The World's Tightest Community - A Podcast About Vulvodynia, Vaginismus & Women's Pelvic Pain

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Christina Enzmann, a board-certified OB-GYN and functional medicine practitioner specializing in vulvovaginal disorders, to explore how gut health and the vaginal microbiome connect to persistent vulvar and pelvic pain. We cover the everyday products that disrupt the vaginal barrier, why pain can persist after repeated yeast and BV treatments, how endometriosis...

In this solo episode I catch you up on my own treatment. I talk you through what pelvic floor Botox was actually like at a specialist vulvar clinic in Oslo, why my new physio's homework for the whole summer was to lovingly touch my thighs, and what that taught me about anticipating pain and turning even rest into something to achieve. I also explain the TTNS machine I'm using, which puts electrode...

You had a baby, and months later something still hurts. Sex, sitting, the scar. And you've been told this is just what happens now. If that's you, this conversation is for you. I'm joined by Dr. Alexandra Dubinskaya, a urogynecologist and sexual medicine specialist in Beverly Hills. She chairs the communication committee at the International Society for Sexual Medicine and wrote the vulvodynia cha...

Stephanie Berman has lived with vulvar pain since 2011. She spent eleven years being dismissed, misdiagnosed and told to be patient, and the referral that finally moved her forward came from an Instagram DM she sent to Dr. Corey Babb. She is also the founder of the Aziza Project, a nonprofit that pays for women in pelvic pain to physically get to the care they need. We cover her full story, and th...

Vulvodynia just means pain in the vulva. It is not a diagnosis - and Dr. Maria Uloko argues that is why treatment so often fails. Maria is a urologist trained in comprehensive sexual health, one of seven in the world doing this work. We go type by type: what causes each one, what treats it, who it will not help. SPONSORS Pelva: the HydroSlix liner, a cushioning insert for more comfort during inser...

This episode started with an email from a listener: a man in his twenties whose girlfriend has lived with vaginismus and pelvic pain for years. He wanted to know how to be a good partner to someone going through this. So this one is for the partners. I talk about what this can feel like from the inside, why she might pull away when you touch her and why that is not a verdict on you, and how the tw...

If you are googling vestibulectomy recovery at 2am, this one is for you. Bonnie Gross has had the surgery twice, ten years apart, and she is unusually good at describing it - she wrote and executive produced Lady Parts, the award-winning comedy based on the first one. We recorded this four weeks after her second. Most of this conversation is the practical side she could not fit in the film: the pr...

What does it actually mean to have a strong pelvic floor - and is strong even the right thing to chase? Kimberlee Sullivan is a board-certified women's health physical therapist and Head of Clinics at Origin, where she leads nationwide clinical strategy. She has spent over twenty years in pelvic floor PT and founded her own Austin clinic, Sullivan Physical Therapy, in 2005. We cover the difference...

Olivia lived with chronic pelvic pain for years - a constant dull, dragging ache on her left side that worsened when she sat or bent down - while doctors dismissed her fatigue and brain fog as just being a tired mother. What finally explained it wasn't the vascular surgeon who wanted to remove a vein in her leg. It was an interventional radiologist who suspected pelvic congestion syndrome, sent he...

Sheren Gaulbert lived with severe vulvar pain for ten years — bedridden, on high doses of amitriptyline, and told by a leading specialist to consider giving up work. What changed things wasn't a new medication or a new specialist. It was a self-hypnosis script she recorded herself off the back of a book she picked up in a bookshop, something a friend had dismissed as just the latest fad. That brea...

What does it actually cost to get taken seriously when you're in pain? For the average woman with vulvovaginal or pelvic pain in the US, it's about $18,000 a year - paid entirely out of pocket. Today I'm speaking with Carmen Rising, a Brooklyn-based writer whose reporting on vulvovaginal pain has recently run in The New York Times and The Guardian. She came to this as a patient herself, and in thi...

What does a groundbreaking study on clitoral nerves, a Norwegian novel about a man who moves into the forest, and one question from Dr. Rachel Rubin have in common? This week's solo episode. This episode is kindly sponsored by  Pelva . Use code TWTC10 at checkout to receive 10% off your first order. (I earn a commission if you purchase through my link.) In this episode, I cover four things that ha...

Why does desire so often disappear after sex has become painful - and is there actually anything you can do about it? In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Corey Babb, a board-certified gynecologist and one of my favorite voices in sexual medicine, whose Substack writing on desire and arousal is some of the clearest thinking on these topics out there. He returns to the podcast to set the record str...

Why does the body sometimes hold onto pain long after there's a clear physical reason for it? And what would it take to actually shift that? In this episode, I speak with Brooke Bralove, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW-C), psychotherapist, AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, and Certified Master ART Practitioner with over 20 years in private practice. After accelerated resolution therapy (ART)...

What happens to the person standing closest to your pain - the one who witnesses it but is almost never asked about? In this episode, I speak with Linn Myrtveit-Stensrud, a clinical psychologist and postdoctoral researcher at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. Linn has spent her career studying vulvodynia in heterosexual relationships - specifically, how partners respond to pain, and how those r...

For years, the hormonal and muscular causes of vulvar pain have become easier to understand and treat. Inflammation is the part we still understand the least - and it may be one of the biggest missing pieces in provoked vestibulodynia. Dr Jill Krapf returns to the podcast for one of the most cutting-edge conversations we've had on vulvodynia. She's a gynaecologist specialising in vulvovaginal diso...

Why do so many people with vulvovaginal pain leave their OBGYN's office feeling dismissed - or worse, like the problem is in their head? The answer might have less to do with individual doctors and more to do with what they were never taught. In this episode, I speak with Noa Fleischacker, co-founder and executive director of TightLipped, a grassroots patient advocacy organization working to chang...

I recently hit a wall that I, of all people, should not have hit. And it reminded me exactly why this podcast exists. But this episode is also about something else. I've been self-funding this podcast for about a year, and I'm now at the point where I need to figure out how to keep it going. That means sponsorships, and possibly other things too - and I want you involved in that conversation. If t...

What happens to your body - and your pelvic floor - when you want to get pregnant, and you have a history of vaginismus or pelvic pain? In this episode, I speak with Dr. Saige Evans, an occupational therapist with a clinical doctorate in occupational therapy and the clinical director at Bloom Pelvic Therapy in Tampa Bay, Florida. She leads a team of pelvic health OTs and PTs across three clinics a...

What happens to desire when your body becomes unpredictable? Sara Sturek is a writer and founder of Writing Shamelessly, whose essay "From Shamans to Sex Toys" is published in Women's Health magazine. She has lived with hormonally-mediated vulvodynia since she was 21, and she writes about desire, sexuality, and the diagnostic odyssey with an honesty and literary precision that's rare in this space...

If you're new to this podcast - hi! I'm so glad you're here. This is the episode I want you to start with. Whether you've just been diagnosed, you've been searching for answers for years, or you typed something into Google at 2am that you've never said out loud to anyone - you're in the right place. In this solo episode, I walk you through the basics of chronic vulvovaginal and pelvic pain - what...

Can CBD help with pelvic pain - and if so, how does it actually work? In this episode, I speak with Tamar Hill, co-founder of Medroots, a company making CBD and low-dose THC suppositories for pelvic pain, vulvodynia, vaginismus, dyspareunia, and sexual health. Tamar is a former biology teacher turned entrepreneur, and she brings both the science and hard-won knowledge of navigating the CBD regulat...

What does it mean to do everything right for fifteen years — and still not get to the bottom of your pain? In this episode, I speak with Carli Cutchin, a writer and disability advocate with a background as a comparative literature scholar. Carli has lived with pudendal neuralgia for fifteen years and writes about chronic pain and disability for publications including Ms. Magazine. She is one of th...

There is no medication approved specifically for vulvodynia. Not a single one. John Connell and his team are trying to change that. In this episode, I sit down with John Connell, Chief Scientific Officer at MAC Clinical Research — one of the UK's longest-established contract research organisations. John has spent over 35 years in clinical research, and has been working with Danish biotech Initiato...

For a long time, I've been standing slightly to the side of my own experience on this podcast. Today, I step into the center of it. In this solo episode, I share my full story with vulvodynia and vaginismus for the first time - from the first symptoms five years ago to the rock bottom moment that broke me open, and eventually, to the unexpected thing that gave me the strength to keep going. I talk...