HELP CHRONIC PAIN Post-op vaginoplasty (10 years) – burning at entrance, worse when sitting, anyone experienced this?
Hi everyone, posting on behalf of a friend (trans woman) who had vaginoplasty about 10 years ago. She doesn’t know how to speak English and doesn’t have Reddit so that’s why I’m helping her :(
She’s been experiencing recurring symptoms and we’re trying to understand what might be going on:
Main symptom is a burning sensation at the entrance of the vagina (neovaginal opening), especially at the beginning of the canal. The skin doesn’t seem very painful to touch directly (with fingers, lubricant, or dilator), but the burning sensation is still there.
The area looks generally pink/normal, but sometimes (slightly redder in certain spots near the entrance). The burning can sometimes extend to the perineum and occasionally the anus
She feels like the pain is more external than internal, but she’s not 100% sure
Other details that might help:
- She has tried a healing cream (Blastoestimulina), which seems to improve elasticity but does not reduce the burning. Painkillers like ibuprofen or dexketoprofen sometimes help, but not consistently.
- Symptoms improve or disappear when lying down, especially in a fetal position. Sitting tends to trigger or worsen the symptoms, and they come and go throughout the day. Some days she has no symptoms at all, other days it’s quite uncomfortable. This started again recently after a symptom-free weekend :/
She’s wondering if this could be something like nerve-related pain, pelvic floor issues, irritation/inflammation or even something like hemorrhoids or vascular pressure (since it changes with position)
Has anyone experienced something similar this long after surgery? Any ideas what this could be or what kind of specialist she should see?
She lives in Spain and she has a long history of problems with her vaginoplasty. She had urethral stenosis that developed two years after her surgery, and was corrected through a second surgery; after that she feels like the nevers in her pelvic floor have been damaged. On and off she gets symptoms like discomfort in her bladder (that started after the second surgery) or pain in the muscles of her pelvic floor, etc. She saw a new surgeon who recommended a medication for her and apparently it’s been helping her, but now she has this new problem where she has a burning sensation in the entrance of her vaginal cavity, and sometimes even the peritoneum and anus like I said.
I would greatly appreciate it if someone could help us figure out what’s happening to her, or maybe somebody went through the same thing and knows how to handle it. If that’s so, please help us! She’s very scared and feels really bad :(
I come to Dr Will Power’s page too since he mentioned he uses a testosterone cream in some of her trans women patients with SRS that have pain when dilating because of tissue shrinkage, could that be what’s happening to her?
Thank you 🙏