4d ago
Hello everyone. I've been lurking here for a few weeks and I finally feel brave enough to ask this because I genuinely don't know how to handle it. I have a GP appointment coming up and I really want to talk about dryness and some discomfort I've been having, but every time I rehearse it in my head I just... freeze. I'm 59 and I've been with my husband for over thirty years and I still can't seem to say it out loud to a doctor without wanting to disappear into the floor. Which is ridiculous, I know. It's not just dryness either. There's a sort of rawness that comes and goes, and a couple of times I've had what felt like a UTI but the test came back clear, which apparently can be a thing? I read something about that here last week actually. And the libido piece, well. I don't even know where to start with that one. My husband is kind about it but I can tell it's affecting us and I hate that. I've been writing things down so I don't bottle it when I'm actually in the room. Things like: when it started, how often it bothers me, what it feels like, the UTI-type symptoms. I want to ask about local oestrogen because I've seen it mentioned here a lot, but I don't even know if I'm using the right words or whether my GP will just brush past it. Has anyone found a way to bring this up that doesn't feel mortifying? Or even just a way of framing it so the GP takes it seriously? I'd be so grateful. x