SUCCESS!!

Heidi:
I have a success story after suffering for six years. I have been 100% totally pain free since 24 hours after my doctor appointment on September 18, 1998. I have done EVERYTHING to aggravate things and cause pain, but so far so good. I think I finally learned the cause of the pain. This is the best I've felt in six years. (Story follows below)

I have some information to share with you all and it incorporates some encouraging news (which we can all use, that's for sure). First I'll tell you about my history, then I'll tell you about my doctor's appointment. The details are a bit graphic but I've done this intentionally just in case having this information helps another woman.

SYMPTOMS:

I've been burning (no itching) since 1992 (six years). The burning started while I was on tetracycline which a dermatologist had been prescribing for four years. The pain started immediately after ending a long period of celibacy. My pain has always been of a cyclical nature, usually 10 or so good days and then 10 or so pain filled days. During the ten or so days the pain is with me it is 24x7. I've had one pain free remission from January to May of 1998. Once again, the pain came back after ending a long period of celibacy. I've been lasered (made it worse), had alcohol injected into the sore spots (worst pain I've ever felt), had a hysterectomy (a doctor told me the burning pain I felt was pelvic congestion and I believed him because I was so depressed from being in pain for so long).

DOCTOR APPOINTMENT:

I saw Dr. Gordon Davis on September 18. From what I hear he's the #1 vulvovaginal disease specialist in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area. The day that I saw him I was actually feeling pretty good which allowed him to perform a very thorough exam. When examining my labia majora he found what looked like white veins in the shiny skin side (inside). This was not something you could just wipe away or anything. The white was IN MY TISSUES not sitting on top of my skin. Hope that makes sense. He did some very thorough swabbing then I got my clothes back on and met him in his lab area. Under a microscope he found yeast. Not your usual c. albicans (sp?) kind but a yeast called T. Glabrata. He said 5 years ago about 1% of the women he treated came in with that kind of yeast but it is now more although I can't remember the number he quoted. This yeast looks kind of like an exclamation point that is joined (with no space). He told me intercourse aggravates the yeast and makes it symptomatic. Diflucan does not kill T. Glabrata so he put me on Nizoral, 200 mg. daily for 7 days, then 200 mg. every other day for 7 treatments and then every third day until my 30 pills are gone. (He diagnosed my condition as cyclical vulvovaginitis. His web page http://www:arizonadoctors.com describes it in detail. ) I stopped on the way home from the doctor and got my prescription filled and took my first dose about noontime on Friday. When I awoke on Saturday morning I could tell I was already improving from the Nizoral. Although I was feeling pretty good on Friday I was not 100% pain free. By Saturday night I was enjoying pain free sex with my SO and by Tuesday night I had totally worn the guy out!! He just hates that!! But it was so wonderful to feel "normal".

I have now been pain free for ten days so if my pain is going to return it should be any time now. I'm cautiously optimistic at this point but only time can tell. I'll keep you all posted on my progress.

I hope my story is helpful to someone else out there on the list. And if your doctors are checking for yeast I'm wondering if they've been trained adequately to recognize the less common (but equally painful) types of yeast out there. Your regular run of the mill OB/GYN probably has not been trained but a vulvovaginal disease specialist probably has been.

Dr. Davis is the fifth doctor I've seen so far and I only went there because I was referred by my regular OB/GYN's supervising physician. For the past two+ years I've been popping tricylics (100 mg nortriptylin daily) for the pain and avoiding doctors because quite frankly I no longer trusted them. Dr. Davis asked me why it took me six years to see him and I told him I had completely lost my trust in doctors. And he didn't throw me out of his office. :)

If you have any questions you can e-mail me back at robin.simmons@intel.com or phone me at (602) 831-9022 (evenings).

Take care and I'm hoping for pain free days for you, too!

Robin

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