Some people have a lot of pain, some virtually none. Get some decent painkillers. You absolutely have to dilate.

I've heard anecdotally that pelvic floor exercises can help. These generally come from a physical therapist.

It’s so incredible how different this is for everyone. I’ve never had any pain while dilating in the 6 months since surgery.

According to my liaison, dilation pain “should never go above a 2 or 3”.

What is your positioning like? If youre tensing in any way during dilation - this would cause pain. Or, you’re really early in healing - you could have an internal tear?

I found that the “butterfly” position that they tell you to get into to dilate doesn’t work for me. Rather, I butterfly my left leg, and bend my right leg so my knee is bent and my foot is flat on the bed.

stretches:

Using my left hand, I insert either the purple or blue soulsource to 1 dot, then press the entire dilator against the inside of my canal to the left for 60 seconds, then to the right for 60 seconds. This releases and stretches the walls of your canal. Then I push the dilator down towards the bottom of my canal for 60 seconds. I do this like 2 or 3 times before I dilate.

I have a lubricant injector that makes it so I can disperse lubricant directly into my canal. Then I dilate. I’m mostly laying flat aside from having one or two pillows under my bed. The flatter you are the better. You shouldn’t be like practicing kegels or anything at this point. I was actually lectured about this by my PT LOL.

People's experiences with dilation can vary a huge amount, and there's so many reasons why dilation can be easy for some people, difficult for others, suddenly painful when it wasn't, or always painful

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Part of what you're experiencing could be nerves waking back up. I was very numb after surgery (thank goodness for epidurals) and I was still pretty insensitive down there for weeks after. Painkillers can help when nerves start getting stabby (I used ibuprofen and paracetamol as pretty much my only means of pain relief when I needed it), but they aren't a magic solution, sadly

It might help to be able to separate out in your mind what the pain(s) are that you're feeling and very specifically where in or around the vaginal cavity they're occurring, and what that might be linked to. That can be difficult at first (our brains are very good at going, "Ow! Pain!" and then not giving us much beyond that, but knowing if the pain is coming from clenched muscles being forced apart compared to swollen and sensitive tissue being touched compared to sensitive and swollen tissue being ground together by clenched muscle compared to something else can inform a lot of how you approach dilation

Something that might help with swollen tissue is douching with hibiscrub. It's relatively inexpensive. Dilute it down to less than the recommended amount. I've found that really useful, especially at the beginning. Hibiscrub is a skin wash specifically designed to kill bacteria and viruses and leave a thin film behind to continue to do that whilst also being very gentle on every type of skin. If there's bacterial growth (which I had) happening that causes inflammation then the hibiscrub will take care of that growth for you and help prevent more. But it's important to come off hibiscrub at some point (I stopped after 8 weeks). It isn't healthy for any vaj to constantly have its biome nuked

One of the things I did was ditch the lube recommended to me. I went for a water-based lube that contains aloe vera (a thick lube, but thinner than the medical lube I was given). That helped me as I found that the slightly thinner lube meant I was more able to slip the dilator pass clenched muscles slightly easier, whereas the thicker lube had to be "worked" by moving the dilator in and out before it was thinned enough to work the way it should

But that isn't to say that water-based lube is going to work for you. If you've solid plastic dilators then experimenting with other lubes could be worth doing to see if they help (but if you've silicone dilators don't use silicone lube as it's a solvent for solid silicone). I sometimes used to start with water-based lube for the first dilator and then use camellia oil for the second. But it's also really important to remember to use appropriate additives to water to douche with. Oil-based lubricants won't flush out with just body temperature water. You may need to dilate several times, or you may need to use a very mild detergent like baby shampoo

Expectation management is important. If your experience of dilation is pain, then part of why you can continue to experience pain because your body will just naturally tense up when you're mentally going, "I need to dilate". And that can cause issues from pain being caused by having to force a dilator between muscles that are trying to clamp together to swollen, sensitive, painful areas being forced into each other by muscle contraction. That's really difficult to tackle. Changing up the routine and 'rituals' you have around prepping to dilate can help a lot, as can using things like heat pads for period pains and cramps. If you find scents or sounds or meditation or anything else to be relaxing do that before and during dilation. That really will help a lot (I do anything and everything while actually dilating from playing games on a hand-held console to reading to scrolling TikTok. Whatever works in the moment). This is a thing that takes time and patience though. If your brain has learnt to expect pain it'll take a while for it to learn different

There's a few physical things you can try that might help. Switching down to a thinner dilator might help, but that really depends on what's causing the pain. Dilating in a different position could be the key. I don't do the lying down on my back thing. I sit mostly upright with pillows holding me up and I don't bother with the feet-together-flop-your-knees apart thing. Instead I just have my knees up at a comfortable height and apart far enough that I've access but things feel comfortable and natural. Something else could be having the dilators at body temperature before you start. Have a hot bowl of water and leave the dilators in there to warm up. When they're at a temperature that you can't really tell if they're hot or cold to the touch then they'll be at around body temperature. A dilator that's cold will cause muscles to cramp and tense, and a dilator that's too hot can cause muscles that are still healing to flinch which in turn causes pain

Hope that helps

If You feel pain while dilating so how do you know how deep push dilator ? Sometime when i read posts about SRS I'm feeling weak.

Everyone’s experience and pain tolerance will be different. Mine was never painful, just uncomfortable. That said I never had any internal granulation and I know a lot of people do and that does hurt (and bleed) and will until it’s treated and/or healed.

The advice from my friend who is nearly 3 years post op is to dilate very slowly use lots of lubrication and non perfumed moisture cream. You could always try changing your leg position ie have your legs down flat.

I didn’t find it painful until I went up a size. Try not to sink your heels into the surface you’re on and go slow.

I’m still pre-op so take this with a grain of salt but I’ve read that using a vibrator before dilating can help relax tight muscles. I’m pretty sure it’s a catch 22, you tension up because of pain but tensing up is causing pain.