12 Jun
Right. I have been sitting here for twenty minutes trying to work out how to describe what's been happening to my body in a way that won't make me die of embarrassment in the GP's office. I'm 58. Postmenopause. And I have been quietly struggling with dryness and what I can only describe as a kind of... aching soreness that makes intimacy feel like something to dread rather than want. My husband hasn't said anything. He wouldn't. But I can feel the distance and I don't know how much of it is real and how much is in my head. I've started writing things down before the appointment because every single time I've been in that room I've gone blank and come out having only mentioned half of what I went in for. So I've got a little list in my notes app. Things like: discomfort during sex, not just dryness but a kind of rawness afterwards. UTI symptoms that keep coming back but the tests keep coming back clear. And this general flatness about intimacy that I genuinely can't tell is physical or emotional or both. I've been reading about local oestrogen and wondering if that's something I should be asking about specifically. I've also been trying to eat a bit better, more iron, more protein, just trying to feel less like I'm running on fumes, which I think bleeds into everything including how I feel about myself. The relationship conversation is the bit I'm most scared of honestly. Not the GP. My husband. I don't know how to start it without it sounding like a complaint or a rejection. Anyone else navigated that bit? x