Health
The advice you need
But now, at long last, I have my sex life back
Jenifer Yeo, 55, Leeds
Staring at my trainers lying forlornly next to the front door, I pushed away pangs of guilt. I used to hike and run every single day.
But these days I felt so anxious I couldn’t get out of the front door.
It was spring 2020 and I was at the peak of the menopause.
Only anxiety wasn’t my biggest issue. Painful sex was. It had all started a year earlier in 2019.
I’d been suffering from vaginal dryness, and sex had become very painful.
I could be sore for four days after.
I adored my partner of three years, David.
But I used every excuse I could think of to avoid having sex, it was hurting that much.
My dry vagina affected other areas of my life too.
I’d always been a regular runner, but now a light jog left me feeling dry, itchy and sore.
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So, I’d stopped running altogether, put on weight, got depressed and stopped going out.
And while I’d done my best to hide my problem from David, we’d not had sex for six months.
Course, he was very supportive.
‘Don’t worry, love,’ he said. ‘Sex isn’t everything.’
But I was worried.
To me, sex was part of a loving, healthy relationship.
I knew I needed to do something but I simply couldn’t face going to visit my GP.
I was already on all sorts of HRT, pills and patches for the menopause.
None of them helped the dryness, and I was too embarrassed to talk about it.
Being a research fanatic, I went online to see if the internet had any answers.
I’d put on weight, got depressed and stopped going out
I stumbled across a health website bursting with information on vaginal dryness. One of the products being trialled was Gina estradiol tablets.
It came in a pre-loaded applicator which was inserted into your vag
