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Dear Aunt Vadge,
I have discomfort when peeing and internal pain after sex – all STIs and cysts have been ruled out. It started about a year ago, after a really bad UTI. I used to have normal sex and get wet regularly; now there’s pain and not much lubricant. Please help, it’s getting me down.
Thank you,
Sore
Age 21, United Kingdom
Dear Sore,
It sounds like you may have scar tissue or continued inflammation from your UTI, which needs to be investigated further by a specialist. If you have damaged internal structures still giving you pain a full year after a severe urinary tract infection (UTI), you need more diagnostics.
Testing and diagnostics
Things I’d look into with your doctor are specific tests for finding inflammation or scar tissue. You’ve had STIs and cysts ruled out, but there’s something in there causing the pain, and it needs to be found. Don’t let your doctor fob you off, and if they won’t take your pain seriously, find another.
Start with a gynaecologist, who deals with vaginas and the lower genitourinary tract and will have a more immediate sense of what could be causing your pain. You can also see a pelvic floor physiotherapist, a pain specialist or a vulvar specialist.
Once you’ve started that process, other adjunct treatments are acupuncture, reflexology and osteopathy, to check that all your internal structures are where they’re supposed to be. If nobody can find a root cause, you’ll need to look at alternatives. Cost can be a factor, which means choosing your practitioners carefully.
A My Vagina vulvovaginal specialist naturopath can support your recovery with herbs and supplements, and will investigate your health in a different way to your doctor. Chronic pain from an unknown source needs individual, in-person care. Your flesh is still very flexible at 21, so you have the best possible odds of healing completely – but swift treatment is best.
Foot reflexology in the interim
To relieve some pain at home before or during your appointments, see the UTI page for how to get rid of a UTI at home using reflexology. I know you don’t have a UTI, but the pressure points are the same.
Work your bladder, ureters, uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes and vagina points where you can find them (you may need to look them up), firmly, and find the areas that hurt the most – those correspond to the parts of your body likely causing the pain.
Push firmly so it just hurts a little, then increase the pressure as you can – there’s no need to hurt yourself, but you do need some discomfort, or it doesn’t work. Do 30 seconds on each point, cycle through several times, then see how you feel when you pee. If it helped even a little, it means your problem can be helped faster than you think. That’s good news.
Write any time.
Warmest regards,
Aunt Vadge
This is general information, not a substitute for personalised medical advice.
