Painful Sexual Intercourse
Sexual intercourse becomes uncomfortable (and most of the time end up being painful) when the woman has problems lubricating.
Needless to say, having sexual intercourse when a woman’s vagina is dry can cause severe vaginal wall tears, which in turn leads to extremely painful sex.
The pain is especially more apparent in women suffering from Endometriosis. However, with the proper vaginal lubrication technique, the pain from Endometriosis can be greatly reduced!
Urinary Tract Infection (UTI)
Insufficient vaginal lubrication is the root cause of most cases of dry, painful sexual intercourse in women. When a woman is not ready for sex, the process of pelvic vasocongestion (filling of blood) is compromised with little or no lubricating fluid being produced.
Excessive vaginal friction is then felt by the woman during penile penetration causing her to experience pain of varying degrees. When pain arises there is reflex contraction of the pelvic floor muscles causing the vaginal opening and canal to be shut tighter, resulting in more pain in her vagina during penile penetration.
For women who suffer from chronic vaginal dryness, the mere anticipation of another round of painful sex is enough to elicit subconscious reflex vaginal muscle spasms. This condition may be so severe as to make penile penetration impossible in some cases. So when vasocongestion response is compromised, lubrication response is poor. A vicious cycle thus sets in where vaginal dryness leads to pain, and pain leads to further vaginal dryness.
Physical trauma to the vagina during dry intercourse can produce varying degrees of abrasions and tears to the vaginal wall. In mild cases, the woman complains of a burning sensation in her vagina following intercourse. In severe cases, sharp excrutiating pain in the vagina or pelvis may be felt together with pelvic muscle cramps.
On clinical examination obvious tears to the vaginal wall may often clearly be seen with or without accompanying bleeding. These wounds could end up being secondarily infected.
Because of its very close anatomical proximity to the vaginal opening (being located only a few millimeters away from the vaginal opening), the urethral opening and the whole length of the urethra could be badly traumatized when vaginal lubrication is inadequate during intercourse. Many women often complain of pain on passing urine, strangury (urge to pass urine although the bladder has already been emptied) and passing blood-stained urine following dry intercourse.
Because of her short urethra, a woman is very prone to bladder infections following ‘dry’ intercourse episodes. The back-tracking of the infection to her kidneys following bladder infection can eventually result in her suffering from chronic nephritis leading eventually to kidney failure and death.
Many doctors fail to see that insufficient vaginal lubrication during sexual intercourse is the key reason why many women end up in their clinics presenting with recurrent urinary tract infection. Apart from giving antibiotics, doctors should not neglect to look into her sexual history to pin point this curable cause of a woman’s recurrent urinary tract infection problem.
Women, on the other hand, should also overcome their shyness and be brave enough to inform the attending doctor that she is experiencing poor vaginal lubrication during intercourse.