u/DoctorFaustus_

Hey all! Sort of long post and ranting. I (F26) just wanted to see if anybody had a similar experience. I don't have a diagnosis yet but am on the path to figure out what's going on. For the past 2 or 3 years I've been suffering with tearing at the posterior fourchette after sex and anal fissures on the perineum side after BMs. Fissures are being managed with daily miralax at the advice of my primary, but I have yet to find help for my vaginal tearing. We always use lube but that doesn't matter a lot of the time, I'll still tear. I honestly thought tearing during sex was normal until my husband said it's definitely not and I should talk to my gyno about it. That's why I let it go on for so long.

I don't have any visible symptoms according to my gyno, but she actually got me confused with another one of her patients that actually does have ls because our symptoms are similar I guess. She seems to think it's more likely to be a bacterial infection or an STD/STI. She even mentioned my husband possibly cheated on me and gave me some sort of STD. Like I get it, you don't know my husband but still thought that was odd and made me feel super uncomfortable. I've been swabbed 3 times for bacteria and STDs over the past 6 months and waiting on the results for the 3rd one before I have a punch biopsy hopefully. The first swab I did have a bacterial infection but got that cleared up no problem but I'm still having issues with tearing and fissures. I was also on hormonal birth control for 4 years but stopped that in December thinking it could be causing me to have some atrophy. So I asked my gyno about estrogen cream but she won't prescribe me anything without a punch biopsy, probably because of my age. I feel like my gyno is just beating around the bush or leading me on sometimes if that makes sense, espeically since the swabs are not cheap even with insurance and I've had 3 already! Is this all a normal part of the process or should I find a new gyno? I've always thought she was fine at my annual appointments but now I'm starting to question things.

I also found out my grandmother has pretty severe lichen planus but don't know if that could be related at all to lichen sclerosus. That's what led me here thinking it could be ls after doing a bit of research after my gyno appointment. Hopefully I'll have answers from my gyno soon enough or maybe I should just find a different specialist. Thanks for reading