Is My Vagina Too Tight?

Sex is as important as eating or drinking and we ought to allow the one appetite to be satisfied with as little restraint or false modesty as the other.

Marquis de Sade

Now there’s a title that’s going to grab your attention!! As I’ve mentioned before, one of the ladies I share my home with is a specialist physiotherapist in women’s health. Obviously, with patient confidentiality at the front of her mind she doesn’t talk about her patients by name however, when she see’s something interesting, she does share with us.

Earlier this week she saw two patients back-to-back and they could not have been further apart in terms of their manifestation. The first lady was a 43-year-old who had sought help as, despite being married for ten years, had never had penetrative sex! Long story short, my friend diagnosed her with something called Vaginismus.

Vaginismus is when the vagina suddenly tightens up when you try to insert something into it. It can be painful and upsetting, but importantly it can be treated. I’d come across it before but knew very little about it, I’m guessing there’s a lot of you out there so, I thought I’d write about it.

What is vaginismus?

Vaginismus is the body's automatic reaction to the fear of some or all types of vaginal penetration.
Whenever penetration is attempted, your vaginal muscles tighten up on their own.
You have no control over it.
Occasionally, you can get vaginismus even if you have previously enjoyed painless penetrative sex.
Vaginismus does not necessarily affect your ability to get aroused and enjoy other types of sexual contact.

The key here is to try and get over the fear and embarrassment and seek help, help is most certainly out there!

What will happen at your appointment?

You can ask to be seen by a female doctor, and you can bring someone you trust along for support.
Your doctor will ask you about your symptoms and may ask to examine your vagina.
The examination is usually very quick. Your doctor will take a quick look to rule out other conditions, like an infection.
It's unlikely they'll need to perform an internal examination of your vagina.
If your doctor thinks you have vaginismus, you may be referred to a specialist, such as a sex therapist.

Treatment for vaginismus

Treatment usually focuses on:

Managing your feelings around penetration
Exercises to gradually get you used to penetration

Possible treatment What treatment covers

Psychosexual therapy A type of talking therapy that aims to help you understand

and change your feelings about your body and sex.

Relaxation techniques Mindfulness, breathing and gentle touching exercises to

help you learn to relax the vaginal muscles.

Pelvic floor exercises Squeezing and releasing exercises to gain control of the

vaginal muscles.

Sensate focus Exercises to help with your relaxation during sex and

increase your sex drive (libido).

Vaginal trainers Tampon-shaped objects in different sizes to help you

gradually get used to having something put into your vagina.

Treatment is initially done under the guidance of specialised therapists. You'll then usually be expected to practise some of the exercises at home.

If you're in a relationship, you can choose to involve your partner.

Treatment usually works and you may see progress in a matter of weeks.

Causes of vaginismus

The reasons for vaginismus are not always clear, but some things thought to cause it include:

Fearing that your vagina is too small
A bad first sexual experience
An unpleasant medical examination
Believing sex is shameful or wrong
A painful medical condition, like thrush

I couldn’t find any statistics highlighting the number of women that are impacted by this however, my physio friend tells me its many more than you would imagine! Thank you to the NHS website for the useful information shared in this post!

The second patient my friend saw was equally interesting, I’ll talk about her in the near future!

What’s on this week?