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[Sausagedog]

My menopause was in my early 50s twenty-five years ago and I've recently had severe problems because I'm a post-menopausal woman. There's very little about being post menopausal after the first few years. It's almost as there's a belief that then everything will just stay the same and everything will be fine. However, half of all women will experience some form of atrophy - vulval, vaginal, endometrial, perineal, urinary. There are oestrogen receptors in all these places. By the time women are 70 then 70% of them will be suffering. They call it genitourinary syndrome of the menopause now - because it's widespread.

And NOBODY talks about it. 70% of women over 70 ... and NOBODY tells us.

I am 75 and have known I had what were charmingly referred to as "architectural changes" to my vulva due to atrophy, for about 10 years, but I didn't care very much. Then in May I started bleeding. They found polyps and removed them and Gynae discharged me. But the bleeding wouldn't stop. Estriol for months has had no effect. The hospital suggested a month on oral progesterone which worked but as soon as I stopped the bleeding came back. It became heavy and I've got an appointment with Gynae on Thursday. I'm not optimistic.

I haven't worn knickers or trousers since about 1975 because I find them so uncomfortable. I think I may have some nerve damage from childbirth.

I have a vulval skin condition called lichen sclerosus that has never really caused much trouble BUT I can't wear pads. By day 4 of wearing them it is terribly painful and distressing.

So please be aware that there are many more hormonal changes to your body after the period generally referred to as post- menopause. All those urinary problems old ladies get .. cause by gentourinary atrophy because of lack of oestrogen. The origen isn't a urinary problem, it's structural. Your urethra atrophies and can protrude ... that's why older women are prone to UTIs.

I've spent hours trying to research what's happening to me and it's so frustrating. It's as if once you get past sixty you don't have hormones anymore, you're no longer post menopausal (although of course you are) and if sex is painful it's part of being old.

I'M REALLY VERY CROSS THAT WOMEN OVER 60 ARE IGNORED LIKE THIS AND NOT EDUCATED ABOUT THEIR BODIES!
BY THE AGE OF 70, 70% WILL HAVE GENITOURINARY ATROPHY WITH A WHOLE BUNCH OF CHALLENGES. SURPRISE !!

[bombsh3ll]

Thank you for sharing this.

If any message should be projected onto the parliament building in neon letters like they did a few years ago about cancer, it should be this.

Word for heartfelt word ❤️

There is simply no joined up thinking about loss of ovarian function and the sequelae decades later; each consequence of hypoestrogenism is simply treated individually in its own silo, often not particularly effectively, and its etiology regarded as either a mystery or a consequence of aging.

[Minusminnie]

Just use of the word Syndrome indicates “we don’t really know”.

As for non joined up thinking between ‘departments’ that we end up dealing with I’m sure we can all give examples.

eg I had to explain to a pelvic physiotherapist what a Bartholins Cyst was !

[Minusminnie]

Hi Sausagedog
I’m seventy …I hope for my now very young granddaughters that they will be educated at an earlier age to be able to make informed decisions.
There is hope there with much being discussed more openly now through all the various communication means.

[Ayesha]

It came as a big shock to me when I first experienced symptoms of GSM at 70. My first thought was why had I not heard of this vile condition but neither had the nurses at my surgery. I was in a terrible state until I eventually saw a gynae who said, you need oestrogen down there, she never gave a name to it.
Five years on and after reading a lot of research papers from across the world, the conclusion is that its women alone that are the cause of there being so much ignorance surrounding the condition, we don't speak up enough and come out with too many excuses as to why we won't seek help.

Further down the line I find myself educating those who should know but don't, all about topical oestrogen and the doses allowed for each individual woman to relieve her symptoms. It doesn't help that the ignorance continues when we are faced with the out of date leaflets that come with the treatments. I've had so many challenges about my dose of seven day topical treatment with a smear of Estriol but the message has finally got through. My usual saying when challenged is a treatment of topical oestrogen is the equivalent of one systemic HRT tablet a year, what is the fuss all about! I haven't been challenged in a long time but I am always prepared. 

Women must be more assertive and stop being shrinking violets and scared to speak out through either being embarrassed or just not wanting to know, knowledge is power!

[CLKD]

"Me and My Menopausal Vagina", written by a Member of the Forum several years ago, is a very good read!  Should be essential for all medics, health professionals etc..

   U R in Good Company Sausagedog . 

[Lilyloos]

Very well said sausagedog.  I too have so much anger and bitterness about the struggles I have encountered during the menopause journey.  I’m 65 and this last year have felt as if I’m thrown onto the scrap heap …. ‘You’re done, you’ve served your purpose and now surplus’. I am so done with it all, WHY do the medical profession not know about what is likely to come our way post menopause, it’s not a new ‘thing’.  Yes we hear about it everywhere now it seems, World Menopause day!  Paying lip service and I’m afraid to say (but going to anyway) crisis = opportunity for many : (
Sorry to have a moan but I totally get it Sausagedog 😊

[sheila99]

And why isn't there anyone who can change the NHS guidelines that will only allow an inadequate amount of topical oestrogen? Far too many gps can hide this to refuse adequate treatment. If anyone else was incontinent they'd investigate the cause and treat it. But not for post menopausal women.

[Ayesha]

The leaflet in the box of Vagifem and Gina is so out of date its scandalous. It obviously refers to systemic HRT and reading it could create fear for anyone new to the treatment, the text is extremely alarmist. It's also the reason for a lot of confrontations when we go to collect our prescriptions having to explain why we are on a particular dose.

[Mary G]

People still seem to think the menopause is a "journey" that has an end, it doesn't and unless you feed in an adequate amount of oestrogen you will have menopause symptoms for life and develop new ones.

[Jules]

I was recently hot in a pub, just hot. I reached for a beermat as a fan and a man I know said loudly he thought I was too old for the menopause and his wife announced she went through it at 45 and it was over with. If that's true I envy her. The changes down below came completely unexpected to me, and had happened before I could prevent them. Very quickly. And yes, GPs, even female ones responded as though it's par for the course at my age. Had I not read someone else's experience on here I dread to think the state I'd be in but topical estrogen halted it and made me comfortable again, I can wear what I want and managed sex. I don't like how I look but I'm not a young woman anymore and it could have been worse.  I've already told my daughter in law about estrogen products. My elderly mother won't wear trousers or tights. I suspect for the reason you've given. Hot flushes, mood changes, tummy fat and so on are all easier to talk about than structural change to your very private womanhood I think. I can only say it on here.

[Lucoley]

Honestly Ill admit that at 51 and post menopausal I didn't know this was something that can happen to vaginas in menopause till I found this forum. 

The world needs to do better

[Jules]

Honestly Ill admit that at 51 and post menopausal I didn't know this was something that can happen to vaginas in menopause till I found this forum. 

The world needs to do better

We probably weren't designed to live that long let alone have sex. We're just part of natures reproductive system, attract me in order to make babies and keep the human race going. Once that phase has passed, the mechanical parts needed to do it, are surplus to requirements.  At my age my grandma was mostly sitting in an armchair. Her expectations of her life were lower than mine. Of course there are some women who aren't affected. I envy them. I suppose we're lucky that we can get help that our predecessors couldn't. That's if you know about the help and have a decent GP.

[bombsh3ll]

I've had a fan in my hand and a bottle of spray water since the age of 34 following a brain injury which left me with severe dysautonomia.

I cannot regulate my body temperature, and have always felt like people were giving me knowing looks and thinking look at that poor cow going through the menopause at her age!

It is actually a shame for that woman who entered menopause at 45, which is relatively early, especially if she had mild or transient symptoms and never sought treatment.

Statistically she is more likely to develop a whole host of health problems down the road than those who either have a later menopause and/or receive treatment.

And I agree most of us wouldn't have lived much beyond menopause if at all without modern hygiene standards and medical technology.

Hands up anyone who's ever had antibiotics, surgery, a blood transfusion, cesarean delivery, insulin, thyroxine or an implanted medical device? We would all have been brown bread 100 years ago.

A few would have made it to old age, but those would likely have been the ones with really good genes and the best access to resources, and in all probability would have had a naturally later menopause than the feeble specimens making it to 50 today!

[Jules]

You are right. I naively thought the menopause was about hot flushes. It's all I knew from my mum. She never talked to us about It, she didn't talk much about puberty either. I started with hot flushes in my mid 40s and thought that was all I had to deal with.