You step on a thumbtack, and yow! – your body pulls your foot back faster than you know what hit you. You accidentally touch that hot plate, and eeek! – you’ve pulled your hand back off it in the blink of an eye. ‘’Pain is the message your body part sends your brain when your [...]
Rather than the tongue-twister proctalgia fugax, you might know it as: "A knife-like pain in the rectum"... "A red-hot poker up the bum"… "A feeling of being stabbed in the anus, which takes my breath away"… These are just some of the descriptions that my patients suffering from proctalgia fugax give. Somewhat surprisingly for [...]
This quick quiz is based on a research study that looked at what responses helped predict whether a woman had a condition called vestibulodynia. Vestibulodynia and vulvodynia are very closely related. Please be aware this self-test is no substitute for a medical diagnosis. We strongly encourage you to see a health professional if you are experiencing [...]
Connective tissue dysfunction in vulvodynia is often missed, and needs to be treated. Confused about connective tissue? Picture a whole lot of fruit in a plastic bag, sitting in a bowl of jelly. apricots, plums, grapes and so on. The fruit can be moved and jiggled around within the jelly, even within the plastic [...]
Does your Caesarean scar move how it should? Try this: pick up the skin on the back of your hand, lift it up and drop it. Notice how stretchy it is? Good, healthy tissue, like a healthy body in general, MOVES. That’s right, mobility is as important for skin is it is for the [...]
I suspect we underrate the negative impact of episiotomy scars. My last post was about scar tissue after surgery and how it can cause real problems, both in the short and long term. I used the examples of an orthopaedic surgery scar and a Caesarean scar. Both of these are considered major surgery, and [...]
Your vulva hurts. Your vagina hurts. You’ve been told you have vulvodynia. One doctor says the problem is in your nerves. Another says the problem is in your muscles. But has anyone checked your connective tissue? There is no doubt that in most cases of vulvodynia there is a problem with the nerves – [...]
Is it possible to have polycystic ovaries and not have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)? And conversely, is it possible to have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, but no sign of polycystic ovaries? As you may have guessed, (as there needs to be a point to writing this blog post), the answer to both these questions is [...]
Ever felt that everything you eat makes you bloat? Have your symptoms been dismissed as irritable bowel syndrome? You could have SIBO. SIBO - that is, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Research is slowly growing on this common cause of abdominal bloating and pain. However, as with all early research, it won’t necessarily have found [...]
Anyone who experiences heavy periods knows how draining this can be. Heavy periods, sometimes known as menorrhagia, is present in at least 15% of women. Amazingly, most women just accept it as part of being a woman, and never do anything about it. Were you put on the Pill for this? The number of [...]
