“Jennifer,” a 30-year-old newlywed from New Jersey, suffered for years with a problem she couldn't talk about—not even with her best friend.
Thousands of women like Jennifer with large or uneven vaginal lips, or labia, silently endure:
Fortunately, there's a solution: Labiaplasty
“If you suffer from large or uneven labia minora—a condition known as
labial hypertrophy—a plastic surgery procedure called
labiaplasty can give your vaginal lips a more trim, youthful look,” says Dr. Parungao.
“Labiaplasty reduces and/or balances the size of the inner lips of the vulva, or external female genitals.”
‘I started researching online’
“When I hit my early 20s, I was having a lot of medical conditions such as recurring yeast infections,” Jennifer recalls. “I went to see loads of doctors and no one really had an answer for me.
“I'd always been uncomfortable in my clothing—irritated constantly,” she adds. “I couldn't even wear certain underwear. But once this problem started to take a toll on my marriage, I said, ‘Let me see if other women are doing something to take care of this.’
“I started looking things up online to see if there was a procedure, and I found the medical term for it,” she explains. “All the reasons women were giving for having labiaplasty were my reasons.
“I sent Dr. P a heartfelt letter explaining everything I was going through,” says Jennifer. “I was having sexual trouble at home—I wouldn't even let my husband touch me. I would freak out if he walked in on me when I was in the shower.
“Dr. P wrote back right away and said, ‘Send me a couple of pictures and I'll review them,’” Jennifer recalls.
“I never felt comfortable talking to anybody about it—not even my mom—until recently, when I told her I'm trying to do this. When she took the pictures for me, she said, ‘I understand. You must be really uncomfortable.’ And I was—physically and emotionally.”
Painful sex and embarrassment in intimate relationships
