|
Vulvar Health Awareness Month
(08/20/2003) by Debby Herbenick
The US Vulvar Health Initiative, as well as other groups worldwide, is celebrating March as Vulvar Health Awareness Month. If you're not sure what a vulva is, then that's all the more reason we need a month to focus on awareness!
The word "vulva" refers to the parts of a woman's genitals that can be seen from the outside. The vulva includes the mons pubis, the labia majora, the labia minora, the clitoris and the vaginal entrance just as the word "face" includes the eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, forehead and so
on.
Okay, so now you know what a vulva is - but why bother with an awareness campaign? Why do we need to talk about things connected with "down there?"
Mainly because it's not just a matter of which word we're using, it's more than just semantics. Not only is the word "vulva" typically substituted with slang words like "coochie" or "south of the border parts," but research and public awareness about vulvar problems is also terribly low. Vulvar cancer is referred to as the "Cinderella" of gynecologic oncology, the one that is ignored and not allowed at the ball. It is the cancer that is less often mentioned or researched - many people have never even heard of vulvar cancer!
Vulvar problems maintain their mystery because we allow them to, by not talking about them or researching them. For example, there are completely unknown rates of many vulvar problems. While it is thought that approximately 15% of women might experience vulvar pain, or Vulvodynia, at any given time, no one really knows. Similarly, there doesn’t seem to be a reliable rate of how often lichen sclerosus, a chronic inflammatory skin condition, occurs.
There is also strikingly little information available about causes and cures of vulvar disorders. Vulvodynia, lichen sclerosus and vaginismus all have unknown causes and unknown cures and most women never hear about these disorders until they happen to them personally.
It is bad enough that we don't know how often these problems occur and even worse that we don't know what causes them or how to make them go away. When you are a woman with a vulvar problem, one of the low points can be the feelings of isolation. Having never heard of vulvar cancer, vulvodynia, vaginismus or lichen sclerosus, women may feel that they are the only ones in their community, let alone the world, with a vulvar problem. They may see a multitude of doctors before getting an accurate diagnosis for their vulvar problem. Not knowing the proper names of the parts of the vulva, women may not be able to communicate where it hurts or stings.
Women sometimes go their entire lives without ever looking once at their vulvas. But they should look. Why? Just as each woman’s breasts are different from one another, so is a woman’s vulva. There are so many different sizes and colors of vulvas that no specific diagram really represents "normal." It's important for women to look at their vulvas, to find out what “normal” means for them and report any changes in appearance or feel to their doctors.
Vulvar disorders have a wide range of symptoms. Depending on the disorder, a woman might experience one or more of the following: white or reddened patches of skin; fusing of the labia minora to the labia majora; itching that keeps them awake at night; pain that prevents them from going to work or sitting comfortably in a chair; atrophied skin that easily splits into razor-thin cuts; or a narrowed vaginal entrance that either makes sex extremely painful or downright impossible. Many women with vulvar disorders fear losing their jobs or their husbands because of their symptoms.
Some women have said, "I never knew where my clitoris was until it was gone," with it being gone either to surgical removal for vulvar cancer treatment or gone through having it covered with scar tissue as part of the progression of lichen sclerosus. It is a shame to wait until it is
"too late" to find out.
Vulvar cancer, while relatively uncommon, is dramatically rising among women under 45, seemingly due to links with HPV and smoking. And while vulvar cancer has high survival rates when caught early, there are often delays in diagnoses of 1 to 2 years. However, learning to perform monthly vulvar self-exams helps women and their health practitioners with early detection of vulvar disorders and vulvar cancer. Performing vulvar self-exams can save women's lives. If you would like more information about performing vulvar self exams, visit www.vulvarhealth.org or ask your health provider. It is suggested that women begin performing monthly vulvar self-exams when they turn 18 or when they become sexually active.
We need to raise awareness about the vulva - and talk plainly about the vulva - so that we can communicate amongst ourselves and with our health practitioners about our experiences. We also need to raise awareness about vulvar disorders so that these problems become more recognized and so that more research in this area gets funded, providing evidence for incidence rates, causes, treatments and hopefully cures for vulvar disorders.
Learn more about the awareness campaign and Vulvar Health Awareness Month at:
www.vulvarhealth.org
For additional information about vulvar disorders and advocacy, visit these web sites:
The National Vulvodynia Association (NVA)
www.nva.org
Gynecological Awareness Information Network (GAIN)
www.gynsupport.com
Vulvodynia Support
www.vulvodyniasupport.com
Recommended books include:
The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler
Femalia by Joani Blank (Editor), Michael Perry (Photographer) and Michael A. Rosen (Photographer)
Note from the editor: The below article describes personal experiences of a woman suffering from vulvar pain. SexualHealth.com wants to emphasize that we never diagnose nor treat medical problems via our website. One of our main goals is to promote information about sexual health issues and to make this information available to the consumer. We do want to stress the importance of discussing various drugs and treatment options mentioned in the below article with your prescribing physician. We thank Lauren for her input!
This article appears in the following topics:
|
