Sexual Health: increasing pleasure and ending painful sex

Pleasure

Pelvic floor muscles play an important role in holding the bladder, uterus and rectum in place. When someone is pregnant, the weight of the foetus in the uterus can weaken the pelvic floor muscles even if the mother does not give birth vaginally. By exercising these muscles it can improve the muscle tone around the vagina, making sex more pleasurable, and helping women reach orgasm more easily. Having strong pelvic floor muscles and having good control over them will make intercourse more intense and enjoyable for the partner also.

Ending Painful Sex

In some cases, sexual activity causes pain or discomfort. You might feel pain during intercourse, pain after sex, or it may even just be painful to think of any sexual activity. The pelvic floor muscles can be overactive, causing pain, tightness or difficulty relaxing the muscles voluntarily. You may feel pelvic pain, deep inside or more near the vaginal opening. The gynaecologist or urologist may not find any abnormality to treat or the medical treatment may not completely resolve the symptoms on its own.

Your physiotherapist will talk to you about the possible causes after asking relevant questions.  An appropriate treatment plan will be made by the therapist with you based on the assessment findings. Learning to relax the muscles is often the key. Treatment may include manual myofasial release techniques, biofeedback, breathing exercises and stretching to name a few. The methods chosen are always considerate of your pain and they help to reduce it without causing it to flare.

Pain is often multifactorial, involving past trauma or anxiety. We are a wonderful combination of mind and body, not just body alone. Therefore, more often then not, it is advised to also turn to a psychologist. This never means that the pain is not real; if you feel pain, it is there and very real.  The help of a psychologist can, however, reduce the healing time. The therapist can give advice and teach techniques on managing the pain in the mean time. The two therapies can then, together, help you return to activities you enjoy without pain limiting you.