Seal Press, 2011. — 457 p.
Healing Painful Sex - A Woman’s Guide to Confronting, Diagnosing, and Treating Sexual Pain by Deborah Coady, MD, and Nancy Fish is a concise, clear, and comprehensive resource that informs and empowers women to get the care they deserve. This book is illustrating precisely the type of integrated and holistic treatment approach to pain caused by sex that stands the best chance of success. Sexual pain loses its mystery in a book that comprehensively covers the myriad physical causes and treatments available to replace misiagnosis and improper treatment. For women, here is hope that cuts through the murkiness of vulvodynia to clear diagnosis for vulvar pain. With an optimistic, holistic, and mindful approach to healing, Coady and Fish provide empathy, support, and most important, a thorough education about the possible causes, approaches, and treatment options. This empowering book shatters myths, provides hope, and offers tangible help to countless women. Through their compassionate validation and expertise, Coady and Fish have broken the silence and begun the healing process for so many in need. Healing Painful Sex identifies many of the mysteries behind diagnoses women commonly receive, and offers solutions to various conditions and disorders. This book makes it easy to understand challenging diagnoses. I highly recommend it to women and their healthcare providers.
Millions of women suffer from sexual and pelvic pain in America today, yet it is frequently misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all. In Healing Painful Sex, Deborah Coady, MD and Nancy Fish use their combined professional expertise as a doctor and therapist who specialize in sexual pain to provide readers with an understanding of its many causes and how to treat them, from both a physical and psychological standpoint. Organized into three parts: naming the problem, getting a diagnosis, and overcoming pain, Healing Painful Sex includes medical checklists, illustrations, vignettes based on interviews with women and their healthcare professionals, treatment options, and guidance for moving forward after healing. Coady and Fish speak honestly and directly to sexual pain sufferers’ experiences, helping them address the problem of chronic pain, understand and prevent misdiagnoses, define medical terms and conditions, and regain sexual joy. Comprehensive, multi-dimensional, and deeply insightful, Healing Painful Sex offers women the tools to successfully take on the many challenges of sexual pain and move toward a healthy, happy future.
Nancy Fish had suffered from severe pelvic pain and had seen seven specialists before visiting Deborah Coady. Coady, while having years of experience with women suffering from sexual pain, nonetheless took some time to uncover all of Fish's difficulties. Fish, like most women suffering from sexual pain, through inadequate treatment had several conditions that had compounded and spread. A licensed certified social worker specializing in chronic illness, Fish found great hope in Coady's insistence that she never give up on herself. She was inspired to form a partnership with Coady to help those with the chronic illness of sexual pain. Deborah Coady, through her personally developed teams of colleagues in neurology, dermatology, orthopedics, pain management, gastroenterology, urology, peripheral nerve surgery, physical therapy and psychotherapists, demonstrates in Healing Painful Sex how fruitful their holistic approach can be. Even in your most difficult situations, you can experience a significant reduction in your pain and can find help for reintroducing sex as a joyous and nourishing part of your life. Things can get better.
The book is organized into three parts. Part I: Naming the Problem begins with the difficult situation of talking about sexual pain. It helps the reader learn how to share her situation with one or two other people who can then help make medical decisions. The book then discusses the often arrogant, uninformed or downright abusive physicians who exist. The degree of incompetence, insensitivity, and indifference among gynecologists, other specialists, and general practitioners is hard to overstate. Hoping to aid their emotional healing along the way to ending their sexual pain, Coady and Fish outline the ways in which the reader can understand what to do when the doctors get it wrong. The first section of the book ends with a chapter dedicated to finding a doctor who will offer effective treatment and provides a detailed holistic guide on beginning one's healing by following guidelines on pain, sleep hygiene, diet and supplements, exercise and relaxation techniques and learning of how to be gentle with oneself. Part II: Understanding the Problem, provides the reader nine chapters of detailed information covering the symptoms and conditions of pelvic floor dysfunction, vulvodynia, pudendal nerve pain, clitorodynia, pelvic organ problems, endometriosis, painful bladder, and irritable bowel syndrome, skin disorders, such as lichen sclerosis, and hormonal, surgical, and post-cancer causes of pain. Interwoven with detailed explanations of the causes of sexual pain, the book contains full-page anatomical illustrations, checklists for particular disorders, and details on the types of tests needed as well as lists of the common misdiagnoses given for a disorder and ways to rule it out. It contains details on how the various conditions can co-occur and affect one another. It tells the potential patient of what to expect during an examination and offers guidance based on the doctor's performance and recommendations. Part III: Overcoming the Problem presents valuable information and guidance devoted to fulfilling one's life with the joys often taken away in sexual pain. Coady and Fish hope to return libido, desire, partner intimacy, healthy relationships with friends and families to women undergoing sexual pain. Their many personal case studies validate and underscore the valuable guidance they provide. The book closes with excellent resources, including recommended books, helpful websites, psychotherapists, as well as relevant organizations and associations.