| TO WELCOME | VAGINAL PROBLEMS |
| Vaginal atrophy
is a relatively
rare complication of menopause. Many women
have temporary difficulty with vaginal dryness and burning during
perimenopause or in the first year or so after periods stop. This
can cause some fairly severe discomfort during intercourse, sometimes
may cause discomfort in just walking about, and may also cause some
problems with bladder control. Lubricants will relieve the pain during
intercourse. If the other problems are severe or affect your quality
of life you may want to try using an intravaginal estrogen
cream (available only with prescription) for a time. (This cream
should never used as a lubricant and should never be applied shortly
before intercourse because it can affect the male partner). Some
women on the group have reported that intravaginal aloe vera and/or
vitamin E can be helpful in relieving the discomfort. Most of us who
are post menopausal have found that this problem, like most of the
other problems we may encounter during menopause, is temporary, and
lubrication, comfort, and bladder control generally return when the process
of menopause is complete. This common symptom of dryness and burning
should not be confused with the more serious, but fortunately relatively
rare, vaginal atrophy. Women who have been castrated are more likely
to suffer vaginal atrophy because they lack ovaries to produce estrogen
post menopausally.
Tetje |
| Intact (women who still
have their reproductive organs including ovaries and uterus) women
who engage in regular sexual intercourse are unlikely to develop
vaginal atrophy of any clinical significance. They may need to use
an external water-based lubricant for some time but they need have
no fears about their vaginas withering, drying up and disappearing.
Women who have no functioning ovaries may be at greater risk for
more serious vaginal problems and may need to use estrogen in some
form to prevent it or to treat it. Raloxifene or raloxiphene (I'm
seeing both spellings now) was reported here as "*causing* vaginal
atrophy by someone who claimed to be a pharmacology consultant. I
have not seen any mention of this in the literature presently available
on this drug which E. Lilly will market in the US under the name of Evista.
Tetje |
| A lot of us have a favorite
woman doctor to consult for menopausal questions. We find the relevant
section in Dr. Susan Love's Hormone Book Making Informed Choices About
Menopause. She has a section on vaginal dryness in which she says that
less than half of all menopausal women complain of vaginal dryness and
for many it is a transient complaint which goes away when the hormones
come back into balance. There are some women for whom the dryness continues
after menopause and for these it can get worse with age.
In her book she lists the following for vaginal dryness:
Not every suggestion works for every woman. I am castrated and take .9 mg of Premarin per day. I have had some vaginal problems in spite of taking estrogen; so that isn't a total solution for me. I find that the symptoms come and go even though I don't have cyclic endogenous hormone any more and if I am patient the discomfort passes in a day or two. Vaseline is not a good idea for the vagina. It's especially bad if you use a condom for sex as it breaks down the latex. It is generally recommended that women use water soluble substances in the vaginal area. Fiona |
| The archives of this group are full of discussions about vaginal dryness. It may be that you are taking some medicine for other purposes or other OTC products that dry up the mucous membranes (cold remedies, any medication that causes dry mouth, or just plain stress than can dramatically affect mucous membrane flow - fear causing cottony mouth, etc). Be suree to survey everything you are putting into your mouth already that is non-food to see if there is some other cause of this condition before you assume it is menopause or in need of a chemical "cure." Joan |
| I
have always wondered why yogurt (plain, active cultures) is not recommended
for vaginal dryness since it would be the first thing I would try if I
had it.
If the vaginal dryness is
from a lack of natural moisture or lubrication, yogurt, over the counter
and prescribed yeast infection medications burn like crazy. All of this
is what makes vaginal dryness such an irritating symptom. Half the time
you don't know what to treat yourself with. If the dryness is towards the
outside, it may feel like a urinary tract infection. Sometimes it really
is an infection, either urinary tract infection or yeast. But more times
than not my tests would come back negative. When my doctor had prescribed
HRT for my vaginal dryness she said if we could alleviate the vaginal dryness
I wouldn't be so prone to these infections. Well, unfortunately, the HRT
didn't help, but she was on the right track anyway. Most of the time the
dryness is soothed and healed by increasing your fluids and using the aloe
vera jelly inserted vaginally. And then the "feelings" of having one infection
or another are not present.
|
| What really helped me was
the Estrace vaginal cream. No more itchy, burny, dry vagina prone to constant
irritations & yeast infections. Also made sex pleasant, comfortable
& pleasurable without having to stop to glob some kind of product in
my vagina. It took almost a month to "cure" the dryness problem if I remember
correctly and now I only use it about twice a month. Very little I was
told enters the blood stream. Your opinions
may vary!
Carol [A newer development is the vaginal ring which is changed once every three months. - Tishy] |
A follow-up post on the
issue of vaginal dryness. I am posting in my capacity as a rheumatologist,
not from personal experience. The Sjogrens Syndrome Foundation (Sjogren's
Syndrome is an autoimmune disease, a cousin of lupus and rheumatoid arthritis,
in which there are decreased secretions of all types including tears, saliva,
sebum (on the skin) and cervical mucous/vaginal secretions) has a list
of products for vaginal dryness. These are all nonhormonal products. I
am reproducing the list below along with comments from the Foundation and
the distributor manufacturer. I have no commercial interest in any of these
products.
Regards, Dr Susan |
| As vaginal lubricants go,
K-Y isn't really a very good one. These days, with so many of us using
condoms for sex, there are a lot of lubricants out there specifically designed
for sex (unlike K-Y, which was designed for medical use). My personal favorite
is a British lubricant called Liquid Silk, which I like because it contains
no glycerin -- which makes it less sticky and, in my experience, less likely
to cause yeast problems. But others I know prefer Astroglide, Probe and
others.
Woman-owned erotic boutiques, such as Good Vibrations here in San Francisco, are springing up all over the U.S., and usually have staff who are well-informed about lubricants and willing to share their knowledge. Many lubes are available in single-use packets, so you can buy a selection and try them all to see which you prefer before investing in a whole bottle. Verdant ([email protected]) |
| http://www.a-womans-touch.com is a woman-friendly responsible (though explicit) website devoted to consensual sex with particular attention to women's needs. A variety of lubricants (individually described) is available for purchase from it. This site may be offensive to some. |
| A very comprehensive article
(which is aimed at pharmacists) can be found at
http://womenshealth.medscape.com/38464.rhtml?srcmp=wh-060101 UROGENITAL ATROPHY: PREVENTION AND TREATMENT Fifteen percent of premenopausal women, 10-40% of postmenopausal women, and 10-25% of women receiving systemic hormone therapy experience urogenital atrophy. Pharmacotherapy 21(4):464-480, 2001 |