Dr Oz: Vulvodynia Treatment, Surgery & Causes

Doctor Oz did a show on Vulvodynia.  Apparently Vulvodynia can even cause tremendous pain regularly throughout the day and keep you from being able to sit or wear pants even.  Dr Oz said 6 million American women have chronic pain in Vulvodynia.  The pain can be constant or on and off again.  People have described Vulvodynia as feeling like a constant knife-like pain or like acid being poured on your skin, which can cause women to feel isolated and hopeless.  16% of women experience Vulvodynia at some point in their life, and 90% have constant pain.  Vulvodynia is a medical mystery, but not a disease or infection.  Jennifer Ashton joined Dr Oz to discuss Vulvodynia, along with the National Vulvodynia Society.

Vulvodynia Q-Tip Test

To test for Vulvodynia, an obgyn will take a Q-Tip and gently go around the entire area to see how much it hurts and the locations of pain.  The sad thing is that a lot of doctors are not on the lookout for Vulvodynia and if they do not see anything visually, they will dismiss the pain and say its all in your head.  This is unacceptable!  Vulvodynia is a real physical problem and not any sort of psychological problem.

Causes of Vulvodynia:

1.  Genetics – If your mom, sister or family member has hypersensitivity or inflammatory issues, you could be susceptible.

2.  Yeast – When you have chronic yeast infection issues, you can be predisposed to Vulvodynia.

3.  Pelvic Weakness

4.  Trauma / Injury – even delivering a baby can trigger Vulvodynia.

Dr Oz had a women named Kristen on his show.  Kristen had a horrible car crash and three years later she got horrible vulva pain.  She had surgery and two months later she conceived 2 daughters.  What a beautiful success story!  Dr Oz mentioned the following Vulvodynia Treatments:

Vulvodynia Treatments:

1.  Biofeedback – Contractions are registered on a machine and it is essentially like a rehab for your vulva.

2.  Physical Therapy – Massage and exercises

3.  Topical Estrogen – Estrogen is the hormone that restores elasticity to the tissue.

4.  Anesthetics – This is a numbing cream or ointment.  It numbs the area that is painful, but this can only really work if you have intermittent or mild symptoms.

5.  High Level Anti-Depressant – A lady in the audience said that a doctor gave her a lower dose of an anti-depressant and that it helped with the pain and the burning.  Apparently, if you use anti-depressants in lower doses than they use to treat depression, it can actually work as a pain killer.

Vulvodynia Home Remedies

1.  Cold Compresses – You can numb the area locally with something like a bag of frozen peas (which works nicely to form itself to your body).

2.  Use unbleached and unscented toilet paper.

3.  Oxalates – Oxalates are found in beets, spinach and chocolate.  Foods like mushrooms, avocados and cheese are low in oxalates.  Some people have found that low oxalate diets has helped.