Peri-menopause Hot S%x & Dry Vagina
You're Welcome
This is a fun story for you if you are in Peri-Menopause or at any age, are the owner operator of a vagina.
This is for you if you are 35 or over, as this puts you in the peri-menopause bracket, if you have ever had a UTI, or if you’re a younger woman hearing about the horror stories of menopause and ‘dry vaginas’ thinking what fresh hells awaits me or if you’d just like to have a giggle over glass of wine with your girlfriends.
Enjoy.
So it was the Thursday before the Easter long weekend and I had been enjoying a very lovely new romance and as a 46-year-old woman I was having some of the best sex of my life. Hoorah! Whilst getting on with feeling very delighted with myself I was also experience heat down there in a not so great way and I suspected a bunch of times that maybe I had a UTI.
It didn’t quite feel like a UTI I thought to myself ……maybe it’s thrush but then it really wasn’t thrush so I had the odd Ural here there and got on with my week.
As it turns out I have an extraordinarily high pain threshold and this is not always a great thing! So that’s why before this long weekend I’m like …
“I’m not going to be that person that needs to be rushed to the doctors at 3 am on a Sunday on a public holiday” Let’s get this sorted.
I went to the pharmacist as I couldn’t get into a doctors appointment straight away. The beautiful pharmacist gave me these pee on a stick strips, kind-of like a pregnancy test but it’s a urine test and it told me very quickly that I had not just a mild but I really dreadful one and she also told me about this new medical option called Instant Contact . (Both things I had no idea even existed)
If you’re in Australia there’s an app and a website and within 15 minutes you have a doctor on the other end of your FaceTime screen. It’s amazing.
So I took a photo of my dreadful urinary tract infection pee stick and sent it into the app and after about 15 mins I was in for a consult.
I have to say, this was one of the most amazing medical experiences of my life, the doctor that I ended up getting on the other end of my phone sitting in my kitchen was not just a GP (they are wonderful incredible fabulous humans you have to do a whole lot of things obvs) but she was a obstetrics specialist.
Somehow I had snagged a consult with an ObGyn!
I really just thought that I would go onto this chat and say, look I’ve got a UTI and be prescribed some antibiotics.
Oh no! She just kept asking questions which is a really good thing for a doctor to do but I didn’t want to admit that I’ve been putting up with this for two weeks.
So I’m saying “I think it’s been on and off for a week” but she didn’t take that as an answer and just kept saying “yes but how long really?” She worked me out on the other side of the screen very quickly!!
“Oh so you’re in a brand-new relationship?”
“Yeah actually I am” And we had a bit of a kind of knowing laugh here and I said it’s definitely not thrush. And she joked about being a born again virgin …. yep really.
I was about to say, look my age means that I’m in peri-menopause and that sometimes its natural to have funny little urinary tract types things happen and it’s not actually a full blown infection but she on the other end pauses and says, “Well hang on a minute Keri you’re 46 so you’re in Peri and I thought, hang on a minute I’ve got a Doctor here who has a clue about women’s health.
So I replied, “Yes! I haven’t gone into this because you know I’m not necessarily ovulating every month any more, things are a bit odd sometimes with funny random little symptoms I experiences and I just kind of, take care of myself as best I can, it’s not a big deal.
And she reply “ What do you mean you’re not ovulating every month?
Now in my head I’m thinking, shit here we go, I’m going to have to have this conversation I don’t like (which is for a tiny bit of back story usually where a GP will tell me that it doesn’t matter what my hormones are doing!)
“Okay”, I say “Well you know, I’m tracking my cycle, taking my temperature and I noticed there’s not a spike mid cycle and my cervical mucus isn’t indicating that I have ovulated, all the usual sorts of things”
And she says “Oh you sound like you know what you’re talking about”
Now there’s a whole ‘nother story here that I should and will dedicate a whole conversation to, (and there’s a whole chapter in the book I’m writing that covers this) But why would it be odd for a woman who is the owner operator of a vagina a cervix a uterus, fallopian tubes if you want to go there, WHY would it be odd for us to actually have a clue about how our body works?
A. Because we’re not taught that and why aren’t we taught that ?
Let’s have that conversation at some point soon.
And B. See Point A.
So I said to her yeah I do I do actually have a clue and explained that I’m an acupuncturist specialising in women’s health and peri-menopause and midlife she was like oh well then and just opened up like she’d been given the green light.
And as it turns out she’s an obstetrics Dr who is really open minded to all these other different models of testing and looking at things and began to reference a whole raft of educational sites that I can look into and gave me the most amazing blood tests to really accurately look at my cycle, my hormones, vitamin D levels, iron levels, Thyroid the lot and was really thorough and incredibly kind in the same breath
And then …. she’s like “oh yeah and you’ve got dry vagina”
Now I’ve heard about dry vagina before and like so many things thought it was something pathological in my distant old age future. No such luck, and I’m thinking about the word dry, like a piece of paper is dry, sand is dry, sheets on the line are dry. My vagina is not dry friends! It has been perfectly wonderfully functional and slippery for the last few weeks of very hot afore-mentioned sex!
I kind of indicated this to her and then we had a bit of a woman to woman giggle about how wonderful discovering sex again in mid life is and she was like yeah … but it’s still dry and that’s it’s ok because I can prescribe you this cream.
Now because readers will be reading this from all over the planet I won’t say what the cream was but you probably know it, it may come under different names where you are and there may be different brands of the same thing. Basically it’s an oestrogen cream, that most recently has been given the safety tick of not being involved in any added risk of cancer in women over 50. (There have been some risks of HRT that change as new science continues to come out)
She was absolutely hilarious “Oh my goodness a fortnight of this and you’ll have the vagina of a 20-year-old” Now just to remind you this isn’t a conversation I’m having with my besties with a glass of Pinto this is a conversation I’m having with a Dr.
She also prescribed me some antibiotics for my raging UTI but gave me an alternative option to try for the next 8 hours and IT WORKED!
She was thorough and funny and warm and caring and had just improved my life infinitely. Yep infinitely. To be heard, to be really listened to, to have my experience understood and validated is a rare thing. To respect my education and to be met as an equal and to be intelligently cared for over the phone on an app in my own kitchen was, like I said one of the best medical experiences of my life and it’s really sparked a lot of conversations with my girlfriends.
From this experience I’ve learnt a whole lot of things, firstly that dry isn't necessarily dry. That at my age it is about maintaining local hormone levels and it’s about maintaining functionality of muscle and integrity (ie strength) of tissue and there’s a whole raft of things now that I am exploring and experimenting with, in a fun playful way with my partner (hello lube) and within the scope my own health education as well.
I’m a Chinese health practitioner and yeah I will be sharing a little bit more about some of the things I’m doing including Acupuncture, yoni eggs (don’t roll your eyes at me) and herbal steaming because herbal applications are actually incredibly effective.
I hope this has been entertaining and educational and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
KK