My experience is similar to yours: started having problems at age 33 and went thru a gamut of doctors until a friends saw a description of my problem in a magazine at the beauty salon and called me with the number of the Vulvar Pain Foundation back in 1994. I started the low oxalate diet which helped a bit, added ox absorb which helped a bit more and then finally added estrogen cream and bio feedback and by 1997 I was feeling pretty good - no pain with sex. But with menopause the pain came back, so I added effexor xr and got more relief. I recently swapped out some effexor for cymbalta, which works with fewer side effects. So good luck with the estrogen cream. Most of the commercial preparations out there like estradiol contain propylene glycol which many women in our situation are sensitive to. If the cream burns, try having it specially compounded for you w/o propylene glycol and other additives. You should start feeling some relief in 1-3 weeks. I would also highly recommend biofeedback. This made a huge improvement in my ability to have sex w/o pain. Find a physical therapist who specializes in treating women with incontinence problems from childbirth, if you can't find anyone who specializes in vulvar pain. After two children and 10 years of pain you probably do have weak pelvic floor muscles and would benefit from biofeedback. With this condition it usually takes a combination of treatments to get the optimum amount of relief. After menopause I took HRT for 9 years and was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, so wondering if anyone out there has any experience of using tamoxifen with vulvodynia. Please share any info you have.
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My experience is similar to yours: started having problems at age 33 and went thru a gamut of doctors until a friends saw a description of my problem in a magazine at the beauty salon and called me with the number of the Vulvar Pain Foundation back in 1994. I started the low oxalate diet which helped a bit, added ox absorb which helped a bit more and then finally added estrogen cream and bio feedback and by 1997 I was feeling pretty good - no pain with sex. But with menopause the pain came back, so I added effexor xr and got more relief. I recently swapped out some effexor for cymbalta, which works with fewer side effects. So good luck with the estrogen cream. Most of the commercial preparations out there like estradiol contain propylene glycol which many women in our situation are sensitive to. If the cream burns, try having it specially compounded for you w/o propylene glycol and other additives. You should start feeling some relief in 1-3 weeks. I would also highly recommend biofeedback. This made a huge improvement in my ability to have sex w/o pain. Find a physical therapist who specializes in treating women with incontinence problems from childbirth, if you can't find anyone who specializes in vulvar pain. After two children and 10 years of pain you probably do have weak pelvic floor muscles and would benefit from biofeedback. With this condition it usually takes a combination of treatments to get the optimum amount of relief. After menopause I took HRT for 9 years and was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, so wondering if anyone out there has any experience of using tamoxifen with vulvodynia. Please share any info you have.
December 3, 2008 - 9:15pmThis Comment
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