Menopause usually brings good and bad news. On the one hand, we’re glad to give up tampons and period cramps. But on the other hand, menopause can mean the beginning of awful vaginal issues.
Vaginal dryness… discomfort and pain during sex… low libido… atrophy… and the dreaded vaginal odor. That’s what menopause means for some of us.
But in today’s article, we’ll share vaginal health tips you can use to ease into your golden years.
And if you’re already struggling with some of these issues, we’ll share some proven natural remedies you can try to get your vagina (and mental health) back.
Where do we begin? As always, it’s a good idea to understand what’s going on down south during menopause.
Understanding what’s going on down south during menopause
Most women don’t know how deep menopause affects the body. They don’t know that it goes beyond a pause on their periods. Believe it or not, menopause affects your entire body in different ways.
How does menopause affect the whole body? The answer can be summed up in the drop in the hormone, estrogen.
Once menopause hits, your estrogen levels don’t just fall — they plummet. And that’s not a good thing for your vaginal health.
You see, estrogen is the vaginal health hormone. It keeps your vaginal tissues thick. It helps your vaginal walls to produce moisture. And it’s the hormone that keeps your good bacteria alive, which helps you to fight vaginal infections.
That’s why once your estrogen levels drop, a host of issues crop up.
You may start to notice dryness down there. Sex may start to feel ‘rough’ and painful. And you may even notice a change in your odor or you may start struggling with chronic BV or yeast infections.
On top of that, vaginal atrophy may even start to set in.
And what’s the cause of all this? All this happens just because you hit menopause… just because your estrogen levels fell off.
How to deal with the menopause dryness and vaginal odor
Vaginal dryness and odor are not fun to deal with. They rob you of good sex, and the odor makes you feel self-conscious. It can get so bad that it can affect your self-confidence and your mental health.
If vaginal issues make you self-conscious or depressed, then you should learn how to manage your mental health when you struggle with vaginal issues. That will help you to stay calm and give your treatments time to work.
That said, the way you treat vaginal issues during menopause will depend on if you’ve had problems in the past.
Women who had vaginal issues in the past will need a slightly different approach over someone who’s just getting vaginal issues for the first time.
And finally, if you notice a change in odor, you have to figure out what your new odor means. Different vaginal odors can mean completely different things. And if it’s an infection that’s causing the change in odor, you want to know about it.
With that said, let’s look at how to manage dryness and vaginal odor during menopause.
Figuring out the root cause of the dryness
This is so important. You don’t want to start buying up every product online to see if any will work for you.
What you want to do is to find out why you have dryness in the first place.
Is it a consequence of a medication you’re on? Is it because you’re not drinking enough water? Did dryness set in as soon as you hit menopause?
There are so many little ‘things’ that can trigger dryness even before you hit menopause. So you want to know what’s going on in your case, and then figure out what you need to do about it.
In most causes, most women who struggle with dryness also struggle with vaginal atrophy.
Vaginal atrophy is what happens to the vagina as we get older. Some of the symptoms are a thinning of the vaginal wall… lack of elasticity… a ‘tightness’ that doesn’t feel right… pain during sex… and more commonly, dryness.
If you’ve noticed one or more of those symptoms, then you need to know how the vagina changes with age and what you can do to keep it young.
Most women who struggle with dryness have very little options. If they still want sex, they’ll have to use lubes.
While lubes work, they can also get messy. On top of that, most women quickly dislike using lubes because they’d prefer a vagina that lubricates naturally.
That’s where proven vaginal moisture supplements can help. But make sure you try supplements with good reviews from real women.
Figure out the root cause of the vaginal odor
The vaginal has 5 different ways it can smell and only one of them is good.
The good vaginal odor is your natural odor. You naturally know what that’s like. You know your odor is off when you don’t smell the way you used to. When the new smell cannot be good.
Once your odor changes to something unpleasant, then something must be off. You have to do some digging to figure out what’s going on.
Again, try to resist the urge to throw pills in your mouth or in there. Let your gynecologist help you to figure out what’s wrong. Once you know what’s wrong, then you can use proven products to get your health back.
Vaginal odor is usually caused by BV… and that’s one infection most women struggle with during menopause. Again, this is caused by the drop in estrogen that we mentioned earlier.
The drop in estrogen causes your good vaginal bacteria to die off. And with your good bacteria out of the way, bad bacteria simply take over.
This is why most women who hit menopause easily get one vaginal infection or another.
One way to address this good bacteria death is to take a good probiotic.
Probiotics are so effective because they directly add millions of good bacteria to your microbiome. That way even if your estrogen levels drop, your vaginal flora will still be filled with good bacteria that’ll help you fight infections.
The other way to add good bacteria to your vaginal flora is to eat probiotic-rich foods. Some known probiotic-rich foods include yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kombucha and pickles.
Caveat:
Most women who eat probiotic-rich foods don’t notice much effect on their vaginal health. The reason for that is simple.
You see, if you want to get your good bacteria from food, you’d have to eat a lot of those probiotic-rich foods! A WHOLE LOT.
But most people just can’t eat yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut or kombucha all day everyday. That’s why it’s a smarter idea to take vaginal health probiotic supplements instead.
Why is it smarter to just take probiotics?
Because for one, they’re cheaper. Secondly, all you have to do is take a pill and your vaginal flora will be flooded with good bacteria. And finally, it’s easy to simply add a probiotic supplement to your regimen and not give it up.
You’d have to eat probiotic-rich foods for weeks before you can get the same quantity of good bacteria packed in a single probiotic pill!
How to manage menopause symptoms with nothing but your diet
Most women don’t realize this, but what you eat is closely connected to your vaginal health.
That’s why foods like kombucha and yogurt can help improve your vaginal health. But you can do even better.
Remember the root cause of vaginal issues in menopause? Yeah, that’s because of the drop in estrogen.
But studies have found that there are foods that can naturally boost your estrogen levels. These foods are high in soy isoflavones, so they can ease some of your menopause side-effects. Some examples of those foods are tofu, tempeh, and miso.
In addition to that, you can also eat foods high in Omega-3 fatty acids like salmon and flaxseeds. They can also help to prevent vaginal atrophy.
Sleep, stress and your vaginal health during menopause
Stress and poor sleep doesn’t affect your mental health alone. They can also affect your vaginal health.
Stress forces your body to make more cortisol. And this hormone is bad news for your vaginal microbiome, especially if you’re going through menopause.
“When the body produces too much cortisol over time, it disrupts the immune system and various hormones within the body. And that affects your overall health of the vagina. This can lead to irregularities in vaginal health that may result in vaginal irritation and discomfort.” — Maria Sophocles, M.D.
Yes, stress is not good for your vaginal health, and most women don’t know that. Too much stress can also tighten your pelvic floor muscles, which increases your risk of UTIs.
But poor sleep can do even more damage.
Remember how you feel groggy when you get too little sleep? Poor sleep throws off your hormones… and that alone can exacerbate your menopause symptoms.
So try to reduce stress in your life… and also try to get a healthy amount of sleep each day.
Conclusion
These are some ideas that can help you to treat some of your vaginal health symptoms.
As always, it’s a good idea to consult your doctor and get proper medical advice and treatments.