early in recovery is a pretty weird time because you're dilating 3x a day, which knocks you out and hurts... but also it can feel good! personally early dilating was a mix of really good and somewhat painful. thing is that you're feeling these mixed signals in an area associated w pleasure so it can be emotionally confusing to have all that happening at once.
first of all the #1 thing to remember is that Everything Gets Better With Time. your body is really resilient, and you will heal from basically anything that happens in the beginning. (haha do u think ur gonna do anything more wild to ur body than the surgeons already did?)
for me, masturbating was initially pretty difficult because of a few reasons
- hypersensitivity: touching myself on my clit or really anywhere could cause so much sensitivity that light touch would be registered as pain. hypersensitivity is something that you deal with over time by gently touching yourself while looking in the mirror.
- stitches just fucking hurt lmao, it's hard to work around the stitches, especially the ones on your clitoral hood. I never found a solution for this, I was just lucky enough to have my stitches out at 4 weeks instead of 6 because my doc wanted me in for a silver nitrate treatment.
- it's really easy to overdo it... I think like twice or three times I masturbated in a way that caused pain for a day or two afterwards. I AM OKAY NOW AND I HEALED FINE. after talking to a friend I found out that this is actually SUPER normal hahaha. and fwiw this was separately with clitoral stimulation and with a dildo/dilator.
- side note: weirdly enough soft dildos hurt early during recovery and the dilators felt a lot better for penetrative masturbation, but you've gotta b careful with squeezing the dildo/dilator because that's how I overdid it
- also something that feels good in the moment can kinda hurt afterwards
thing is that masturbation is a good way to relieve tension during the first weeks of recovery, and it's also just good for exploring and bonding with your new body. my surgeon's team asked me if I had achieved orgasm or had penetrative sex way before I was "supposed" to do either because they expect that you may be pushing the boundaries of what they suggest.
having my gfs touch my clit and vulva (after washing their hands) was also helpful to deal with hypersensitivity, and was a really vulnerable experience at first. and because I was a little worried about nails hurting I had them finger me with a black nitrile glove in the early stages
you should trust yourself for if something hurts too much or feels good. and if u overdo it just chill out for a lil bit and don't worry you're gonna be fine :)
with all this difficulty and initial pain though.... EVERYTHING IS FINE NOW! sex and masturbation feel great and I have recovered.
little something to ease the anxiety hopefully
