My families fight with Lichenified Sclerosis et Atrophicus!

[Lanie_momofone]

I want to share with you all,  my story of how my daughter was diagnosed with Lichenified Sclerosis et Atrophicus.
It started when my daughter was around the age of four, all of a sudden she was starting to complain at night that her vagina was itchy, or bothering her..all i could think of at the time was to put a warm damp cloth on her, i just put it down to the fact that she was starting to be curious about her body, and i had started to tell her that she needed to stop touching herself so much down there, it got to the point that we would catch her doing it in other rooms in the house as well, we then told her about privacy and not touching herself infront of people. The applying the warm cloth continued for two years, about 2-3 times a week.
In February of 2008 my daughter started complaining about it being very painful when she had a bowel movement, it got so bad that she would cry and be in immense pain, i then took her to the hospital and she was diagnosed to with Fissures, and was prescribed medicine to treat it.
Two months had gone by and still no change, and i couldnt figure out why, then in April she had spent the night at my aunts house, the day she came home she went into the bathroom.
This is when she started screaming and crying so bad, i ran in to see what the matter was, and she said that it hurt to go pee, i then proceeded to grab some toilet paper and wipe her, when i noticed that something wasnt right.
I had her lay on my bed, and thats when i had seen that she was very swollen, raw and red. I took her to the emergency room that instant.
Once seen by a doctor, (not a peditrician), within two minutes of him just looking at her, he called me and my S/O into the hallway and proceeded to tell us that he had suspicions that she had been molested at my aunts house,due to the fact that she had abrasions and lesions on her vagina.
 We were allowed to leave the hospital that night with her, but received a phone call about an hour later by Childrens Aid Services After Hours Worker concerning this, me and the CAS both thought that it could have been a yeast infection, CAS had asked the doctor if this could be the case, he said "no, and if she did have it i would still have called you, because i would have been worried how a 5 yr old could have gotten a yeast infection".
The next morning i received another phone call from another CAS worker that was put on the case, and she said that she didnt think that my aunt's house was any concern (my aunt is a foster parent), and that i should go and take my daughter to see a peditrician, and also CAS's concern was that the doctor that had seen my daughter was not in fact a peditrician and infact he had not given her any cream to help with the pain.
Two days later i took my daughter to a peditrician, which is when she was diagnosed with Lichenified Sclerosis et Atrophicus.
This was a painful, and a very emotional time for me and my S/O, once we started looking it up and realizing just what it was, and what our daughter was going to go through, i fight every day with the knowledge that if this condition does not go into "recession" when she hits her teens..that she may very well have a closed vagina. Our daughter is 7 years old now, and has been diagnosed almost two years...and it still a very painful matter to deal with, i just want all of you to know ...expect the unexpected...and as mothers, we DO find strength where we didnt know we had it.

[abbys_mom_41206]

Sep. 2, 2009 at 3:44 PM

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I think it is so important to educate all we can! I had never heard of this condition and therefore had to research it to really try and grasp this. I am sorry that your daughter and your family are having to deal with this.