I've Been Botoxed

Yesterday was the big injection day.  I wasn't very nervous leading up to it.  I only really got nervous when I was laying on the table with my legs spread and looking at needles.  The idea of having someone put needles into your vagina is quite frightening.



The bigger hole is the vagina and the smaller
hole is the anus.

 First Dr. Goldstein did a short exam to pinpoint the muscles that were the most tense.  I had 100 units of Botox and he decided to split it like this: 50 units in the Puborectalis (6 on the pelvic clock) and 25 each in the left and right Pubococcygeus (around 4 and 8 on the pelvic clock).  My 6 o'clock muscle was definitely the most tender, which is why he put 50 units in that muscle.

As for the procedure itself, I'm not gonna lie.  It was painful.  Fortunately it was a very short-lived pain.  I was afraid of the pricking of the needle, but I actually hardly felt that.  The pain came when he injected the Botox into my muscles.  It felt like fire was spreading through my vagina and all the way to my anus.  It was intense, but it only lasted a couple minutes.  Within 5 minutes I only felt a slight soreness and no fire, so all in all, not bad if you can deal with a couple minutes of fire.  He told me to squeeze and release those muscles at least 100 times that day to make sure the Botox got spread around the muscles.  Now we just wait to see what happens - I'm supposed to do aggressive PT and see if it made a difference.

A side note: while we were sitting in Dr. G's office after the procedure he mentioned that my therapist is the best patient advocate he has ever encountered.  He actually said, "She's a pain in my ass, but that's not necessarily a bad thing."  She will call him until she gets a response and she demands answers.  My husband and I feel very lucky to have her in our corner and we agreed that we love that she is a pain in our doctors' asses.  Dr. Goldstein referred to her as our quaterback.  Now I do know that the quarterback is a very important position on the football field, but that's where my understanding of this metaphor ends.  However I'm sure my husband appreciated the sports reference.  I'll have to get him to explain to me exactly why our therapist is the quarterback.  And now I'm wondering what position our other doctors play.  Is Dr. G the tight end?  Our PT the kicker?

So getting the Botox was pretty much a positive experience.  I had intense pain for a couple minutes, but it subsided quickly.  I just hope it helps.

It's Not Just About the Vagina (unfortunately)

It has taken me a while to realize just how much my mental state has been affecting things in my life. I knew I was really depressed for a few months and that the depression was really making me feel sad and hopeless all the time. But now that I'm feeling less depressed I realize that it was more than just sadness. Last semester I was hating my job so much that I would imagine getting into car accidents just so I wouldn't have to go to work. My students got on my last nerve every day and I had nothing good to say. I will say that part of that was having the class from hell, but I think a significant part of it was also the fact that I was experimenting with different anti-anxiety drugs, some with drastic and negative side effects. I mean, I can definitely remember that when I was in the height of my Prozac reaction I was more snippy and sarcastic with my students, more mean and more negative. I thought that I was really depressed from about January through mid March, but I really think it started before that and I just didn't realize it because all these drugs confused things. I was taking Prozac around November-December and even though I didn't feel that total hopelessness that I felt in the beginning of 2011, I was definitely in a negative place. I'm wondering if I would have gone into the depression of early 2011 earlier if I hadn't been taking all those drugs at the end of 2010 - even though they had horrible side effects they may have also been staving off the depression. Because after the Prozac episode I went off all the drugs completely for a couple months (those months being January and February). It wasn't until I started taking Zoloft and Tranxene in March that my attitude and mindset started turning around to the positive side of things.

I hate that I have to take a drug to make myself feel better. I mean, I'm certainly glad that it's helping, but I hate that it has to be this way. I just hope that once I get through all this vagina mess maybe I can stop taking the drugs. I just don't want to be on drugs forever.

As for my job, it's still stressful, but I'm dealing with it now. I was seriously considering applying to another school district for a while, but now I feel like I at least want to give this school one more year. I feel like I wasn't in my right mind for much of this school year and maybe jumping into another school isn't really the solution.

I'm certainly not all sunshine and butterflies at his point, but I do feel much better mentally. I still have my sad days and my freak out moments of "will I ever want sex again?", but it's not like it was for the last few months. I do have hope again.

My Botox appointment is set for April 19. Cross your fingers!