Hello Lilli team,
I'm a 32 years old woman, about 2 years ago I bought a stationary bike and started working out. The sitting saddle was badly made and I felt pins and needles after each training. Then one day I realised that I was in pain, that I could not come anymore and that my clit sensitivity is 20% what it was before. I had not realised the damage I was doing and thought the numbness would go away.
I got really sad because I had a lot of pleasure from masturbation before and now I feel amputated and not whole.
I was molested as a child and started therapy during Covid. I had finally accepted that it happened to me and worked through the trauma and was ready to enjoy my sexuality freely when this happened.
Now I can only come if I tense extremely hard my pelvic muscles and use a strong vibrator and then I get these very weak and unsatisfying orgasms. I have been to the doctor and did an echography and an MRI of my spine and nothing was found.
I have been to an osteopath who told me I'm extremely tense. She thinks I've injured my pudendal nerve. She asked me if the pain subsided and it did with time. 2 years later I gained a bit more sensation I'm at 30% of my previous sensitivity. I'm so afraid I'm broken forever.
Whenever I touch myself and have an orgasm I have some kind of pain in my core muscles and the side of my clitoris. Most of the time I feel pressure in my lower belly and I don't know why.
Monday I have an appointment with a physical therapist specialised in pelvic pain. Relieving pain is good. But what about pleasure ?
Do you have any advice for me please or heard of anyone with a similar problem ? Thank you.
Unsere Antwort
You are by far not the only person with pelvic pain, and by far not the only person who's afraid that something's broken forever. So: You're not alone.
In my clinical experience as a sex therapist, nothing is broken. Please trust the MRI and echography. In my experience, the main cause to these kind of problems is high tension in and around the pelvic muscles. Tension makes you feel numb, and on the other hand, it makes pain more likely. The pressure in your lower belly could also be a sign of this tension.
Pain leads to tension. So when you sat on the stationary bike and endured this discomfort, let's assume your pelvic muscles tensed up. Perception in your genitalia goes down when muscular tension goes up. This has to do with a lack of circulation (the muscular pressure is higher than the blood pressure, so to speak). This raises anxiety about this lack of perception. Anxiety will make you tense up even more. This is a vicious cycle – which is challenging. But, again: Nothing's broken. A vicious cycle can be interrupted and turned into a positive cycle. I think it's an good idea to see a physiotherapist specialized in pelvic pain.
On top of your general tension, your arousal technique uses a lot of tension, and in itself can lead to the problems you're experiencing during sex. Please read our text on high muscular tension during sex, and you will find a lot of your problems listed there. You'll also find links to exercise tips.
My approach, on a sexual level, would be to explore the sensibility of your genitalia without focusing on or aiming for sexual arousal. I would suggest movement of your muscles in the genital region (pelvic floor muscles, pelvis, breathing into your abdomen) to support blood circulation, and an open-minded attitude of "Okay, I can't expect sexual arousal, but let's see that I familiarize myself with the little there is". This is what we call "perception training": We start at zero, or "numb", and slowly work our way up to perceiving more, and eventually distinguishing between pleasant and unpleasant, and eventually, feeling something arousing. The open, interested, attitude is important. This will help you break the vicious cycle. You are ready to enjoy your sexuality freely, and this is going to be your motivator – if you allow yourself to start slowly and not expect joy right now, but are willing to do something to eventually experience joy.
Whenever pain is involved, our brain gets lazy: Rather than take a stimulus and figure out if it's pleasant, neutral or painful, our brain will just put everything into the perceived pain bucket. This is why pain perception is so dominant right now. I'm curious: Is there any area in or around your genitalia that you can touch and it feels more pleasant, and not painful? I suggest you touch this area, and focus on the positive sensations. You can slowly expand this by touching areas next to it, and slowly working your way to more problematic areas.
I'm aware that this might all sound a bit confusing now. Please let us know what you think of this answer and what further question it raises.
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