How we learned to love sex again! The Sun 17 Sep 2013

My PelvicToner was a great find

HOUSEWIFE Shelley Perfect, 28, and her husband Duncan, 33, a quantity surveyor, live in Wymondham, Norfolk, with their children Brandon, nine, Denver, seven, Farris, five, and three-year-old Cherry-Belle. She says:

"My libido has been profoundly affected by the birth of my children. I lost a lot of pelvic muscle tone – my husband said to me once while making love: “I can’t feel anything.”

I got very down and depressed, and my hormone levels were fluctuating a great deal.

With my first son, I had an episiotomy as I tore quite badly. Afterwards I suffered from pelvic weakness and with each child it got worse. I had virtually no sensation down there and virtually no muscle tone in my pelvic floor.

So the cause of my loss of libido was physical, but it became an emotional problem, too. Once you stop having sex, you stop wanting sex. I’d make any excuse not to have it.

Duncan has been very supportive but inevitably this took a toll on our marriage. There were many times I sat on our bed and cried.

I loved my husband but I felt as if all the desire had gone. I was also exhausted with four children to look after and I wasn’t sleeping well. This year I realised I had to do something so I Googled remedies for loss of pelvic tone and I came across the PelvicToner machine.

It’s a simple device, shaped like a rocket with an “umbrella” at the top, which you insert, then use your internal muscles to close the spring. It cost me £28.99, and it has been fantastic.

At first I couldn’t move it at all, but doing it every day I could start to squeeze it shut. After just a month I was having sex with my husband and he said, “You’re so tight you are hurting me!” I was ecstatic.

I now use it once a month and I also do pelvic floor exercises when I am washing up or lying in bed. I can’t believe how much of a difference it makes.

Thank goodness our sex life is great now.

As told to journalist Diana Appleyard