@excessive-vampires hey of course<3 i know it fuckin sucks to deal with so anything i can do to help others with it ill do my best
with that i saw your reblog earlier and was working through forming a response so i just wanted to say firstly im really sorry youre stuck in that situation and that your doctors treated you like that, secondly im not sure if you wanted advice on working around that so if not feel free to disregard all of this but if yes:
firstly dilators - if the issue is:
> not knowing what to get - i got the intimate rose dilator set off amazon and my physical therapist made happy noises when i showed her so they get two thumbs up, id estimate the smallest one is abt the size of a pencil
> they would open your mail and get angry - see if you have any friends nearby who would be willing to let you ship it to their house and then pick it up in person
> if they found it in your room they would get angry - try to think as far outside the box as you can on hiding spots. like say an old pair of boots buried in your closet or something, what are the chances of them checking somewhere like that yknow?
> worried theyll catch you doing it / no lock on door - i usually wait until my housemates are entirely gone or 100% certainly asleep before dilating, its not a noisy activity on its own you go really slow. and even if that means you can only do it once a month, thats ok, like i said any progress is good progress. when i first started out working on it p young i literally couldnt fit much of anything at all and would just occasionally toe the line like every few months, and even that slowly got me to the point where i think shortly after graduating highschool when i ordered the dilators i was able to do the first size after like a week
if none of those solve it and dilatings not a possibility thats def unfortunate but not the end of the road. as for the rest of the exercises none of them involve material stuff so they should be pretty easy to do discreetly if you want (except the massage thing but theyd have no reason to suspect its pelvis involved as the tools used are used for regular massages too lol, and failing that you can still do it with your hands its just not as ideal). so with that here's a rough breakdown of the exercises im supposed to do, and again this is just the general stuff so i cant tell you how many days a week you would do these. and also disclaimer that i very much am not a medical professional, just regurgitating what i remember of the instructions from my doctor. anyways!
breathe in through nose 2 seconds, out through pursed lips 2 seconds while squeezing, release and repeat 5 times
take slow steady breaths drawing them down into your stomach rather than your chest, do these continuously independent of kegels. pattern is squeeze for 5 seconds, release 10 seconds, and repeat that 5 times
do one set of each of these standing, sitting, and laying down flat on your back with pillows under your knees to elevate your pelvis. originally i was supposed to do all of that eight to ten times a day but that rapidly evolved to "whenever i can remember to in whatever position i happen to be in right now" lol
the abdominal/inner thigh massages are primarily intended as a cupping exercise but you can also use a Gua Sha tool if the cups hurt (like me, they pull my stomach hair so i got one also off amazon, its the shiny metal rock shaped like a paint pallette. for the cups this one looks closest to what she had and you just squeeze it then place on your skin so it creates a seal, release the bulb to create suction, and then slide it around as described below), or she told me the thigh part can also be done with a massage gun. but essentially you just make sweeping motions around your abdominal region, if you start at the bottom on one side you sweep up around your bellybutton on that side to the top and vice versa, if you imagine your stomach in quadrants you wanna spend abt 3 mins going over each corner. then you also wanna do the cardinal directions and just sweep from the outside towards your bellybutton, also 3 mins each (i do not do these in any particular order truth be told im truly just rubbing a slimy rock around on my stomach lol). inner thighs are similar, you just sweep up towards your pelvis. and use massage oil/lotion/something otherwise itll get uncomfortable and chafey, ESPECIALLY the silicon cups my skin hurts just thinking abt that lol
for stretches she told me -
1 minute daily: priformis figure 4 stretch, deep squat stretch, half kneeling hip flexor side bending stretch, supine hamstring stretch with strap, happy baby pose, and adductor butterfly stretch
10x pushup-y things daily: prone on elbows stretch
i googled all of those real quick to make sure those keywords lead to diagrams or guides that looked mostly right so those should be a p good rough guide
the breathing exercises are just more of the stomach breathing thing, you lay down with one hand on your stomach and one on your chest and just concentrate on taking deep breaths without the chest hand moving for a couple minutes
if you had to pick just one of these though i would primarily go for the kegels, for the first month that was the only thing i remembered to do every now and then and id still made a fuckload of progress by the second appointment, theyre entirely undetectable by anyone around you so you can do them whenever and wherever you want, and as far as i know theres not really any way to do them wrong or like. overdo them? worst thatll happen is youll get too tired to keep doing them and the result will be ... you relaxing, so thats also a win lol
another tip is if you cant get dilators but still want to go that route and can fit your pinky: put it in until it starts to hurt and no further, even if thats only a single centimeter and just chill there until it relaxes, focusing on deep breaths and releasing tension in the area (also make sure youve gone to the bathroom prior so you wont get scared of relaxing too much and tense up bc that can hurt a lot w something in you if youre not prepared). itll feel like it never will but i promise eventually it will chill, even if that time is another day youll still have made progress. if you do get it relaxed though then you can try for a little deeper, again stopping as soon as it hurts and waiting for it to adjust. one thing that can help is directing sustained pressure down towards the bottom of your pelvic floor, it will hurt some but in a different way like a really intense backbreaking massage does, and as such will also steadily drive the tension out. vaginismus is lowkey your pelvic floor being one big muscle knot anyways so yknow lol. also if its not going well dont force yourself to continue forever, like give yourself a 15 minute timer as a goal but allow yourself to tap out whenever you need. and conversely if you make it to 15 mins and find youre still feeling fine you can choose to bump that up, the world is your oyster
for bowel health she recommended i get a magnesium supplement, the brand she recc'd is CALM specifically the raspberry lemon flavor, you just mix i think a teaspoon of it with however much warm water you want so if you dont like the taste you can just take it as a shot like i do, or she said adding it to tea and stuff is fine too, and you just drink that before bed every night. its not prescription or anything you can get it at costco or again amazon (all of these companies certainly have their own websites you can order direct from but i am broke as fuck so we do what we can lol)
that's all i can think of right now, make sure to use way more lube than you think you should, and i hope this helps and that your situation looks up soon💜
