Healing Painful Sex

A Woman’s Guide to Confronting, Diagnosing, and Treating Sexual Pain

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.

Because you deserve to experience sex without pain.

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.

Healing Painful Sex covers the following symptoms and conditions: Pelvic floor dysfunction, Vulvodynia, pudendal nerve pain, and clitorodynia, Pelvic organ problems, endometriosis, painful bladder, and irritable bowel, Skin disorders, such as lichen sclerosis, and hormonal, surgical, and post-cancer causes of sexual pain.

"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." - Elizabeth G. Stewart, MD, author, The V Book

"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. Bravo!" - Heather Roppolo-Guidone, Director of Education, Endometriosis Foundation of America

Deborah Coady, MD, is a board certified obstetrician-gynecologist in private practice, with the major portion of her practice since the early 1990’s devoted to caring for women with chronic sexual, vulvar, and pelvic pain. She is a clinical assistant professor at NYU-Langone Medical Center, a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and a member of the International Pelvic Pain Society.

Healing Painful Sex. 400 pages. Paperback.