ClareByTheSea

Jun 20 · Replied

Community post

Thank you Greta, and everyone who replied. This is exactly why I posted. Reading these has made me feel much less ridiculous, and I am adding a few notes before my next appointment.

Jun 20 · Posted

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

Jun 17 · Replied

Community post

Just popping back to say thank you, especially Anna. I read all of these with a cup of tea and had a little cry, in a good way. This community is such a relief sometimes.

Jun 17 · Posted

Right so I've decided to do a slightly embarrassing experiment and actually write things down instead of just hoping I'll remember. The thing is, I've been putting off talking to my GP about the dryness for about two years. Two years. I keep getting to the appointment and then mentioning my blood pressure or my knee or literally anything else, and the actual thing I went in for stays in my head unsaid. I came out last time having discussed my cholesterol for fifteen minutes and said nothing at all about what's actually affecting my life every single day. So this week I'm trying something different. I've started a very basic notes document on my phone. Just a few lines. When it bothers me, how much, whether it's affecting things with my husband (it is, and that's a whole other thing I haven't found the words for yet). I'm also writing down what I actually want to say to the GP so I can just read it off the screen if I have to. I read somewhere that you can do that and I think for me that might be the only way it happens. I'm also trying a lubricant I found mentioned in a thread here last week. Not going to make any claims about it, just logging that I'm using it and whether I notice anything. Early days. None of this is glamorous. Writing down intimate symptoms on my phone at 59 while my husband watches the news in the other room is not how I imagined this decade going. But I'm so tired of not saying anything and just quietly managing. I want to actually go to that appointment and say the real thing this time. If anyone else is doing a similar kind of notes thing before seeing their GP I'd love to know how you approached it x