Vaginal and Cervical Self-Stimulation

Vaginal self-stimulation (VS-S) and cervical self-stimulation (CS-S) were studied to determine the effect on: chronic pain intensity (CPI), pain detection threshold (PDT), and pain tolerance threshold (PTT). There were differences in the response to self-stimulation based on the type of pain, somatic or visceral. The effect of both VS-S and CS-S outlasted stimulation. The results must be viewed cautiously based on the small sample size. This is the first human study to demonstrate a difference in the effect of neurostimulation on analgesia and pain thresholds. This study indicates that not all chronic pain, even when located in the same area of the body, is the same. It is apparent that more research is needed to differentiate the effect of stimulation-produced analgesia on various types of chronic pain.