GynoFiles

Childbirth can cause many pelvic floor changes, that will heal, but sometimes need attention to make sure the healing is proper and doesn't cause problems with your sexuality. Between a quarter and a third of women report painful sex after having a child. Unfortunately this is one area of gynecologic care that has not been well studied or much attention given to how to avoid these problems. Basically your gyno gives you the green light to begin to have sex, and not much more information. Some of the main reasons for painful sex after childbirth are: tears, breastfeeding, and episiotomy. Circulatory problems may cause painful sex after childbirth as well. If the trauma of compression, or the location of tears. This can lead to difficulty with dryness, arousal, or painful sex. This condition is more typically caused by conditions other than childbirth. It is termed clitoral and vaginal vascular insufficiency syndromes. Due to poor blood flow from some very complex network of blood v...

MonaLisa Touch: The Issue of Vaginal Symptoms Even with the passage of time, many women still retain their youthful energy and enthusiasm, but post-menopausal changes can affect a woman's quality of life in unexpected ways. Hormone replacement therapy may not be the best option for many patients, as treatment outcomes can be uncertain. Now there is an alternative therapy for those who are unable to undergo other treatment options for the vaginal and sexual changes that occur due to perimenopause and menopause. What is the MonaLisa Touch? MonaLisa Touch is a medical laser that delivers controlled energy to the vaginal tissue to revitalize the cells in the vaginal mucosa (vaginal tissue) so that these cells make more collagen, an essential ingredient in vaginal cell health. How does it work? MonaLisa Touch implements CO 2 laser energy that is delivered via side-firing probe inserted into the vaginal canal. A two-part pulse targets surface (epithelial) tissue and dee...

Painful sex is a seldom talked about, but frequent problem in women. Generally speaking painful sex, also called dysparunia ,  as women age is due to VVA , the most prominent symptom of what is now more accurately called genitourinary syndrome (GUS) of menopause. It is due to lower levels of estrogen, and decreasing male hormones, even those of the adrenal gland. Making use of the fact that adrenal hormones themselves can affect the vaginal tissue, and the fact that some of the male hormones are converted to estrogen there is now a new treatment, DHEA that has been shown to be effective according to a new study published in Menopause . When women use lubricants for sex relief of dryness is very temporary, in some cases making sex possible, but rarely in making any symptoms improve other than intercourse. Vaginal moisturizers are somewhat more helpful in relieve symptoms of vaginal burning and itching at times other than at times of sex, but have no ability to fundamental...

Oxytocin is a peptide hormone produced in the hypothalamus section of our brain and most women know it as a medicine that is used to bring on contractions. But it has been called the hormone of love as wel l. So in a new study they looked at whether the hormone of desire could produce better sexual function as well. In the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm in women with symptoms of vaginal atrophy such as vaginal dryness, pain, itching, discomfort and bleeding during intercourse were treated with vaginal oxytocin for seven days. A s with treatments such as estrogen, Osphena, and the MonaLisa Touch treatment there was significant improvement in the health of the vaginal tissues including more of the healthy superficial cells rather than the atrophic basal cell layer. This was a well tolerated treatment and with this study of just one week there were no significant side effects either. It is still a medication with potential systemic effects however, and most women when asked w...

Non-hormonal vaginal health is the current buzz word. While estrogen therapy is fast, effective and safe for vaginal health through perimenopause and menopause, and the SERM Osphena appealing because of the benefits beyond vaginal health, it's the alternatives that are gaining traction current. The most shocking news yet is the finding that SSRI treatment can be beneficial for vaginal health. Since the introduction of Prozac, a medication that alters serotonin for the treatment of depression, there has been an expansion of the use of all of serotonin modulators for the treatment of a variety of conditions including sexual function, smoking cessation, and pain syndromes. When used in a study of hot flash treatment it was found that a short eight week course venlafaxine improved the vaginal dryness and pain of intercourse of sex and that it was even better than low dosage estrogen in this trial. Just improving mood and having more sex is also beneficial for vaginal health, so do no...

Sexual function is related to hormone levels. The question is how? Male hormone testosterone and the female hormone estrogen affects sexual function. When we study body image, positive sexual energy, and overall stamina for sex, these hormones take on a whole different set of implications for our body. And in women with medications, diets, or genetic reasons to metabolize the hormones differently, there are going to be diverse effects on you sex life as all of those can impact hormones. In most studies we are more in the mood mid cycle when male hormone levels rise, but sadly not even every study has firmly confirmed that link. As with other female sexual studies the mystique is still a mystery to gynecologic researchers. As you age your relative testosterone, estrogen balance may change. Thus we like to say you are female hormone dominant or male hormone dominant. And this can be established by a medical visit and testing. Some sexual function in women appears to be positively relat...

Painful sex is a seldom talked about, but frequent problem in women. Generally speaking painful sex, also called dysparunia ,  as women age is due to VVA , the most prominent symptom of what is now more accurately called genitourinary syndrome (GUS) of menopause. It is due to lower levels of estrogen, and decreasing male hormones, even those of the adrenal gland. Making use of the fact that adrenal hormones themselves can affect the vaginal tissue, and the fact that some of the male hormones are converted to estrogen there is now a new treatment, DHEA that has been shown to be effective according to a new study published in Menopause . The pH of the vagina and the lining of the vagina are the first things to change, and in fact there can be secondary frequent infections that can be causing the actual quick onset of significant pain with sex. To some extent the routine treatments for infection will offer some help won't work as well unless the underlying hormonal problem of VV...

Jump rope for your heart and health! It is fun, and it burns a lot of calories and of course, the more energy you burn with a good work out, the  ismore you will get to feast on at holiday time! Jumping rope excellent, and fun, way to burn a lot of calories in a low amount of time . But many women will  need to get their bladder, surrounding tissues, and pelvic muscles in shape for all that bouncing.  And it won't just benefit your rope jumping to get those tissues healthy you need to exercise your pelvic floor to both improve your bladder function, and to improve sex! And it may take more than just exercise to improve the health of your bladder and pelvic floor. In the past we offered women hormones and surgery, and now there is a painless, non-invasive rejuvenating laser therapy called MonaLisa Touch that can help getting your ready for all your rope jumping! Gynos still recommend Kegel's exercises . Once you get good at your Kegel's you can use the extra muscular to ...

Painful sex is almost always treatable. The treatments range from curing infections, to appropriately correcting pelvic floor disorders, treating bladder infections, and curing the withering of vaginal tissues as women get years beyond menopause. For others there are pain or immune issues that may be causing the problem. In menopausal women the focus of pain relief for painful sex is on returning tissue to it's 'original' or younger states. Once the tissue of the vagina becomes significantly atrophied those treatments involve hormonal or synthetic hormonal manipulation. The most typical woman complaining of painful sex is a postmenopausal women who has gone several years without estrogen therapy and whom has begun to have very infrequent intercourse. Hormonal therapy is a fix for painful sex, but there are many who want to try non-prescription and non-hormonal alternatives. Some of these women may be breast cancer survivors who are not wanting to use hormonal therapy. A no...

Painful sex, dry vaginal tissues, chronic urinary tract infections, all are due to the lack of estrogen as a woman ages through menopause. There are both medical and non-medical therapies for this condition. Women who have painful sex in menopause usually have the condition of atrophic vulvovaginitis ,or genital atrophy or what is more commonly known as the thinning of the vaginal walls due to menopausal changes. There are even pap tests to determine if this is the diagnosis, although your gyno can usuall y tell just by looking. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Feb of 2013 has approved ospemifene ( Osphena , Shionogi, Inc) for treating this condition of painful sex due to vaginal dryness also known as  dyspareunia in postmenopausal women. Dyspareunia, in younger women, can be caused by a number of conditions  yeast infections, bacterial vaginosis, PID, STDs, or endometriosis. In menopausal women it is associated with declining levels of estrogen during meno...

Headaches, pelvic pain eye inflammation, muscle soreness, out of breath.... Does this sound like the latest round of P90X, well it's not, it's what can happen after sex! As a gyno we probably get asked about bleeding, or spotting that occurs after intercourse more than any other complaint, but lots of other physical symptoms and issues can occur. Sometimes we discover there is a small tear that occurred in the back wall of the vagina, and some bruising around the urethra as well. Headaches that only occur after sex are relatively common as well. The headaches that individuals have only after having sex are most commonly called post coital headaches but are also also called sexual headache, benign vascular sexual headache, and coital cephalagia . Some women will have have these coital cephalagia headaches before they orgasm; and in others this headache only occurs after orgasm. The two coital cephalgia headaches have different meaning. What about ...

In the summer we face all sorts of challenges, there are light changes which can play havoc with our biological clock, there are the challenges to protecting our skin from sun and wind, there are high humidity levels which can cause higher heat indexes at lower temperatures. So to do we have seasonal gyno woes in the summer. We see a flurry of vaginal yeast and urinary tract infections. Wet bathing suits, and a bit of extra summer sex contributes to both of those conditions. Dehydration during the summer heat can worsen many conditions, including PMS and PMDD, endometriosis, as well as change the levels of medication. Heat has been shown to worsen blood pressure and cause palpitations in women with heart disease, and it may throw off your blood sugar. In some cases borderline diabetes and borderline thyroid conditions may actually become clinically significant. When the barometric pressure has dramatic drops there is a stimulus for pregnant women to rupture their membranes. It's a...

If you are around the age of menopause or beyond and you have painful intercourse you may have post-menopausal vaginal syndrome . Estrogen during the premenopausal years is important for walls of the vaginal and the tissues of the vulva to remain healthy. It is important for the whole urogenital tract to remain healthy, so even the urethra and the tissues near the anus can become affected when the levels of estrogen decline as women get older. With post-menopausal vaginal syndrome women may experience vaginal dryness, vaginal discharge, burning with urination, itching of the vaginal area, and itching of the area of tissue between the vagina and the rectum known as the perineum. In severe cases women will report bleeding after sex, bleeding after exercising or spot bleeding unexpectedly. If you have a pelvic exam you may be told by your gyno that you have vaginal atrophy which is a thinning and dryness of the vaginal walls. Lack of estrogen and the post-menopausal vaginal sy...