Decrease Pain & Increase Vulva Pleasure

Alexandra Durigan, RN

Thanks, babe. Such a gift. 

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

I want to start by asking you to share a little bit about your story because your background is so interesting as far as your history at Mayo Clinic and your history as a nurse. At one point, you took a very different turn in your clinical career and went deep into your specialty. Can you just give everybody a background on how you got into this work that you are doing?

Alexandra Durigan, RN

For sure. My journey began when I was younger, and I was battling a life-threatening eating disorder throughout my years as a young woman. It came the time I was coming into my sophomore year of high school, and via my doctors and my family, there became this jurisdiction that I could go to treatment and heal and then go to college or I would not be able to go. I knew that going to college, I had this moment of, yes, I want to keep living. It was in treatment that I decided to come back to my body. 

Throughout that time, I had lost my menstrual cycle. I was deeply numb in my body and my tissues. I know that that, in varying degrees, is a very shared story for us, as women, of not feeling safe in our womanly form and our womanly bodies. As I began to heal, I knew that I wanted to help other women. Growing up in the town of Rochester, Minnesota, it was a very natural next step to go to nursing school. That became my path. I love science. I love physiology. It was an amazing time. 

But during nursing school, I was also on my healing journey, coming back to my body, my sexuality, my menstrual cycle, supporting and clearing my hormones, my mental health, and just so many other things. By the time I got done with nursing school and became a women’s specialty nurse, I felt that it was this lens of perception that had changed within me that began to interface with what I was seeing. 

What I was seeing was women giving birth, having a third, second, or fourth-degree tear, and then we were just sending them home, or women getting hysterectomy as an issue for activities and having these massive reproductive surgeries, or women getting nerve ablations from having deep, untouched pelvic pain. I was starting to feel more in my body, and I knew that I had to be a part of something more. I believed in so much more for our womanhood than I was seeing in this allopathic care model. That became the search for me, and that became my path. Eventually the founding of Pelvic Care.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Beautiful. They touched on such an important point in that, which is that so many times I think we hear in practice from women, I am ready to be done with my cycle. I am so sick of my hormones saying, God, it is over; it is hurting. This whole thing of womanhood is sometimes framed as hard, annoying, and all these different things. Much of your work has gone into completely redefining that for women.

Alexandra Durigan, RN

Redefining it through health is possible because we just have to know that, as women today, sexual health and whole health were severed a long time ago. Reproductive reservoirs and sexual bodies have not been cared for. Everything that we have normalized as the difficulties of womanhood and these symptoms—menstrual cramps and all these things—is happening. 

Our language is that our body is languishing, not because we are not receiving the care that we need and require to be so radiant, vital, wow, and thriving. our sexual bodies as women. There is a whole other paradigm possible when we turn towards that.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

That i wonderful. I want to bring us to the conversation that we have talked about a little bit offline, which is on the vulva. When you are talking about, connect this all when you are talking about vaginal terrors and all these types of traumatic situations for women. When we are talking about situations that or other situations where it is so easy for us as women to say, compare what we look, what our vulvas look, and our genital image. 

I have seen, and as I imagine you have in your research, a direct correlation between our genital image, how we feel about our genitals, and our sexual drive. There is this real psychological and body-physiological relationship between the vulva to our sexual drive. Can we talk a little bit about the vulva? How with the Volvo with that body part is to you how you utilize and help women become more acquainted with their vulva as well as the topic of engorgement? Can we wrap all of that together?

Alexandra Durigan, RN

Love it. Let us pass it out a little bit. I believe that the vulva is one of the most undernourished and overlooked parts of our feminine physiology, particularly our sexual bodies, as well as the birthing canal. This part of us gets me so excited because it has such an impact on our health. We have been fed most women a wounded story of what our vulva should look like. In my hands-on practice, I would say that pretty close to 100% of the women come in believing that something is wrong with the anatomy of their vulva and nothing is, so we each call it a snowflake. 

We each have a unique expression of our external and internal labia, as no two vulva are the same. Every single woman has a one-of-a-kind vulva between her legs. I wish that we were taught that, as little girls, this part of you is so special and will not look like any other person’s because that is unique to who you are as a woman in your body. When we carry shame around our vulva, we do not feel safe in our anatomy. That starts to wreak havoc on our nervous system. Our nervous system goes all the way down to our vulva. The powerful thing about our nervous system is that when we are in safety, when we perceive a part of our body to be safe, beautiful, or belonging, joining our nervous system is in resonance and regulation. What happens then is that it orients blood flow to that place. 

However, when the opposite is true, when we do not feel safe in our vulva when we carry shame or wounded sexual narratives and belief systems about our vulva and we begin to disconnect from that place, our nervous system says, I am going to protect you, and it will fault blood flow to our vulva. Now we want to be intimate. We want to make love; we want to feel pleasure, but we do not have physiologic blood flow going into those tissues. What happens is that those tissues get tight. They get contracted. Some women get achy; some women get numb. Some women have difficulty reaching higher states of libido where lubrication is lacking. Much of that is in the underwiring of our relationship to our body. Whether or not we feel safe at the vulva. 

The vulva is key. A beautiful physiologic process that so few of us know about is the process of engorgement. We have these incredible erectile networks swimming through and around our vulva, our clitoral body, and into our labia as well as around our vaginal opening. Our vulva is meant to be filled, engorged, and aroused with blood flow. That is where we, as women, and our feminine physiology get to unlock our deepest states of pleasure. It is that feeling of the valve that also prepares the yoni and our internal pleasure spaces to be able to receive. In this world of fast sex paired with a lot of residual shame at our vulva, it is no wonder that we as women are having difficult experiences in that place when it is a place that is meant to be worshiped. 

I tell all my clients that the sexual piece of your vulva, the engorgement, the filling, and the arousal process of your vulva show you that you were made to take up space, that you were made to be worshiped and loved and touched with care, slowness, and attention. That is our nature, period. It informs us when we understand the physiology and nervous system-led process of the vulva, how truly sacred our bodies are as women, and what our deep feminine sexual processes are. again, that we get to take up that time and space and love what is between our legs.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

I want to tease apart what you said a little bit because there is so much juiciness in that. Also, just a comment that I think you are the absolute perfect person to talk about the nervous system component of this because I am sure our listeners are feeling like I am now, which is just so soothed and relaxed by your voice or your tonality when you are talking about the nervous system. It is so beautiful. 

I think what I want to make sure that people understand, to summarize what you said, is that essentially, and if I am getting this wrong and you want to correct me, but just to make sure everybody’s on the same page and hearing you, is that when we have shame, when we have this displeasure with our vulva, with the look, with the genitals, or anything else that can get our nervous system dysregulated, that is going to change the blood flow, that is going to change the engorgement, that is going to change the ability to experience pleasure and take up space in the world.

Alexandra Durigan, RN

It is such a beautiful summary. On top of that, a lot of us as women are carrying difficult memories about our vulva. Just knowing that matters, that has an impact, and we deserve to cultivate these new possibilities of experience in our vulva so that we can begin to see her with greater eyes of love, touch her with deeper hands of care, and heal our nervous system down to the very earth of our pelvis and vulva.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yes. It is going to lead me to a great next question, which I also think is important for people to ask. Just remember that for women, when I look at the research, I see that usually this whole process of how long this can take and how long orgasm can take, Which is sometimes where we are going with pleasure, sometimes where we are not, but it is oftentimes 20 to 40 minutes for women. I think when you are talking about, Okay, well, quick engorgement and that thing, it is so important to bring up that it is very normal for it not to go fast as women. Is there anything you want to add to that before I move us all along?

Alexandra Durigan, RN

Yes, just that engorgement is a cultural shift.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yes, it is well said. I think there is so much history around. It is supposed to look this way. It is supposed to be the speed, and it is a post as opposed to being supposed to. It is such a beautiful way of framing that. When we are talking about all of this when we are talking about our vulva health, we are talking about our ability to experience pleasure or nervous system regulation. Can we take this a little bit macro and talk a little bit about how sexual health is an important component of the overarching health picture? 

Because I think for so many people, it is so easy. One of the things I talk about sometimes is whether we eat good food, drink good water, exercise, or get good sleep. Oftentimes, sexuality is not brought into the tenets of the foundation of health. Can you help with that bridge and tie it together?

Alexandra Durigan, RN

I love how you just said that too. The tenets of health. If we can just weave sexual health into that, I just have so much pleasure. Yes. For me, again, I came from the allopathic realm, and I got curious while I was a nurse: Where the heck is our sexual health and our pelvic health? I remember even in my training on the labor and delivery unit, it was, Do not make it sexual. I was. This is very sexual. When we suffer sexual health from whole health, we have a deep wound in our women’s health and the whole healthcare system. But today we get to talk about our beautiful women. What we need to understand is that suffering from her sexuality is a severance from our very nature as human beings. That is a massive internal schism that we are all dealing with to varying degrees. 

The other piece is our sexual health, the engorgement of our vulva, the filling, and all of the drying of blood flow that our clitoral body brings. I constantly challenge the notion that the clitoris is just made for pleasure. I acknowledge she is made for so much pleasure, and her role in engorgement is essential to drying blood flow through the deep pelvis, all the way through the uterine body, all the way through the cervix, all the way through the ovaries. These key reproductive reservoirs that are a part of our hormonal access system—our hypothalamus, and our pituitary ovarian axis—are the control centers for our hormones. 

When we have a tight pelvic floor, when we are not engaging and filling with blood, when these spaces are not getting to drink the drying in of blood that sexuality provides, then they are deprived of key blood, nutrients, and oxygen flow. Over time, this chronic malnourishment can create disease, and we have one in four women, potentially one in three women. If we were to update statistics today on women who have some form of reproductive or pelvic disease. If we were to compare statistics, one in three women feels frustrated sexually. One in four women has pelvic pain. We have this huge correlation that we need to look at and this massive repair to come home to for sexual health as a whole. 

Not just the health of our reproductive systems, but also the health of our hormonal cascades as women as well as our body’s capacity to experience dopamine and oxytocin in these beautiful biochemicals that help us access joy, that help us access capacity and life, that help us access beauty, love, and relationships in life, we deserve to be so wow. Now we have our biochemical makeup being impacted, and then again, we have our nervous system being impacted and just circling it back. If we have an internal schism from our sexuality, separating that from our whole health as human beings, that is going to up-regulate our nervous system because we will not feel safe in the body that we are living in and the sexual body that we are living in. It is huge.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yes. Thank you. It is so interesting. I guess you are talking. I am thinking about a client I had this week who had low blood flow to her feet. She got some ultrasounds done, and there were some vascular issues. Just what I am thinking about at this moment as you are talking is, how dysfunctional is it still in medicine and vulva? It is, the moment somebody says they have cold feet and we are worried about circulation, and all of a sudden we have to check this out. There could be a vascular issue. When that same vascular issue is affecting the vulva. Yet somebody’s experiencing both of our symptoms. We are not looking at it in the broad way that you are talking about. 

What is going on in terms of cardiovascular health, nervous system health, emotional well-being, and safety? Because it is connected to the bigger picture. I want to make this clear and actionable for people. when it comes and people are listening to this and they are wondering, Okay, well, how do I know if I need to be better in touch with my vulva? How do I know if I have a problem there? How do I know if a vulva issue is leading to any level of sexual dysfunction? How do women know?

Alexandra Durigan, RN

Yes, we all need more time with our vulva. We do. Also, have I ever spent time touching the tissues of my external labia or my internal labia? Do I know what they look like? Does it feel safe for me to touch them or to look at my body in the mirror? If there are some no’s for you there, then this is the perfect place to be and to familiarize yourself with your vulva, both physically through deep, caring, quality of touch and visually. How does my body look there? Because if we are not familiar with that part of us, then we are not familiar with an essential and big part of us. 

We deserve so much more than for our partners to be the only ones who perhaps know a little bit about our sexual bodies. We, as women, deserve to inhabit and deeply know our vulva and our sexual body. For me, that first check-in: have I ever touched and spent time at this part of my body? Do I know what this part of my body looks like? Then we can explore sensation as I touch my labia and clitoral body. Does there feel there is sensitivity there? Do these tissues feel soft and alive? Is there blood pulsing? Is there flow? Does it seem these tissues are drinking blood, or do they feel frail? Do they feel tight? Do they feel sore, achy, or numb? 

If we have any of that tightness or a sense of, hmm, maybe there is some restriction; these tissues do not seem super alive if they are gray; if they are not feeling as you touch them, then these are all deeper reasons that we can look into the health of our vulva. Then very clearly some women know I have pain in my vulva. 

Vulvodynia is incredibly on the rise. That is both a fashion nervous system and an emotional one. It is such a complex experience, but it is because of a lack of care and a lack of attunement to our feminine physiology that we have just been deprived of as women. Some women very clearly know that I have numbness here. Those are all reasons to turn to words. Then again, the biggest one for me is whether I feel safe and belong to this part of me. Yes. It forced us all to think about it.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yes. That is a huge part of what you are doing in your work. is helping women learn to begin to heal their vulvas and become safer.

Alexandra Durigan, RN

Yes. Totally. Ultimately, our whole pelvic wall But our vulva is a huge pleasure. Yes. A scale.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yes. Beautiful. Well, okay. Other things I think are important to talk about are that I know you have experience in your work as far as healing the vulva and pelvic health in general, as you just mentioned. I know you do a lot of Yoni Steams in your work, and then you also do a little side project that I was invited to participate in, but I got sick and could not, unfortunately. But I think it is a very important side project that you have to do the photographs and that thing. 

Maybe tell us a little bit about Yoni Steaming and what that is, because I think that is an important healing process for people. I do not think a lot of our listeners are familiar with what that is and why it can help with vulva and pelvic health.

Alexandra Durigan, RN

Totally. Yes. The foundation of my work is in-person, hands-on whole-body pelvic care. We tend the tissues, the fascia, the ligaments, the muscles, and the wholeness of the pelvic wall to make sure that all of these incredibly important spaces are in integrity and that they are in good health. 

Another thing that I do for all of my clients is provide them with both custom blended and steaming care plans. That comes from my deep love of what Yoni Steaming is and how immediately accessible it is for all of us as women. Because we can yoni steam in our own homes. We do not have to go to a professional. We do not have to go to a care provider. We can Yoni Steam in our own homes. 

Yoni Steaming is the process of brewing an herbal tea for our bodies, and I always have women do herbal consults so that we can look into their reproductive history, their sexual history, what they are experiencing and their tissues, and what their relationship to their sexual body is. We look at their menstrual cycle and all of these things because herbs are medicine; they have deeply medicinal properties. Then we formulate an herbal blend that is specific to each woman and her needs. 

The process of Yoni Steaming itself again involves brewing the herbs with water in a small pot. Then, once it is infused, we ultimately kneel over it, and we allow that healing medicinal vapor to rise to the tissues of our vulva and our pelvic wall. The tissues of our vulva are deeply porous. As that heat encourages blood flow to that area, our bloodstream and cardiovascular system are going to absorb the medicinal oils and then bring them all through our deep pelvis. Ultimately, our whole body. 

Yoni Steaming has so many benefits that it can support the regulation of our menstrual cycle. It can unwind fascia in tight or dehydrated tissues at the yoni or vulva. It can support us and make us feel safe. By having this ritual of relating to this part of our body, it can infuse and increase our capacity to be sensitive and sensitive to our vulva, among other things. I use it for postpartum healing. Whenever there is pain in the pelvis or whenever there is an irregularity in the menstrual cycle, it is just a gorgeous ritual for us as women to engage with health within our pelvic wall.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yes. Thank you. What you are bringing up for me in that conversation is IUDs. Both the hormonal Mirena kind as well as more of the copper kind. What are your feelings? I feel some women do well with them, and then others do not. It can be such a trauma for some women to have the insertion and to have it remain in their uterus. What have you seen with IUDs in your practice, especially from the pelvic care world? I am very curious about your feelings on that.

Alexandra Durigan, RN

Yes. This is my personal feeling, this is what I witnessed, and this is what I experienced. So what I am just sharing from my direct experience is that IUDs are incredibly traumatic. The insertion process for most women is extremely painful. For most women, they have multiple days of pain. I was weak. Most women have multiple days of pain after insertion. If something happens and the IUD protrudes through the uterine wall, it is often not detected for months at a time because far too often, women relaying pain to their doctors end up in dismissal, while the taking-out process is extremely hard. 

Then we have to acknowledge that the delicacy of our endometrial lining and our intrauterine body is that this is a highly sensitive internal place, and something an IUD is going to be sending signals of chronic stress, then signals of chronic inflammation, and chronic inflammation leads to the laying down of tissue, which is very synonymous with scar tissue. Now we have intrauterine adhesions, and then when women want to get them taken out and conceive, most women do not conceive away. We have an ever-increasing rise in infertility or fertility difficulties. If we have been on an IUD for years, we have likely had uterine stress for that same amount of time. 

It is a huge healing process for our body as well as the wire that goes through the cervix. Our cervix is also constantly under stress. For me, there are just far better ways than enduring everlasting trauma in our uterine body to track our cycles, to be fit, to be aware of our fertility, and to be sovereign in our capacity to conceive or our desire to not conceive in our lives. This is just such a wide conversation as women: what is our relationship to the fertility of our bodies, and how do we sovereignly use contraceptive mechanisms where we are not continuing the endurance of suffrage in our feminine physiology?

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yes. Thank you so much for that. It is an interesting topic for me because every once in a while, I will get on social media. I use social media mostly for research and not for consumption. One of the things I’ve been researching over the past couple of months is: What are people on social media saying about IUDs? 

I believe it is an area where women are not fully informed of the risk, because I have noticed a lot of anger on social media about, Why I was not told this. As I was told, this was safe. I was told there would be a little, maybe premenstrual pain, or my period would go away if I had the hormonal. But all of these other things you are mentioning, I think, are just so important and valuable for people to know. 

At the very least, when you are making this decision listeners are, maybe I did not hear that before. Maybe that is something that, whether or not it defines the end decision, is still something you all at least get to know about in your decision-making process. If you choose to go that way, it does not come as a surprise,

Alexandra Durigan, RN

Totally. Yes. We are not authentically consenting to what is happening because we are misinformed or underinformed. I feel that way.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yes, thank you for sharing that. We are wrapping up here on time, but I do want to make sure we have time to let everybody know how to get a hold of you. Before we do that, I am wondering if you will share with everybody a little bit about your vulva prior work, because I feel with what I am seeing in research, which I mentioned earlier around genital image and that association with sexuality but also with confidence, as well as internal personal confidence. 

What you mentioned earlier around some of the practices you recommend—looking at your vulva, stroking, touching, becoming friends, making great friends with your vulva—all of that is related to this beautiful project that I know is a passion project for you. I think it is important work that you are doing in the world. I want to make sure we at least mention that as well.

Alexandra Durigan, RN

You are so great. Thanks, babe. Yes.  The Vulva Projects are an initiative to restore anatomical literacy. You said body confidence in our vulvas as women to both celebrate the uniqueness of our bodies and to understand that there is such variation and the expression of each of our vulvas so that we as women can feel safe and belong to our sexual bodies in a way that has not been offered to us before. I love research as well, and I love anatomy. Our availability of anatomy is so poor, particularly for the array of gorgeous vulva anatomy that exists. 

For me, there are so many ways to touch on all of that. It is also unique to the expression of our tissues. For us as women, it is this gorgeous adventure that we get to have with our vulva. But The Vulva Project is holding women in a safe and sacred container, and we photograph our vulvas. My end goal and biggest vision is to have just a massive gallery where women can come and experience and witness the truth of our anatomy, and the beauty of our anatomy, and feel more like they belong to their very own bodies. It was so cool in our first round of this experience. 

After women got their photos back, everyone was very biased toward their vulva. There was,  God, look at how beautiful my vulva is. It was just so fun and so liberating and so freeing and exciting to see that. When we went in, there were a lot of nerves and a lot of uncertainty, but all these women got to emerge just witnessing the beauty of their bodies. So it is a passion project. Yes, I hope that many more women can be a part of it.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Yes. Please keep us all informed on what you need on that and tell us a little bit about how people work with you. I know you are giving away an opt-in on The Five Best Ways to Improve Your Pleasure. Is that what it is?

Alexandra Durigan, RN

Yes. You can receive that little e-book and the best way to work with me, well, the main way to work with me is through a hands-on pelvic care ceremony. Origin Pelvic Care serves women and sexuality and pleasure, reproductive health, and the whole birth continuum, meaning the journey of conception, prenatal, and postpartum care. For me, there is never a time that we, as women, do not require pelvic care; it is foundational to our whole health as women. So yes, you can find me at: @originpelviccare here on Instagram or OriginPelvicCare.com.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Perfect. You guys will have all of Alexandra’s bio and the downloadable pdf on how to improve your pleasure will be found throughout the summit, you will have multiple places where you can sign up to make sure you get that and that amazing information in your inbox.

Thank you again so much for your time today. This has been a true pleasure, as always. appreciate you.

Alexandra Durigan, RN

You are amazing. Thank you.

Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Bye, for now, everybody.