Biofeedback is when a physiotherapist puts electrodes (I think?) on your skin. Those electrodes sense how tense your muscles are. It doesn't hurt or anything. A computer screen draws a graph of the way you're tensing your muscles. It helps identify how to relax the muscles on purpose (since you can see on the screen if whatever you're doing is helping). Does that make sense? It's hard to explain.
The physiotherapist is helpful because they can give you suggestions of exercises to do to learn to relax your muscles. My physiotherapist basically just told me to relax my muscles on purpose, as often as possible, for as long as possible. So you don't necessary need an physiotherapist for that, but it can be helpful at first if, like me, you have difficulty identifying the muscles in order to relax them.
One thing that helps if you have difficulty identifying the muscles in order to relax them, is to first contract them, then relax. For some reason contracting first helps relax better.
Have you seen this forum: http://www.vulvodyniasupportforum.com/? There's a bunch of people from Britain on it, they may be able to suggest a physiotherapist.
Let me know if you have any questions! I was part of treatment program for vulvodynia, so I know a lot more about that than about vaginismus.
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Date: 2012-09-25 01:49 am (UTC)Biofeedback is when a physiotherapist puts electrodes (I think?) on your skin. Those electrodes sense how tense your muscles are. It doesn't hurt or anything. A computer screen draws a graph of the way you're tensing your muscles. It helps identify how to relax the muscles on purpose (since you can see on the screen if whatever you're doing is helping). Does that make sense? It's hard to explain.
The physiotherapist is helpful because they can give you suggestions of exercises to do to learn to relax your muscles. My physiotherapist basically just told me to relax my muscles on purpose, as often as possible, for as long as possible. So you don't necessary need an physiotherapist for that, but it can be helpful at first if, like me, you have difficulty identifying the muscles in order to relax them.
One thing that helps if you have difficulty identifying the muscles in order to relax them, is to first contract them, then relax. For some reason contracting first helps relax better.
Have you seen this forum: http://www.vulvodyniasupportforum.com/? There's a bunch of people from Britain on it, they may be able to suggest a physiotherapist.
Let me know if you have any questions! I was part of treatment program for vulvodynia, so I know a lot more about that than about vaginismus.