Second visit with Physiotherapist

                On Thursday I had my second physiotherapy appointment, we tried the myofascial tissue massage on my thighs again (which is all we did during the first appointment as well). The idea is to start massaging the trigger points that may cause pain. The trigger points are areas where a lot of our stress builds up. My first appointment was extremely painful, I was told my legs might bruise. They didn’t, but they felt bruised, actually… they felt like someone had punched my legs for four hours straight, they were tender for three days afterwards.

                This time was much more pleasant. She uses a rolling motion on my muscles with her hands, and she focuses on only one small area at a time. These techniques can be done at home, although I found it really difficult because honestly, who likes hurting themselves? I started small, with gentle massaging, just getting used to my own touch on my thighs. Apparently it’s supposed to hurt at first, stretching the fascia tissue and muscles, especially the trigger points which are so short and tight from stress. Fascia tissue gets sticky when tense, and sticks to our muscle fibers, and pulling them back apart from each other starts off as pretty uncomfortable, but it’s nice to know everything’s getting put back in the place it belongs in my body.

                I’m not certain how it’s supposed to help with my vulvodynia pains, other than releasing some stress points. She loaned me a book called “A headache in the pelvis” by David Wise and Rodney Anderson. A great read, although a little biased. But according to this book, supposedly there could be some trigger points inside my vagina, and the pelvic physiotherapist will eventually insert her finger to try and find and release trigger points inside. I am definitely NOT excited for this. It’ll be interesting to see if I find anything significant just from my legs being massaged/released, although I won’t know for sure as the CBT told me not to do anything more than a 3/10 on the pain scale.

                The book also talked about the pain-anxiety cycle: you are stressed or have anxiety which builds up in your trigger points, which causes pain, and therefore causing more stress and anxiety and the cycle repeats itself. Obviously breaking this cycle is hard, especially when I even find the fascial massage painful and get stressed and anxious about it!

                I believe these are the kinds of things I’ll be working on with the sexual cognitive behavioural therapist, how to change the way I think about my pain and how to reduce the pain and anxiety.

                At least we’re doing something though instead of sitting around not understanding my pain! Something’s got to help eventually :)