In January, 2023, TLLC partnered with Lichen Sclerosus Support Network (LSSN). This means my new 2023 blog posts will be published on LSSN’s page. For full details on what the partnership entails, watch this video.
In this post, I reflect on my over a 10-year journey to get a diagnosis. I then share why I think it took so long for me to get my diagnosis, including ill-informed doctors, lack of awareness, not knowing my anatomy, and not looking at my vulva.
“what kind of doctor should I see for my lichen sclerosus”? Great question! In this blog post, I review what lichen sclerosus is, what doctors diagnose and treat it, and which kind of doctor you should see to follow your case.
Did you know there is a difference between signs and symptoms? I sure didn’t. For the longest time, I called everything a lichen sclerosus symptom. Unbeknownst to me, I was using the wrong terminology for quite some time. However, once I learned the difference, I realized this is an important distinction that folks with lichen sclerosus should understand. In this post, I will explain what differentiates a sign and a symptom. I will highlight lichen sclerosus signs and lichen sclerosus symptoms. Finally, I will explain why, in my opinion, this difference matters.
In this post, I want to focus on a more abstract aspect of mental health that you may struggle with. It is an aspect that is harder to articulate than anger or fear, but it is incredibly important to discuss, nonetheless. That is, I will be discussing expectations about progress with Lichen Sclerosus. If you’ve ever found yourself saying, “why am I not better yet”, “why isn’t this working”, “other people seem to get relief faster, why am I still in pain”, “I feel better physically, but the mental effects of this disease are still tearing me apart and I know I should be better by now”, etc., then this post is definitely for you.
My first post about fear highlighted various fears you can experience after getting diagnosed with and processing a Lichen Sclerosus diagnosis. Some of those fears included fears about relationships and sex, fears about developing vulvar cancer, and fear of the unknown. You can read about this here. In my follow-up piece, I discussed fears relating to sex and current/future relationships and provide some practical advice (checklist-style) to help lower the volume of those fears, read that piece here. In today’s post, I tackle the fear of developing vulvar cancer and the fear of the unknown. The main theme with this post and last week’s post is the power of education and how empowering ourselves can help ease our worries and fears.
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