Lush again, hospital again

[ailbhe]

The other day I used the Ultimate Shine shampoo bar for the first time. It was, as I was promised, fine. My previous solid shampoo experience was with handmade shampoo which left my hair incredibly sticky and unpleasant, was almost impossible to rinse out, and needed a further vinegar rinse afterwards. The Lush shampoo lathered up beautifully (though I must have less lathering hair than some others, because it took several strokes through my hair to get enough to work it in as far as my scalp, and I needed to do a second wash, too, to get my hair clean), rinsed out easily, and left my hair looking clean and manageable. It's not as soft and silky as I'd like, nor very shiny, but I'll give it a few washes to get used to the new shampoo.

This evening I had my second Butterball Bath Bomb bath. It was very pleasant, my skin feels soft and smooth, it smelt lovely (Rob said "Oooh, vanilla!" as I dropped it in, and he has an incredible headcold at the moment), and I won't be buying another one, because they cost £1.70 apiece which is, frankly, daft.

We went to hospital today and had two appointments. The first was with the colo-rectal specialist, and it's a sort of case-closing appointment. I can expect to get better until menopause, more or less, when Unmentionable Trauma might occur as I lose pelvic floor tone (except hello, I no longer HAVE a pelvic floor, I have a sort of pelvic fishing net grille thing).

The second was with a gynaecologist who specilises in vulvas. And we have determined that the main source of my pain is not birth trauma, scarring, or anything else like that - it's a simple inflammation, readily treatable, and after treatment the pain will go away and not come back.

We are very very happy.

Comments

[sidheag.livejournal.com]

Don't know whether you've already been down this avenue - but my guess is not , because the pain will have made it impossible - but there are machine-thingies, aren't there, that specialist physiotherapists use and which you can also buy on the net which will measure parameters of muscle contractions and give a readout on a dial? I've completely lost all the words for now, and I don't think I kept a link, but I've definitely read about this kind of thing. Used to help people learn to do a pelvic floor exercise when they can't feel whether they're doing it right, anyway. Biofeedback? I mean, it involves putting a thing into the vagina so I'm sure you don't want to do it until the pain is sorted, but if that's going to happen soon, might then be worth looking into if you haven't already. I think the context in which I read about it was a discussion of how these things were not useful for most women, being no better than just doing pelvic floor exercises unaided, but that they were useful for people who didn't have or had lost the ability to tell whether they were doing them effectively.

[ailbhe]

My lovely adorable "Well, I can't see what's wrong, but if it hurts we must fix it" gynaecologist is going to send me for Specialist Vaginal Physio as soon as the pain is all gone away. Yippee!

[haggis.livejournal.com]

"Well, I can't see what's wrong, but if it hurts we must fix it"

So simple, and yet it's an idea they seemed to have been lacking for so long!

I'm really glad that a) they seem willing to help, and b) they've found a way to help.

And huuuuuuuge congratulations on the baby-expecting bit!

[ailbhe]

To be fair, this guy has always been great, but he was seriously ill for a long time in the middle of my treatment and I think his backup dropped the ball a little. He has *always* said "If it hurts, we must fix it," but until the surgery he could see quite clearly what was wrong - anyone who'd ever seen the leaflet in a pack of tampons could tell what was wrong, really. Then they fixed the obvious stuff and we were left with... pain. And my lovely gynaecologist got some terrible wasting disease (he has lost at least 3 stone) and it wasn't until he came back that we got anywhere else.