to learn what it’s like to live with vulvodynia.

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Tags: vulva, painful vulva, vulvodynia, vagina, interstitial cystitis