3 embarrassing symptoms of perimenopause and menopause

Embarrassing symptoms

It's easy to find more information than ever before, thanks to more articles in newspapers and magazines, or online; but there are still some embarrassing symptoms that don't get talked about as much or that you may find too embarrassing to talk about with friends or loved ones. The thought of seeing a doctor about them may fill you with dread.

So, I thought I would talk about 3 embarrassing symptoms that you can experience during perimenopause and menopause, explain what causes them, and what you can do to help yourself. As with previous blogs on less well-known symptoms, not all women experience them so please don’t worry about them if you don’t!

1. Urinary incontinence

This is basically when you unconsciously pass urine, maybe when you run or when you laugh or when you do sports or anything where you're moving more than normal. It could also be that you're fine one minute, and the next minute you're absolutely desperate to go to the toilet, and you start to leak before you can get to the toilet.

There are two main factors that can cause this. One is just age itself. As we get older, the bladder valve, which we can normally control, becomes weaker. So, we're less in control of our bladder generally, and any little bit of extra pressure can just make us leak a little urine.

The second reason is that as our hormones start to fall, and especially oestrogen, our bladder can be impacted. Lower oestrogen levels cause a weakening effect on the bladder generally, so again, we can't control our bladder as much as we used to do before.

Another thing that can happen is something called a prolapse. We've got pelvic girdle muscles, which are muscles that are slung between each hip, and they hold up (a bit like a sling or a hammock) the bladder, the bowel, and the womb. But what happens as we get older is that these muscles become weaker so that the organs in this pelvic area can slide or shift a bit. The bladder can end up shifting position, getting squashed by the bowel or the womb. And that makes it much harder to keep control of bladder function.

If you're getting a dragging feeling in this area, then it's really important to get this checked out by your doctor. As I said before, we don't like to talk about these embarrassing things with the doctor, but this is important because the bladder can shift. And if your pelvic girdle muscles weaken too much, it can impact the vagina. So, if you have any kind of discomfort when you're sitting, any kind of dragging feeling, then it's really important to get this checked for a prolapse.

The other thing it could be is just dehydration. When we get dehydrated, the bladder can get irritated because the urine gets very acidic and very concentrated. So, we have this situation where we're leaking. We may need to go to the toilet more when we don't want to. So, it seems logical to think that if we don't drink so much, we won't go to the toilet so much. But exactly the opposite happens. It's therefore really important with urinary incontinence that you make sure that you're drinking plenty of water during the day as well.

The other thing that can help is Pilates. This is one of the very few disciplines that will help strengthen the bladder. So, if you can find an experienced practitioner in your area, they can teach you really specific exercises to do. I was told by a really experienced Pilates instructor many years ago that doing things online, such as going to YouTube to find instruction videos, is not a good idea. You can end up doing the exercises wrong because you're not quite sure what you're supposed to do. So, this is one instance where I recommend it that you go and see an experienced instructor. They can show you very specific exercises to do. I know that Pilates for women and Pilates for pelvic health are becoming much more popular now.

And for those of you who are just approaching perimenopause or menopause, preventative medicine is better than waiting until something happens. The older you get, the more common weak bladders become, so doing preventative work, and learning how to do these exercises before things get too bad, is worth its weight in gold.

2. Vaginal odour

This is another one of these embarrassing symptoms, because you don't know if other people can smell you. So, what can cause this? We have loads of friendly bacteria in the vagina. They're not just in the digestive tract, which we all know about these days. And these friendly bacteria help to keep the bad bacteria and things like thrush and Candida at bay. The friendly bacteria also help to keep the mucous membranes of the vagina nice and healthy.

When your oestrogen levels start to fall, the level of friendly bacteria can deteriorate so the baddies can take control, and they're the ones that tend to cause a lot of odour.

A vaginal probiotic can be helpful in this situation, especially if you've had things like bladder infections for which you may have been given antibiotics. Antibiotics can end up killing off the friendly bacteria in the vagina as well. So, taking a daily vaginal probiotic can make a huge amount of difference. If you find that there's a lot of discharge, if it's smelling really bad, if it's very discoloured, it could be something like thrush, or it could be something else that is going on. So again, swallow your embarrassment and get to see the doctor about this one. You can ask to see a female doctor if this makes it easier for you.

The other thing that can help in this situation is wearing natural underwear, like cotton, to make sure the whole area can breathe. Also, avoid using shower gels and soaps that are packed with chemicals. Go for natural soaps and body washes instead. Olive oil soap seems to be a really good one, and it's nice and moisturising; but overall, get things as pure as you can in this situation.

Another thing to remember is that your sense of smell can change too. Your sense of smell can become much more acute and sensitive. So just be aware that your vaginal odour may not have changed, but you're much more sensitive to it.

3. Haemorrhoids (Piles)

I'm getting a lot of questions about this one at the moment. This is a bit like when you have varicose veins on your legs, where the veins distend and start to bulge out at the back of your leg. With piles and haemorrhoids, it's basically the vein around the anus that starts to stretch and distend, which can affect bowel function. And sometimes, a haemorrhoid can actually pop right out as well, which could be very, very sore and uncomfortable.

The main reason for this is that our digestive habits change, so we can become more constipated, more sluggish. When that happens, we can strain a bit more when we go to the toilet, and that affects the veins in the bowel.

The really important thing here is to drink plenty of water, because that will help with any kind of constipation. Make sure you're getting plenty of plant fibre from vegetables. Things like wholemeal bread and pasta can actually cause constipation, if you have loads of them, so they're best kept to a minimum.

Also, a little bit of prune juice every day can sometimes make a great deal of difference.

One thing to be aware of. If you notice any blood when you go to the toilet, or if the haemorrhoids do pop out, swallow your embarrassment and get this one checked out by your doctor as soon as you can.

The other thing that can help is a herb called Horse Chestnut, which we know can be very helpful for varicose veins. It’s possible that it may also be helpful for haemorrhoids, so it might be worth trying an extract (taken orally) for a few months.

I hope you found this one helpful. It's one of these situations where often we don't like to talk about these things, but if they're left, they can result in things a little more serious, so this is where you do need to maybe go and see your doctor.

If any of you have any other embarrassing symptoms that you don't really want to talk about, please mention them. There's a whole raft of embarrassing symptoms that we may not like to talk about freely, so I can certainly do another one if you have concerns I haven’t covered.

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