Confused and scared

[ballerina99]

Hello. So I'm just going to jump right to it. My vagina kind of hurts. At first it was just one side, but then that mostly went away and now it's the other side. About a month ago I noticed a small red bump on the inside of my vagina. It didn't really hurt unless I pushed on it. I believe that went away. After I noticed the pain, I looked for a similar bump. I can't really see anything, but I think I feel a small bump. Touching and looking for a bump makes it hurt more so I refrain from doing that as much as possible. It's not a horrible pain, it feels like a scratch of some sort. I'm really confused about what this could be. I'm not sexually active, so it's not an STD right? A few months ago I got a bit of a bump on my lip that hurt a bit as well, could this be related? Also, I have masturbated before, could that have something to do with it? I could just really use some help. This is really stressing me out. Thank you!

[Karyn]

Genital pain and irritation of any kind is really something that needs to be investigated by a healthcare provider. As we've mentioned to you before, masturbation is not something that normally affects health unless someone has injured themselves in some way, so it's unlikely that's the issue here. It could be irritation from something like new laundry detergent or soap, or an infection of some kind (things like yeast infections can just happen, even if you're not sexually active) so your best move is to check in with a doctor.