Just thought I'd add my own experience into the mix.
I had a hymenectomy this afternoon. My gynecologist sent me to the hospital for blood drawing and an exam, where she also performed the surgery after. I was given general anesthetic, but don't even remember it being administered; I was wheeled into the operating room, watched the assistants fuss over me a bit, and next thing I knew I was waking up an hour-and-a-half later. (Having no memory of the exposure or the "invasiveness" of the procedure is definitely a good thing in my book.)
Apparently I also had a microperforate hymen. I've never tried to insert tampons, but my gyno said afterwards that if I'd tried, I would've had no luck whatsoever. The opening was barely enough to allow a normal menstrual flow through. That would explain why my boyfriend's attempts at manual penetration hurt so much!
The pain hasn't been terrible. I got a little nauseous from the anesthesia when walking to the bathroom, but the blood drawing was definitely worse. (With the blood drawing, I nearly passed out, lost my vision and had trouble breathing for a while... Definitely don't take that well at all...) The pain is annoying, but probably only about a 2 or 3 on the "pain scale," akin to wearing pants that are way too tight. It was quite itchy earlier, but not as much now. They gave me prescription-strength Motrin and Darvocet, but I'm just taking half of the Motrin. I'm also still bleeding a fair bit, but nowhere near the amount that the post-op directions say is a problem. The gyno said that should subside in a couple days as well (just in time for my real period to start *rolls eyes*).
I'm to stay in bed and take it easy for a couple days. The follow-up is in a couple weeks, and no penetration of any kind for six weeks. They gave me those dissolving stitches too; I hope they work as intended. Can't imagine pulling those out would be fun.
So far it's been an interesting day, but nowhere near as troublesome as getting wisdom teeth removed. I'm thinking that, when it comes to penetration, I've got nowhere to move but up now, and I'm very happy that at least part of my problem is on the way to being resolved.
