Menopausal vaginal dryness

I had heard from a friend about vaginal dryness and assumed it only affected having sex. KY jelly is often recommended,  but doesn’t offer real long term relief. A discussion about this stage of things needs to be had with your partner and some form of compromise reached. If in the end, it all gets too much, stop having sex. Your partner will just have to accept it, if not, hey ho! Another problem to address.

Vaginal dryness though can cause other problems. It is quite common to feel as though you are walking around wearing a sandpaper panty pad! There is no other way to describe this particular form of being uncomfortable. If you don't believe me, put some in your pants. There, now you understand!

There are two ways that I know of, and have used to alleviate this. One is non-hormonal treatment, the other hormonal. One of many now available non-hormonal treatments is Vagisan. You will need to wear a panty pad for the next day or two after use. Of course, until it takes effect, wearing a panty pad can cause further irritation.

Topical hormonal treatment often takes the form of a tiny tablet inside a thin tube, to deposit it near the neck of the womb. It used to be cream and that was really messy! Again, you need to read and decide if you want to go down this route. I have tried both non-hormonal and hormonal treatments and both work.

Non-hormonal is a little more messy but offers good relief. Hormonal less messy (still need a pad for the next day) but seems to work for longer inbetween use. Initially hormonal treatment is very frequent to alleviate the dryness. Treatment reduces after that to offer a maintenance level. Being hormonal, I do of course worry about the cancer side of things, so please keep up with your cancer smears.

Talking about cancer smear tests, another pain, literally is the insertion of the speculum. Wow, childbirth was almost easier. Up until the menopause, these tests were mildly uncomfortable, but they became unbearable. I felt like I was being ripped in two. It was recommended I up my topical hormone treatment to help, nope, did sod all.

Eventually I was referred to a gynaecologist for another problem. He informed me that there were different sized speculums and a full size one should never be used on a menopausal or post menopausal women, it is too big. You need to ask for one designed for a young teenager. They are more narrow and can be inserted without too much pain. Bet you didn't know that, no, neither did I. So bloody annoying. See here:Speculum sizes

He also recommended to stop wearing tight fitting jeans, go without pants when at home and wear a skirt or loose pyjama type bottoms and most importantly  STOP washing down below with any form of soap! This was the first thing I tried and it made an almost instant reduction in irritation. I now use an aqueous cream or you can use an emulsifying ointment.

Final bit tomorrow, fat redistribution, blood pressure changes, hair thinning/loss, dry skin etc. Gee, aren’t we lucky!