A woman describes her menopause struggle with hot flashes, weight gain, and vaginal dryness, and how vaginal estrogen finally helped after trying diet, exercise, and alternative medicine. She warns against bad advice from celebrities and dismissive doctors, urging women to find a sympathetic doctor who actually listens.
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Let's talk about the menopause. Oh, what a jolly subject that is. A friend of mine posted on Facebook yesterday and got loads of comments about how she was fucking sick of the advice that she'd been given about the menopause. She was on HRT, she was doing strength training, changed her diet, couldn't lose any weight, lost her libido, wasn't interested in sex at all. And I suspect many, many women out there feel that way. I didn't exactly float through the menopause. I got through it by changing my diet, taking up strength training, training, going on some alternative medicine because I wasn't really a great candidate for HRT. Um, I just had to put up with those sleepless nights, those hot flashes, feeling that loss of libido, and generally feeling crap. And I know that if the menopause was a male problem, do you know what, it probably would have been sorted by now. But it's not, and we have to deal with some major shit, which includes often not wanting to have sex or having a dry vagina and it being quite painful. But if you're in that category where you're just feeling really rubbish all the time, then by all means, go and see a doctor and speak to him or her about what you're going through. And if they're not sympathetic, and some of these doctors are absolute rubbish and will tell you, you know, well, what should you worry about having sex anymore? You're not procreating, so forget about it. If that's the case, go and find somebody who is sympathetic. Recently, I started taking vaginal estrogen, and I can already see the difference that has made to having pleasure during sex and not feeling that burning sensation and dryness that was sometimes happening before. So there are ways and means to get through this, and it's about finding somebody that is sympathetic, wants to hear what you have to say, and does something that can help you because there is help available. But God knows it can be difficult to get good advice, and there's a lot of really rubbish shit out there that is not helpful at all to those of us who either have been or are going through the menopause.
