Home Remedies Menopausal Issues

 Once the oestradiol cream did its work, I was told KY Jelly was my only option if my drying episodes recurred. I wondered what have women done for centuries? Suffered? Or came up with home remedies? Surely women in families have talked to their daughters and vice versa, for am sure not everyone has a lack of sexual health care within their homes. As I have said before my sex education and information about sexual health was nil until I studied as a nurse and even so there is a distinct lack of enthusiasm of this topic in cultures like that of the Indian Subcontinent. This is what got me thinking and writing in the blog.

I thought maybe I should ask my friends if they have some handy tips as they are in my age group. Surely someone has had this issue, got tips from older women in the family for self-care. Again, I was surprised to find the reluctance to talk about it. I got one who laughed and asked if I was being serious? She was done with menopause and of course, she had no problems and does not need any care.

Another asked questions which was helpful as she was asking the right things. This was more of what the problem could be but focused on problems maybe with infection of urinary tract. Another came back with the name of one commonly used cream but with a rider that she did not have personal experience but got the info from a gynaecologist.

One came spoke to me separately but the rest just ignored the message. This friend actually talked about keeping the perineum and vagina clean and using a special wash which also helped to moisturise the area. Some others I spoke to were not reluctant to talk as long as it was focused on my issues. There was not much contribution regarding remedies.

One of my friends came up with some good information and I was pleased. She stated these remedies have been used by the ladies in her family and that she tells her patients about these remedies too.

• Take a teaspoon of fenugreek seeds. Wash thoroughly and soak overnight in a small amount of water. In the morning on an empty stomach drink the water and eat the seeds.
• Take about 5 -6 almonds wash well and soak overnight.  These will have to be skinned and eaten. The water in which the almonds were soaked should be thrown away.
• Other vegetables which should be regularly consumed are fenugreek leaves, tindora (ivy gourd), moringa pods (cooked with lentils). These help in hydrating the mucous membranes. Moringa powder is also now available and a table spoon can be added to cooked food like lentils. I will have to check what other foods are useful too.
• I do know soya has a high oestrogenic effect but I am allergic to it and so have to avoid it. Soya and soya products if you can tolerate will also help during menopause.
• Apply a drop of olive oil which is thicker than coconut oil daily to the vaginal and perineum. When experiencing burning avoid using toilet paper, wash and dab dry with a small towel and apply the oil every time you pass urine.

So, I started the fenugreek seeds and almonds daily along with applying olive oil after shower and I can say it has been working well. However, a word of advice the fenugreek seeds can sometimes be hot for the body. Suggestions are to have them with some yogurt or not having it daily. I have reduced it to twice a week. Aside for the oestrogenic effect the fenugreek is good for stabilising blood sugar reducing cholesterol and blood pressure too. If a small amount helps with these other issues too then it is worth a try.

All these have been tried but one needs to remember that not every remedy will suit everyone. For example, soya is seen to be very helpful but I am allergic so unable to take it. Indeed, now a days most processed foods have some form of soya in it. So, try carefully, speak to your doctor if he /she is sympathetic and interested in holistic care.

A Tale of Dry Fanny Woes

 Connective Tissue disease throws new curve ball every so often and sometimes it is hard to discern symptoms that are from the disease or this is something totally unrelated that the body has dreamt up. This blog follows on from my Time to Talk About Menopause.  Post-menopause is a gift that keeps giving and one of them is dryness of the vagina and perineum. It makes for a painful intercourse and also if the dryness extends to the perineum it will burn and pain when urine touches it and when you wipe your self dry. Oh yes you might not notice till the dryness extends outside the vagina if you are not having sex…. For after all your libido is most likely down and you cannot be bothered to have sex. However, with connective tissues which is also another gift that happily keeps updating symptom list you can have drying of mucous membranes like eyes, mouth and of course vagina and perineum.

With is background information I tell my tale of dry fanny woes. I noticed this dryness of the perineum and wondered what happened. With some contortion and a mirror, I could see that the perineum as dry, in fact there was a white patch as it was so dry. I had been applying some tea tree cream as it is anti-inflammatory as well. It seemed to get better after a few days. This went on for a few months and then it would not help so started applying some coconut oil which again was not thick enough to last long and so continued the pain and occasional itching which also comes from drying of surrounding skin as well. Eventually gave in and went to my GP and as I described the dryness and a white patch he goes, ‘thrush.... get something off the pharmacist’ all without looking at my face let alone my fanny! Am like ‘but it is not itching or having any flaking or discharge’ and he says get stuff for thrush.

So now I am at the pharmacy asking to talk to the pharmacist and hoping to get more sense. She asks me more questions than my GP and says maybe you need something thicker than oil and why not try Sudocream and you can apply if a few times (well I could apply the oil too many times but…) So, I pay for a small tube to try out and see if it helps. So off I went and religiously applying this white paste and happy as of course now the urine does not touch the naked perineum. Oh, ladies have you ever experienced the contortions we can do when weeing to avoid the dribble of urine on to the perineum. Bending forward and raising your butt at the end is a useful way if anyone was wondering. This helped for a couple of weeks and then we were back to square one.

Return trip to the pharmacy and this time a different lady who again went through the umpteen questions by now I was getting adept at describing the symptoms. She comes up with - if it hurts have you tried something with a bit of anaesthetic? Then she picks up a tube of haemorrhoids cream. I am like, ‘are you sure one can use this for my symptoms?’ She says of course you can use it we do tell people it is safe to use. Now I was pretty desperate so I nodded and went of with yet another useless cream. A word of warning to people who are not up with their pharmaceutical knowledge the haemorrhoids cream is to reduce the size veins which are bulging and thus reduce blood flow and the anaesthetic acts on the nerve endings to reduce pain. Now these would have little effect on the dry mucous membranes whether due to lack of oestrogen or connective tissue disease. If ever any one gives you this for your fanny kindly refrain from taking it. All it caused was even worse burning on application.

By now I was dreading passing urine and upending myself to avoid the trickle of urine that I was not quick enough to catch on the tissue. Time to go to the GP again and this time go to the wife of my GP who also works there. I say to her, I need you to actually physically look as I cannot diagnose what I cannot see properly. I said her husband had just said thrush with his head down. And so did my rheumatologist for that matter. Now this usual po-faced lady is giggling. I am like sure she is going to take the piss off her husband when she gets home. She asks about why I have had no smear test and I said cannot be bothered. (But that’s another story where they are not competent and appear to dig for oil than take a smear… and I am not bothered to find someone else.)

Then comes the well know lie on the couch and spread them. She gets a speculum out and I tense as she does not have a gentle touch. Says to me all the mucous membranes are red and dry. Her diagnosis is post-menopausal dryness and treatment is oestradiol cream twice a week for 3 weeks and then review. She does not like giving HRT so I am not to expect to continue this beyond the time it clears the dryness. Funny she never asked me about how did I not realise this extreme internal dryness as intercourse would be excruciating. She is a lady doctor who I have seen providing perinatal care and the serious lack of examining the sexual health and indeed the giggling was strange. She totally discarded my suggestion that it could also be due to my autoimmune disease. Well I was happy I got some medication and that would resolve my symptom.

So, oestradiol cream was duly applied twice a week. If you have never had to apply this maybe I should explain. There is a syringe which you screw on to the opening of the cream tube. Then you squeeze the tube to fill the syringe which is a fixed amount. Then you lie back and insert the syringe into the vagina and empty it. Hope you have a helper handy to take the syringe, wash it and put away as you need to lie flat for a while. The dryness seemed to get less along with less pain and burning. During this time, I had a migraine and had ibuprofen for a couple of days. Suddenly the last remnants of the symptoms vanished. Therefore, I think it was a combination of lack of oestrogen and local inflammation that caused my symptoms.

Went back for the review and po-face was back when I said I have ibuprofen and the last of the dryness went. Instead of showing concern and acknowledging there could be a dual reason she just clamed up and lectured me about how dangerous ibuprofen was and that I should take paracetamol before I try ibuprofen (all not necessary as I have been having ibuprofen for over a decade and am well versed with its effects and side effects). Ah she does not like being proved even partly wrong this one! So, after care was less amusing to her. I could have the cream for another week or so and then I should keep KY Jelly handy.

How very helpful and caring this whole experience has been … NOT. My problem though hard for me was actually not that serious and that as a nurse I had such a poor experience what happens to others?  I think we ladies should stop being shy and demand that we get support, care and treatment as required for our whole body and not just with bits that people are comfortable with. This lack of care from health staff leads to women being ashamed to talk about real and very traumatic reproductive organs diseases.

Time to Talk About Menopause

 

A few days ago, I was randomly turning channels on TV and came up on a programme talking about Menopause. Yes, I did use a capital for that word as we seem to hide this just as much as Periods and anything to do with female reproductive organs and physiology. The panel was made up of ladies only both young and older, health professionals and counsellors with a female host too. It was refreshing to see this openness and identify how we ladies too contribute to the hiding and shaming of our body parts and its normal functions. Fortunately, the subject of periods is getting frequent outings but that’s is the tip of the iceberg as other normal and abnormal physiology is yet to be even mentioned even thought hey can cause havoc in all aspects of a woman’s life such as polycystic ovarian syndrome and endometriosis. But today I am going to tell you about my journey through menopause.

When I got ill with pain and swelling of my hands which subsequently spread to all over the body, I had a battery of blood tests. At that time, it was discovered that I was perimenopausal – that changes in hormone levels have been detected and that my menopausal journey is on. This news was provided to me in the passing by my rheumatologist. Since I was in a lot of pain it did not register strongly on my radar. Nothing further was said by the rheumatologist nor my GP as indeed he had the results of the investigations too. What was the discussion you ask about how to handle the symptoms that come from this journey? The plan of action? Support and guidance to deal with this major change?  Ways to deal with changing libido and its impact on my relationship with my husband? Well? Hear that deafening silence? Well yes pretty much the same amount of help guidance and information I got at puberty. The passing reference by the rheumatologist was actually related to maybe some of these symptoms are part of the hormonal changes. Oh, and what you going to do about it? Nothing as this is normal physiology…. Oh wow!

I was having hot flushes and excessive sweating with nightmares and there was a shrug from the healers. I was having primrose oil capsules from years for reducing the impact of premenstrual syndrome and I found that the herbalists actually prescribe that as a help for menopausal symptoms.  While I have polycystic ovaries and have accepted that I do not produce ova, it still takes some adjusting to the fact that at 45 my body was failing yet again as this was an early menopause onset. Well at least I think it is early for as you might have guessed the women in my family were not talkative about such issues.

So, I kept my own counsel and muddled my way through till the actual event at the age of 51. Thus, 6 years of misery along with undifferentiated connective tissue disease.  Fortunately, I continued the primrose oil capsules all the way through till couple of years after menopause too. Ladies, we need to talk about this as well, for all have varying symptoms of varying intensity. There is so much that happens physically, mentally and socially and yet we sweep it under the carpet, speak in whispers or indeed with that silly nasal voice, where we can pretend, we are talking about something else or indeed giggle and pretend we have come through it unscathed with our confidence, dignity and relationships intact.  

Why do the health care staff, both doctors and nurses, do not talk to their female patients? The whole area of sexual health or women is totally ignored and mostly likely only ever gets any mention when a woman is pregnant and that too most likely by the midwife. Why do we woman allow this health care neglect? It is time to open more conversations about overall women’s health and not for just parts of us.  We do not have to go through the change alone. We should support each other in keeping our self-worth and confidence. We need to be able to verbalise our issues within safe friendly environment where there is understanding and not ridicule for the anxieties raised by changing bodies and their impact on relationships. If you are with me on this maybe you can leave comments.