Forty three of these patients responded to a survey requesting information on their pain, maintenance activities and treatments, daily functioning and sexual status since their treatment termination. Three patients report a single episode of pain and two patients report two episodes each of vulvar pain. All five of these patients report the absence of any vulvar pain for a mean period of 19.8 months prior to completion of the survey. One Hundred percent of the 43 dysesthetic vulvodynia patients studied report being pain free a mean of 39.5 months after successful treatment termination. No vulvar pain related treatments or significant restrictions on daily activities are reported.
All patients report sexual interest, pleasure and activity.
Surface electromyography assisted pelvic floor muscle rehabilitation is an effective and long term cure in the treatment of dysesthetic vulvodynia. Using a chronic regional pain model, previous research has demonstrated that several characteristics of the sEMG signal of the pubococcygeal portion of the levator ani muscle can reliably differentiate dysesthetic vulvodynia sufferers from both asymptomatic matched controls 4 and from pain of acute origins such as infectious sources. 5 Normalization of the sEMG characteristics of the pubococcygeal muscle in dysesthetic vulvodynia patients can be achieved with daily sEMG assisted muscle exercise using the Glazer Protocol. Since the pathophysiology of dysesthetic vulvodynia is not well understood, a number of empirical treatments have been employed with widely varying outcomes. A literature search did not reveal any studies that incorporated a long term follow up component in assessing the clinical efficacy of any treatment regimen.