Desquamative inflammatory vaginitis and capsaicin - successful treatment!

[Guest guest]

Hi everybody, I'm 27 years old and I have had vulvar vestibulitis

since I was 22. I am FINALLY on my way to recovery! I wanted to share

my story because I've gotten good ideas from people on here and it's

only fair to return the favor Sorry if it gets long.

Up till about the spring of 2000 I had been able to have sex normally.

Then I got a yeast infection and all of a sudden it was insanely

painful to even try. I only had pain on contact in the vestibule, but

the inside of the vagina was also really sore (I didn't realize this

until a few months ago).

I researched online, diagnosed myself and tried to find a doctor with

a clue. For the past 5 years I have spent who knows how much money on

pretty much every " standard " treatment – cromolyn cream, clobetasol,

Elavil, Zoloft, Aldara, etc. etc. My last gyno wanted to give me a

referral to a sex therapist (what good was that going to do me – I

couldn't HAVE sex) and a psychologist (yep, I'm sure some good talk

therapy would convince my vulva to stop burning).

I had heard a lot of good things about Kellogg-Spadt, both here

and other places, so I got an appointment with her (only a month's

wait and she even takes my insurance!) She did a really thorough exam

and said I was really, really inflamed, the pelvic floor muscles were

in spasm, and I had yeast and bacteria. So she gave me 1) atropine &

estradiol for the inflammation 2) Soma for the muscle spasms and 3)

yeast cream & doxycycline for the infections. The atropine/estradiol

didn't work, but at the next visit she said the muscle spasm was much

better and that I probably wouldn't need PT.

For the next try she gave me Traumeel tablets to crush & mix with

olive oil, then apply to the vestibule. Didn't work at all. The next

visit she injected Traumeel and gave me clindamycin cream for the

discharge, which she said had some strep b bacteria. The Traumeel

didn't do anything, but the clindamycin helped a bit. I was still raw

and red and itchy on the inside though.

Being a curious type, I googled clindamycin and read about what it

treats. One of the things on the list was desquamative inflammatory

vaginitis, which I'd never heard of, but the symptoms sounded just

like mine, including the strep. I figured that might be what was

treating me for so I asked about it on the next visit. It turns out

she hadn't thought of that, but she said it was definitely a

possibility so she gave me hemorrhoid suppositories with cortisone to

insert vaginally 1x a week. (Side note - I wonder what my pharmacist

thinks is wrong with me that I've been treated with genital wart

cream, antidepressants, estrogen, antibiotics, muscle relaxers and

hemorrhoid medicine? Ha!) That visit I was also put on the capsaicin

protocol. I had to apply the cream for 20 min. a day, then take it

off. It's not very pleasant but supposedly it has a 90% success rate.

Well, 2 days after I put in the first suppository, I had sex without

pain at all! I was sure that it must have been a fluke, but I had my

follow up visit with last week and she said that everything

looked so much better, it was like there was new skin in there, and

that obviously it was DIV. And…the touch test showed that the

capsaicin is working as well! So after all this time, I'm finally

getting better.

Anyway, sorry about my novel here, but I had never seen DIV mentioned

on here as a possibility and thought maybe I could save someone with

similar symptoms the trouble of trial and error.