Using dilators doesn’t always go as easily as it might seem. Or maybe it seems deathly scary and you don’t even know where to start, let alone if you want to. Maybe you’re using dilators and you’re having a hard time bumping up to that next size towards your goal.

Try these 5 tips to help you have success with vaginal dilators!

So you have vaginismus and you’d like to, well, not have vaginismus! So how do you make it go away? Is there a cure for vaginismus? Let’s dive into 7 ways you can help heal from your vaginismus.

Vaginismus - a clinical syndrome where there is difficulty or pain with vaginal insertion, so much so that it can seem nearly impossible to insert anything vaginally. It has overlapping elements of hypertonic pelvic floor muscles, pain, anxiety, and difficulty in penetration. It has many possible causes, or shall I say risk factors. Knowing possible causes for your vaginismus can help you heal from it.

If you’ve been dealing with pelvic pain, painful sex, or a sense of tightness or tension in your pelvic floor, you may have come across something called pelvic dilators—maybe from your pelvic floor therapist, a doctor, or just a late-night Google search.

They can look a little intimidating at first. And they kinda look like dildos? Are they dildos? What the h*ll are they?!

Lube can be our best friend. Use it, reapply it and use it again. (In fact, please use lube and not your spit). But not all lube is created equal. Turns out you shouldn’t put cherry blasted flavoring up your hoo-hah. Lube shouldn’t get hot and cold. Sounds fun at first, but did you know it can significantly irritate your tissue and increase risk of infection? Not so fun. Even some seemingly normal ones that you see in your local pharmacy store might look normal at first glance, but at second glance, they can be just as problematic.

There are multiple reasons why someone might experience painful sex. Before getting into what those are, just to be very clear – when I say painful sex, right now I’m referring to pain with insertion during vaginal intercourse. This pain can be deep in the vagina or more at the entrance. Sometimes it can prevent intercourse from happening completely. So why is it painful?