Dr. Rachel Rubin

And so it is important to see a sex detective or someone who can look at your tissue to say, wait a minute, here's your story.

Maybe there's a hormone issue that's causing an irritation of your tissue like we see in menopause or birth control pills.

We see changes in this tissue called the vulvar vestibule, which again is a strip of tissue that surrounds the urethra, which is the hole you pee through.

So if you spread open those inner wings, those labia minora, it surrounds...

sort of the urethra, it's below the clitoris, and it goes all the way down to the opening of, you know, sort of all around.

It's like a sort of a rim of fire, a rim that can be of a fire.

We call it the rim of fire.

And so what's so fascinating and important about this tissue that none of us were taught in medical school is you understand that the outside of your cheek is different than the inside of your cheek.

Right.

One is skin that's very, very thick.

It's very protective.

So if you took a jalapeno pepper and you rubbed it on the outside of your cheek would feel very different than if you rubbed it on the inside of your cheek.

The inside of your cheek is mucosa.

It's very delicate.

So this vulvar vestibule tissue, right, the labia are skin.

It's tough.

It's it's it can it can take a beating.

Inside, inside the labia minora is where it turns into the inside of your cheek.

And that is called the vulvar vestibule.

And it's actually different than the vagina.