Vaginal wall... thickening? Anyone? post 17+ years ago.

[Doreen]

SO though I'm not technically M2F  thought I'd throw the question in here because of similarities.  Had surgery down below, fixed the mess to female norms.  Along with what I assumed was vaginoplasty. (Back in 2001 with Dr. Sanguan KUnaporn in Phuket, Thailand).

Anyways the ongoing saga of pelvic pain & its misdiagnosis continues.  I finally got a clarification on a rather obscurely worded CT scan this is what the doctor said that the radiologist told him...

"The neovaginal tissue is slightly thickened which is a normal post-surgical change."

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the tissue... THIN with age?  Generally thickening is the province of endometriosis?  I have asked many folks, everyone so far has told me either it stayed the same, they don't know, or it thinned.   Did your vaginal wall thicken?

Curious minds want to know.   

[Lisa_K]

Your title caught my eye since I had surgery 41 years ago in June and thought maybe I contribute something?

I've followed some of your trials and tribulations and am sorry about your on-going problems and confusion and lack of medical answers explaining what might be happening but now you've made me curious.

How would anyone know if their vaginal wall thickened or thinned if they've never had problems or had a CT scan or anything? Talking and learning about all this stuff and the experiences of others is all kind of new to me but it seems like an odd question. For me, things down there appear to be the same as they've always been without any noticeable difference after the first year or so of healing. Routinely checking for anything out of the ordinary, I usually feel around the inside of my vagina to the depth my longest finger can reach anyway as a part of my regular dilation and think I would have noticed thickening or thinning?

Also, doesn't endometriosis affect the uterus and not the vaginal canal? I get it there's some confusion on exactly what parts you may have but if you have the same vaginal depth and diameter you've always had, how much could "thickening" really be a problem?

FWIW, I had "exploratory abdominal surgery" in 1968 when I was 13 because I had pain they couldn't understand and have a 6" horizontal incision scar 3 or 4 inches below my belly button. This was never fully explained to me to my satisfaction but it fixed whatever the problem was and was soon mostly forgotten. All I remember is having all those muscles cut hurt like bloody hell, I spent 8 days in hospital and it took most of summer vacation between 7th and 8th grade to get back to normal. I didn't really start going through puberty either until I was 15 and they ran a bunch of tests and stuff but I think this was because I was such a weird, girlish and under developed kid anyway? I started HRT at 17, stopped growing at 5'7" and never had terminal facial hair or any body hair really or got muscles or anything which in the end worked out to my advantage. I doubt any of this means anything and I didn't really get curious about it until I was an older adult but I lost my parents when I was 25 so there's never been anyone to ask but I really don't care.

I'm sure none of this helps but I hope you can find some answers soon and that things get better for you.

[Doreen]

Your title caught my eye since I had surgery 41 years ago in June and thought maybe I contribute something?

I've followed some of your trials and tribulations and am sorry about your on-going problems and confusion and lack of medical answers explaining what might be happening but now you've made me curious.

How would anyone know if their vaginal wall thickened or thinned if they've never had problems or had a CT scan or anything? Talking and learning about all this stuff and the experiences of others is all kind of new to me but it seems like an odd question. For me, things down there appear to be the same as they've always been without any noticeable difference after the first year or so of healing. Routinely checking for anything out of the ordinary, I usually feel around the inside of my vagina to the depth my longest finger can reach anyway as a part of my regular dilation and think I would have noticed thickening or thinning?

Also, doesn't endometriosis affect the uterus and not the vaginal canal? I get it there's some confusion on exactly what parts you may have but if you have the same vaginal depth and diameter you've always had, how much could "thickening" really be a problem?

FWIW, I had "exploratory abdominal surgery" in 1968 when I was 13 because I had pain they couldn't understand and have a 6" horizontal incision scar 3 or 4 inches below my belly button. This was never fully explained to me to my satisfaction but it fixed whatever the problem was and was soon mostly forgotten. All I remember is having all those muscles cut hurt like bloody hell, I spent 8 days in hospital and it took most of summer vacation between 7th and 8th grade to get back to normal. I didn't really start going through puberty either until I was 15 and they ran a bunch of tests and stuff but I think this was because I was such a weird, girlish and under developed kid anyway? I started HRT at 17, stopped growing at 5'7" and never had terminal facial hair or any body hair really or got muscles or anything which in the end worked out to my advantage. I doubt any of this means anything and I didn't really get curious about it until I was an older adult but I lost my parents when I was 25 so there's never been anyone to ask but I really don't care.

I'm sure none of this helps but I hope you can find some answers soon and that things get better for you.

Thank you for your response.  Wish I had started HRT back then, but for all I know the chronic pain was initiated when I started HRT again 4 years ago after a long hiatus of none by my own limited amounts.  If I had started HRT at 16 or so when I really wanted to, I might've had this pain then too, and that would've been really really bad.  Limited finances and no insurance means you basically suffer.

If it is a band of scars or adhesions causing the pain I'm more than willing to have them excise them.  I'll talk options with the Ob/gyn on the 22nd that of all the docs is the only one taking my problems seriously enough.  From all my IS friends none of them had heard of vaginal wall thickening either. Frankly I think its a BS diagnosis... especially when he said its 'common' yet I never heard of it, and I study this stuff.  Apparently from the lack of responses here noone else has either lol.  Oh well, its standard OP when it comes to dealing with docs these days it seems lately.

[ShotGal]

I'm also long term post (the grandfather of Thai surgeons - Preecha) but don't know/can't answer.  It's not something I ever check and never had any MD check out, due to - no issues.  It seems logical that scar tissue would thicken things from surgery, age or excessive wear (I don't remember to dilate* enough to have this last issue - *walls seem to shrink when forgetting dilating which could be mistaken for thickening).   But if you have mystery pain it should be looked into.   I'm not a doctor and don't play one on TV either though.