The unspoken agony of vaginal dryness: ‘I had to give up four jobs in four years’ | Menopause
WHen Lorraine Kelly shared her menopause experience in her daytime TV program in 2017, and was her last resort. Initially, she started an interview with a famous woman about her story, but everyone approached him refused.
“I thought, no one will talk about it, so I will do it. It was the moment of penetration.” Kelly said.
Seven years later, we seem to have reached the peak of menopause. Michelle ObamaBoth Salma Hayek and Joenith Paltrow were open to their experiences, and encouraged women not to feel ashamed of an estimated biological process. 13 million people In the UK is now going through. However, there is still one part of it barely talking about it.
Vaginal dryness.
As with a lot in this field, it took celebrities – Davina Makol in this case – to shed light on it. For those of us who assumed that this display was a slight inconvenience, which only affected sex and was not easily treated with the types of lubrication available easily from chemists in the high streets, was an invitation to wake up brutal.
“I had so much dry, so very severe that when I tried to wipe myself after going to the bathroom, it was very painful,” said in her 2021 documentary. menopause. “I didn’t know what it was, I had no idea that it was part of the menopause.”
Previously known as the Farajofahali Dynasty, which has now been renamed as a menopause syndrome (GSM), vaginal dehydration may likely affect Between 60 % and 80 % of womenAccording to various studies. This occurs due to low estrogen levels, which occurs with menopause, causing vaginal tissues to become thinner and less flexible. Although it is very common, one study found that a A third of the injured people did not report this to his doctor.
This is partially due to embarrassment, says Haitham Hamuda, a consultant gynecologist and clinical bullets for menopause at King’s College Hospital. “Most GPS are well aware and offer a great service, but of course, there are differences of what you can reach. Part of it will be what is available to you, what is presented to you, and what you feel comfortable talking about.”
“You will be surprised by the number of people who will come and see you because they are talking about flows, sweating and fog for the brain. When you say,” Do you have vaginal dryness? “They will say,” Oh, yes, it is really uncomfortable. “But they never think of its proposal, except If you are asking specifically.
Hamuda saw very painful women to wear underwear. “You find that the people who say that the clothes are uncomfortable because they touch the area … in extreme cases, they find it uncomfortable sitting or walking.”
GP and menopausal expert, Dr. Renée Hoenderkamp, had such cases as well. “I have seen women who cannot go in their daily life because of the dry vagina. It is completely delusional. They cannot go to the gym anymore, and they cannot wear jeans, and they cannot go to ride a bike, and they cannot run on the stairs at the station. Everything is painful Very.
“Consider my whole life.” I used to sit in a shallow and crying bath. It was suffering, do not fail to burn it for one second of the day or night. Even walking was painful. “She started when she was forty -four years old, but she never thought that her symptoms could have any relationship to being surrounding because her periods were regular, and she did not suffer from hot flows.
However, as Hoenderkamp notes, all menopause is different: “For some women, vaginal dryness will be their first symptoms, very early, even before their periods change. Other women will not get it until they go through everything. It is really individual.”
She also believes that seeing dehydration as just menopause symptoms can be misleading. “Women who are breastfed for more than six months will suppress estrogen to a level in which they may get vaginal dryness. Birth control pills can cause it. Anti -depressants. Not only is it limited to menopause.”
Henkradamb says that the effects of vaginal dryness can go beyond pain. “Once menopause in the past, when all tissues dry inside and around the vagina, abstract monuments and wines, women become more likely to urine infections because bacteria are able to tie tissues.”
Hamuda also witnessed women who avoid or lack cervical examination due to GSM. “Sometimes you cannot open the endoscope because it is dry and very comfortable, although you are of course, you use a lot of lubrication.” In some cases, he asked the patients “eating the vaginal estrogen hormone within the next two months, then we will go back and we will try this stain again. Unfortunately, this is not an unfamiliar scenario.”
Not every doctor realizes how to help women with GSM. Emily, 44, requested medical advice as soon as her vaginal dryness started four years ago. “I felt that there was a hot booker game inside me,” she says. It also suffered from urinary tract infections. Its GP found that it is extremely difficult to reach a diagnosis to the point that he told her at some point – over the phone – that she might simply have to prepare herself to a life of chronic pain.
When she was forty years old when her symptoms began, her doctor did not think of menopause. It was passed between different NHS services, given antibiotic cycles, bladder endoscopy, referrals to urinary tract diseases, gynecology and physical therapy. It also prompted the vision of a special relief specialist. Since all of this was happening, no pain relievers could make any difference, and remain in a state of torment.
“It was disastrous,” she says. “The pain makes it very difficult to focus. I had to give up four jobs within four years. I had to sell my home and stay away from my friends because I need to get more savings if I could not continue to work. It had a tremendous impact on my mental health .
Motivated by despair, Emily began searching for its symptoms on its own. Discover that One in 20 women Go through the menopause period before she was 45 years old, and this was assumed that what was happening to her. He agreed to put it on a low dose. “Within two days, the burning stopped.”
However, it is still struggling with the symptoms of urinary tract infection – which includes the need to urinate about four times per hour. Although it is impossible to know what caused it, she believes that her enemy was not treated for a long time, it has worsened. She is now dealing separately for persistent urinary tract inflammation.
The wrong diagnosis is a common thread through this condition. Dr. Paula Brigal’s reports, a consultant in the field of sexual and reproductive health at the NHS Foundation in Liverpool, “This depends on the patient’s provides, and the extent to which he may receive the correct diagnosis. Large quantities of women will be informed that they have obtained castles.”
It is an ideal storm – women hesitate to seek medical help in the first place, then delay the diagnosis.
“While the symptoms of other menopause are a solution – they become less severe, then stop – GSM becomes gradually worse over time and it is very difficult to reverse it,” says Briggs. She now believes that all women should be given the vaginal estrogen hormone in about 45 years as hypothetical.
However, with a decrease in estrogen under the umbrella of HRT, some women remain nervous due to the increased risk of breast cancer associated with the HRT forms containing progestogen. Hoenderkamp says vaginal estrogen hormone does not carry the same danger. “It is safe like homes, very easy. I often have women who say I cannot get the vaginal estrogen hormone because I have breast cancer. Well, you can.”
Hhamuda is more careful: “In general, with breast cancer patients, you will try other than a hormone first. But on an individual basis.”
However, it is not a problem that disappears overnight. “With regard to estrogen, women will not do it for a year and after that everything will be fine. Heinkarb says:” It may be a lifelong commitment to their vagina. “
The vaginal estrogen hormone of chemists is available – although it is cheaper in the prescription of your doctor – there are also moisturizers and lubricants that women can buy on the table as a first possible call for call.
The message in general is clear, though. If you are uncomfortable dry, you should never suffer in silence – it is not just a part of the aging that occurs to everyone, which you must smile and bear – it’s something that can be treated, and in most cases, it reduces.
“Consciousness is the key,” says Hamuda. So, although there was not much talking about menopause as now, there is still a lot to say.
Some names have been changed
