Too Painful To Be Pleasurable

At times, intercourse may become too painful to be bearable and finding a diagnosis and treatment may uncover other deep-set issues. However, with therapy and commitment from both partners,  success rates are high

- Sonia Labuschagne

Two months after Karin and Laurens van Zyl* had their third child, they attempted to have intercourse again. Laurens had thoughtfully bought her a new nightshirt that, while not quite being lingerie, was attractive while still being cottony and comfortable. But as he attempted to penetrate her, it felt like he was hitting a barrier. Intercourse was just not happening! For the next several months, physical intimacy didn’t rank high on the Van Zyl’s list of priorities. Exhausted from caring for three children, most nights they fell asleep at the same time as the children. But by the sixth month after she had given birth, when attempts to have intercourse were still met with an impenetrable force, it became apparent that there was a bigger problem than just lack of time.

THE MEDICAL FILES

The first stop for anyone experiencing pain during intercourse would be your general practitioner or gynaecologist. Potential causes could be a urinary tract infection, a chronic but undetected yeast infection, hormonal fluctuations or sustained trauma to the perineum, particularly after birth. Dyspareunia is a blanket term that refers to all cases of painful intercourse among women. Your doctor would typically do an internal examination, take a pap smear and do a urine test in order to diagnose the problem. In Karin’s case, there had been trauma to the perineum as a result of an episiotomy followed by a forceps delivery, which had healed by the time of her visit. It took a further three visits to her gynaecologist before a diagnosis was made.