opening © lynette sheppard
Tara Langdale-Schmidt’s guest blog post brought me to tears. Please read this poignant and inspiring piece.
How I overcame sexual pain and dedicated my life to helping others.
By Tara Langdale-Schmidt
My problems started at age 11 with my first surgery. Doctors did not know what was causing my abdomen pain so they the scheduled exploratory surgery. They found a huge cyst which had cut off the blood supply to ovary and removed that ovary and tube. This was the first of many surgeries for cysts and endometriosis over the next 20 years. Endometriosis caused a pain during sex, it was an uncomfortable feeling deep inside that I became used to it. My sex life was normal besides this. Penetration was never painful until I started to experience a different kind of pain, a very sharp pain I had never felt before.
My nightmare experience with sexual pain began mildly and I started going downhill in 2010. It began as mild pain during intercourse in my vulva. As time when on, the pain became worse, it felt like someone was stabbing me with a knife and burning me at the same time. Intercourse would trigger the pain and it would still burn after having sex. Nothing helped the pain or made it go away. I only told my best friends, and they had never heard of anything like what I was experiencing. Neither had my fiancé, Jason.
I didn’t know it then, but I was suffering from the excruciating pain of Vulvodynia. The pain, both physical, emotional and mental, was agonizing, made it impossible to enjoy sexual intimacy with my future husband and impacted my quality of life for four long years.
The burning and stabbing escalated and I would not have sex at all with Jason. We were getting married and probably not going to be able to have intercourse on our wedding night. I was becoming depressed over the thought of never being able to have enjoyable sex again.
My primary gynecologist told me if sex hurt to drink some wine and take Advil. That was in the beginning stages before the pain became worse. Then he realized it was serious, I still didn’t have a diagnosis and I was confused and worried about what was causing the pain. I actually asked my doctor if I had something called Vulvodynia because I found it on the internet. He agreed it probably was Vulvodynia. He wanted me to try the numbing creams and after that he called several doctors and told me none of them had a treatment plan for Vulvodynia. He stated doctors did not know what caused it and he was sorry he couldn’t help me.
I was given a prescription for Gabapentin cream and Ketamine creams. These are compounded creams, that might help the nerve pain, I was told to use twice a day. Both of these creams cost over $125 each and did not help at all. Also, I tried lidocaine injections which only lasted an hour and left me hurting from the needle.
I had many surgeries for endometriosis and cysts, and one surgery they went in vaginally instead of through my abdomen. I thought that maybe the pain resulted from scar tissue. My doctor also thought it could be scar tissue as well. After no relief with numbing creams, I decided to go to a pelvic pain specialist. He told me that I could take an antidepressant because it can help with nerve pain, do an injection or have a surgery to remove part of the vestibule that was hurting. I did not like these options. I do not like taking painkillers and especially not before sex.
After suffering for so long and getting no answers or solutions, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I had to take action.
From my previous positive experience using magnets to reduce back and neck nerve pain after a car accident, I had a “lightbulb moment” idea to incorporate neodymium magnets into a dilator set for pelvic pain. I used the magnetic dilators for two weeks and then had sex with my husband for the first time in months with less pain than normal.
I had just starting using the dilator for the first time about three weeks prior to my wedding and I was actually able to enjoy my wedding night. I didn’t think that was going to happen. My husband, who was so supportive, was as thrilled. I was able to have sex without pain.
Due to my reduction in pain and positive feedback after speaking to doctors about my magnetic dilator treatment and pain reduction, I knew I had no option but to create a startup company dedicated to helping other women with pelvic pain.
With my personal pain issues resolved, and working with my good friend and business partner Robert Smithson, we together founded VuVatech, a company based in Sarasota, Fl. dedicated to helping the estimated one-in-seven women in the US who suffer from pelvic, vulvar pain. With the help of medical experts, we invented a medical device, the VuVa Magnetic Vaginal Dilator that has proven to relieve pelvic pain and sexual discomfort and has improved the lives of women seeking sexual normalcy.
VuVa Magnetic Vaginal Dilators
are a new, non-surgical approach to helping millions of women suffering from multiple pelvic pain conditions and sexual comfort. The dilator therapy can also be incorporated into treatment plans for other conditions such as Vaginismus, Vulvar Vestibulitis, Dyspareunia, Menopause, Vaginal Stenosis, Vaginal Atrophy and Vaginal Dryness.
Many women suffering from these pelvic pain conditions have been placed on heavy pain medications, anti-depressants or have been advised to have invasive surgeries with low success rates. Our VuVa Dilators offer a low cost, safe, non-invasive treatment option to renew the sexual desire and comfort women deserve.
Since VuVa Dilators became available on the market in late 2015, we have only used social media, google ads and pelvic pain forums to call attention to our product and website. After selling over one thousand dilators and receiving positive feedback, it validated our decision to perform clinical trials. Clinical trials have provided beyond positive results by reducing nerve pain in subjects, so much so, that each subject purchased a set of VuVa dilators at the conclusion of the study.
We have now helped over 7,000 women who deal with pelvic pain due to menopause, vaginal atrophy, cervical cancer and other pelvic pain conditions.
Today, sex life with my husband is great. If I use the dilator twenty minutes before we have sex, I can have close to pain free intercourse. During my research I have found Vulvodynia can disappear or become less painful. I used to feel broken and now I am hopeful and thankful I have a device that allows me to have intercourse with less pain.
Using a vaginal dilator changed my sex life. But my overall message to women is pain: there is hope, there are answers, you do not have to suffer. I’m a perfect example.
Tara Langdale-Schmidt of Sarasota, Fl. was a pelvic pain sufferer and is the co-founder of VuVa Tech (www.vuvatech.com), a company that helps women with sexual pain.
