I hope you will encourage her (as much as is possible) and I would suggest going to a Planned Parenthood rather than some random GYN off her insurance carrier’s list. When I used PP they took a LOT more time with my appointments than my private GYN, asked a LOT more questions and really made me feel like they honestly cared for my reproductive health.
I’m a semi-problem patient due to medical anxiety* so I do have a lot of sympathy for the situation. But there really ARE treatments and a way forward, but they start with pouring it all out to a doctor.
*(My GYN wrote on my chart - “don’t take BP until patient has dressed and is ready to check out”! because my BP would be THROUGH THE ROOF before the appointment and normal after. They call it “white coat hypertension.”)
AS the only male growing up in a house full of women (mom raised me and 3 sisters) and now being middle aged with several intimate relationships with women in my past (and hopefully more to come) I can say with fair certainty there’s no subject associated with women’s health I can not speak about with ease.
That said, I’d certainly prefer a minor medical procedure be done on any young woman likely to experience severe pain when losing her virginity. I’ve heard some horror stories from family and girlfriends (one ex-GF told be she bled for days and could barely walk) and as I’m not a member of a “You Must Wait Until Marriage” religion but do strongly favor sex education for our youth. Sex is normal and supposed to be enjoyable, why make it traumatic?
Seems a no-brainer for me. Get checked out when “you” first start seeing a OB/GYN and if there’s likely to be an issue, get it dealt with.
I avoided going to an ob-gyn for over 12 years like the plague thanks to a jackass doctor the shitty insurance I had at the time sent me to. This summer I had to go (Bartholin gland abscess :eek:) and I found a clinic run by two female nurse practitioners. Everyone at the clininc was very nice and patient as could be and didn’t go jamming anything in there until I gave them the go-ahead.
FWIW, I did have an incident with a woman where I “bumped” something, and I knew both immediately and for several minutes afterward that I had hurt her.
As I admitted, I was young and may have been too self-absorbed to notice, but on at least one occasion the two of us spent the next several hours together and she seemed affectionate and happy enough that her sister knew right away when we spent time with her that we had finally “gone-all-the-way.”
Of course, I’m not challenging the idea that it can be a bloody and painful mess; just saying that that was never my experience. In fact, on another occasion, I didn’t realize the girl was a virgin until much later.
Well, the situation described in the OP and later posts is relatively rare. That said, if a medical condition arises in 1 in 10,000, given that the US population is 307 million (half women) you’re going to have over 15,000 people to tell their story.
So, I don’t find it all startling that you’ve never personally encountered the situation, assuming as I do that you’ve had sex with, at most 4 virgins… what are the chances, right? nor do I find the need for a hymenectomy just to make sex possible to be a terribly startling concept, much less the slight incidence of extremely painful first sex.
Danja - I feel your gf’s pain. Speculums were a nightmare before I had surgery. She can ask them to try the exam without one or to use the “teenager” spec. It’s shorter, doesn’t open as wide and I believe the, uh, arms are a little more ergonomically shaped. When they used that I had more of the normal “pressure” feeling then the being ripped apart pain of the normal speculum. After virginity loss (and now a baby) I can use the normal one without a problem.
The surgery, to the best of my knowledge and recollection, involved snipping/removing the hymen and then doing some “manual stretching” while I was out in the interest of making sex a little easier when I could have it. There was no mention of a tendon, or any other obstructions. It was out patient, went in in the morning and was home by 2 or 3 in the afternoon with some pain killers. Took the next day and a half off work. I remember being very sore, but Motrin and Aleve took care of it after the first day. I couldn’t have intercourse for 6 weeks. When we did try it hurt the first 1-2 times. After the second time I bled a little bit and was sore - kind of like a typical virginity loss story. After that session there was no more pain. (Well, until after the baby, but that’s a different story.) All in all it was pretty simple and not traumatic at all. My boyfriend (who is now my husband) was awesome through the whole thing.
I will mention they gave me the option of getting dilators instead of the surgery. Basically a series of ever larger dildos that could be used to slowly stretch and break the hymen more naturally. I took the surgery option as it was faster, but if the idea of surgery scares your girlfriend it might be worth a try. Good luck!
A visual examination of the external genitalia is not by any means an equivalent to, or a substitute for, an internal exam.
That said, trust must be built up over a period of time so a visual exam is a good first step, and I agree that a doctor that is not willing to earn trust by going by “baby steps” is not worth seeing in this sort of situation.
I had to have my hymen removed surgically as well. Turns out the opening was about the size of a coffee stirrer straw. I found this out when I was 13 and tried to shove a tampon in a hole the size of a coffee stirrer straw. At 15 and a half I was rightly sick of using pads (and I had a boyfriend and wanted to eventually have sex) so off to the gyn I went. The surgery was supposed to be done under spinal, but due to delays in getting into the OR they did it under general instead.
My great-grandmother had to have the same surgery. She found out about her condition on her wedding night. I can’t imagine that was fun for either of them. I hope my daughter didn’t inherit it. It’s a right pain in the ass.
No need to assume as I’ve stated it outright in this very thread. (I only counted 4 by counting myself.)
I agree with everything you’ve posted including the above. My point is that an external exam MIGHT reveal the problem, especially if–IF–the problem, or part of the problem, is the hymen.
Regardless, my experience with painful medical situations is that there will likely be pain involved in the diagnosis. But, as you say, baby steps can help lead a patient to a more comfortable and less traumatic treatment.
I had a cribiform hymen (lots of little holes, but nothing that would allow penetration - see the handy diagrams linked above). Had it surgically removed when I was 17. The operation itself wasn’t a problem, just used a little local anesthetic.
Unfortunately, I was in a Mormon region and girls weren’t supposed to be willing to talk about sex before marriage, and there were only two OB/GYNs in town - the asshole male Mormon, and my mother. Since my mother wasn’t about to do surgery on her own daughter’s vagina (although she did give me a lot of help and support), that really only left the asshole.
So after the surgery was complete, the asshole decided to keep me on the table doing an EXTREMELY extended pelvic exam including a completely unnecessary vaginal-probe ultrasound for nearly an hour. Meaning, until the anesthetic wore off and losing my hymen hurt like God said it was supposed to.
If I could go back, I would have traveled to see someone else. Also, in hindsight, I think I would have asked if the first pelvic exam could wait for a few weeks - not only would it have hurt less, but I would also have liked to be the first one to explore my own damn body.
Wow, consider my ignorance fought. I had no idea that it was so common for women to need medical help in losing their hymen. I was an early masturbator and was using, uh, different things years before I actually lost my virginity. So it didn’t hurt and wasn’t problematic at all.
Out of curiosity, for those who needed medical help with this, had you tried to masturbate with fingers and toys before you went to the doctor? It seems like an obvious solution to the problem, but again, I’m pretty clueless about this.
Careful there. Don’t fall for the internet self selection effect - it’s not “so common”, unless you previously thought it never, ever happened.
A septal hymen (the “tendon” or band of tissue dividing the passage into two or more parts) is found in about 2% of women. An imperforate hymen (passage totally sealed) in less than 1%. Imperforate Hymen: Practice Essentials, Problem, Epidemiology
What you have here is a group of people who have self-selected to reply to the thread because it asks them to share their experience with a common medical condition. You’re not hearing from the 98% of Doper Women who, like you, had/have a perfectly normal hymen and don’t need gynecological intervention.