Feeling a close connection to a partner, enjoying intimacy and reaching sexual euphoria together are just a few of the things that make sex so great. Sex is healthy. Sex is good for us. Yet it’s something that is still spoken about with a bit of ‘taboo’ attached to it. I discovered this after my sex life was completely destroyed and I realised just how important intimacy and pleasure really are.
I’d lost my virginity at 19, to a very caring boyfriend, but sex, for me, was never easy. I actually found it painful and uncomfortable and, in the end, impossible, which contributed to the end of my relationship in my mid-20s.
After numerous visits to the doctor, I cried to my GP that sex had become impossible, due to the pain. It wasn’t easy, I told her, to see all my friends marry and have children and I couldn’t even have a sexual relationship. She brushed it off and ushered me out of her office, so I left defeated.
In 2008, I started suffering a lot with back pain and, in 2010, it was discovered that the disc in my back was protruding so much that it had to be cut off. And then in late 2011, when I was 34, I started experiencing shooting pains in my back again. I visited a physio, who suggested an MRI scan, and he and a surgeon diagnosed me with a severe femoroacetabular impingement, more commonly known as a hip impingement. It finally explained the years of back trouble, as it was changing my posture, causing my disc to protrude.
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