I'm off to See the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Ahhhhhs - Newport, CA 55yrs Old

Today was the day!!! I am a long time "Ripping/Tearing" sufferer here, even before menopause, which back then they blamed on birth control pills. Now, almost a decade post-menopause, my "man cave" is in desperate need of an overhaul!! I opted not to do any Hormone Replacement Therapy and other than the obvious, I feel great! I've tried some Estrogen Creams and LOTS of lubricants but they didn't help at all, so here I am going for the full monte!!
The office visit was about an hour long with all the prep work. The procedure itself lasted about 15-20min. I had BOTH the inside and the outside done (aka "The Works"). Didn't expect it to take that long from what I've read and I kept thinking, "dang, is my man Cave really THAT deep? LOL. There were two ladies working together on me, my doctor and a trained technician. They were really going to town with that laser! At one point the tech put her head up and said, "You're getting the royal treatment hear, we're being very thorough". I didn't feel a thing though, I was numbed up pretty good with some topical numbing agent that works amazingly well, so well in fact that I made the comment, if this procedure doesn't work on me, I'll just use some of the numbing cream as a Plan-B. That got a good laugh out of everyone in the room. When it was all done my doc said that while most women are advise to take it easy for 3 or 4 days, she recommended I take a week. I've know her for many years and she was probably taking into account that I'm very active and participate in very strenuous activities. She said to expect to feel like I have a very bad sunburn with redness and swelling, YIKES!!! Ya, that made me verrrry nervous!!
I'm leery of urinating, I expect it will sting quite a bit. I feel like I did after giving birth when you are scared to have a bowel movement, lest you rip a stitch. They gave me an ice pack to sit on for the drive home since I live about 30min away. She also recommended Aquaphor ointment which I picked up on my way home. I'm icing again, now 3hrs after the procedure. Still have not urinated. I hope to do that later and apply some ointment. So far I have had virtually NO pain whatsoever!! Will Fill you in more tomorrow.

Last night I cleaned the external area and applied more Aquaphor ointment. There was still a little bit of pinkish discharge on my panty liner but no pain or discomfort of any sort, everything felt as if nothing had been done. This morning I was a bit nervous to have a bowel movement because I had so much external treatment done (especially the space between vagina and rectum) but, I'm happy to report I felt no discomfort at all. I used my bidet to cleanse the area and reapplied more Aquaphor. I took a peek to see how things appeared and everything looks totally normal. No redness, no swelling, nothing. While I'm glad to be feeling no discomfort, I'm hoping that's not indicative of the expected results (being nothing). My pantyliner was clean this morning and there has been no further discharge all day. If there is some drastic change during this healing week, I'll update, otherwise you'll be hearing from me in about a week when we give it a whirl. Fingers crossed it will be at least a little better.

Just when I was healed enough to try "it" out, my son came down with bacterial bronchitis with a fever of 104º so I made a trip up to his apartment to care for him since he lives alone and had just broken up with his girlfriend (nice timing, eh?) Then, when I got back home my hubby was sick with an upper respiratory cold/flu thing, which of course, I then caught. I was better in a couple of days but his drug on and on and on. Anyway... we were finally healthy enough to give 'er a go this weekend (3.5 weeks post). Good News: The inside is really nice, fluffy and moist and the top/front of the vaginal opening no longer hurt at all!... HOWEVER ... The Bad News: The Back/Bottom of the vaginal opening (where I have massive episiotomy scars) still hurt like the dickens (pardon the pun!!) It hurt too badly to finish the deed while being penetrated by his member, but at least it didn't bleed like it usually does.

***WARNING*** This may be TMI for some people so if you don't want details, stop reading here!!!

We have really missed that closeness with each other, so we were determined not to just let it end deflated and in pain. We knew the top and inside were good to go, so he used his fingers inside and out while avoiding the painful area and, YES!! I had a really great 'O' :D Before this procedure that wouldn't have been possible because everything hurt too badly inside and out and bled all over the place, which is just not sexy. I was a little sore in that back area (episiotomy scar) from our initial attempt, but there was still no bleeding, no cuts, no stinging like I would usually have. So, at this point I'm still very hopeful that eventually we'll have good success and at least at this point there are other possibilities to enjoy each other as opposed to completely off limits. (and, yes, I took care of him too) ;)