Dyspareunia Disorder West Palm Beach
Dyspareunia Disorder is a condition that can affect anyone including residents of West Palm Beach.
Dyspareunia is painful sexual intercourse, due to medical or psychological causes. The symptom is reported almost exclusively by women, although the problem can also occur in men. The causes are often reversible, even when long-standing, but self-perpetuating pain is a factor after the original cause has been removed. It is a common condition that affects up to one-fifth of women at some point in their lives.
A medical evaluation of dyspareunia focuses initially on physical causes, which must be ruled out before psychogenic or emotional causes are entertained. In the majority of instances of dyspareunia, there is an original physical cause. An extreme form, in which the woman’s pelvic floor musculature contracts involuntarily, is termed vaginismus.
According to DSM-IV, the diagnosis of dyspareunia is made when the patient complains of recurrent or persistent genital pain before, during, or after sexual intercourse that is not caused exclusively by lack of lubrication or by vaginismus. Clinically, it is often difficult to separate dyspareunia from vaginismus, since vaginismus may occur secondary to a history of dyspareunia and even mild vaginismus is often accompanied by dyspareunia. It is important to establish whether the dyspareunia is acquired or lifelong and whether it is generalized (complete) or situational. Further inquiry should determine whether the pain is superficial or deep – whether it occurs primarily at the vaginal outlet or vaginal barrel or upon deep thrusting against the cervix. Even when the pain can be reproduced during a physical examination, the possible role of psychological factors in either causing or maintaining the pain must be acknowledged and dealt with in treatment. After the text revision of the fourth edition of the DSM, a debate arose, with arguments to recategorize dyspareunia as a pain disorder instead of a sex disorder, with Charles Allen Moser, a physician, arguing for the removal of dyspareunia from the manual altogether.
Dyspareunia Symptoms in women
When pain occurs, the woman experiencing dyspareunia may be distracted from feeling pleasure and excitement. Both vaginal lubrication and vaginal dilation decrease. When the vagina is dry and undilated, thrusting of the penis is painful. Even after the original source of pain (a healing episiotomy, for example) has disappeared, a woman may feel pain simply because she expects pain. In brief, dyspareunia can be classified by the time elapsed since the woman first felt it:
- During the first two weeks or so of symptoms, dyspareunia caused by penis insertion or movement of the penis in the vagina or by deep penetration is often due to disease or injury deep within the pelvis.
- After the first two weeks or so of symptoms, the original cause of dyspareunia may still exist with the woman still experiencing the resultant pain. Or it may have disappeared, but the woman has anticipatory pain associated with a dry, tight vagina.
Dyspareunia Disorder Treatment West Palm Beach FL
Call our West Palm Beach Dyspareunia Disorder treatment center today at 561-842-9550 for more information on our Dyspareunia Disorder treatment programs or visit us at 44 Cocoanut Way Palm Beach, Fl. 33480.