Perimenopause? Just age? - TMI

[HowDoYouMakeAHormone]

Im nearly 41, my youngest child is nearly 5.

The last 3-4 months two things have been happening.
I have a split and itchy perineum. Not my bum, not my vag. I've tried ALL sorts to stop it, canestan orally, vaginally and cream. BV gel, changing to perfume free products. Using no products, im not having sex at the moment or putting random things up there either.
Secondly, my underarms smell awful after half a day.
Ive always been a very non-sweaty, arid person. Yet my regular deodorant is failing me.
so are 3 other types. I bought some industrial strength stuff this morning.

What the fuck is this?

I did a perminopause test (FSH?) but that didn't really explain much.

Im not overweight, or anxious, I wear cotton etc.

Help?

And I wash at least once a day.
Twice now because of the under arm issue I'm having!

No help? I'm not a troll I swear 😭😭

Sounds horrible. Have you been to the Gp? You may have an infection that needs a different treatment like antibiotics?

Definitely zero signs of infection.

I'm having the smelly armpit thing. I'm same age. Never been smelly and weirdly it's my left armpit!
As for the nether region, could you have developed psoriasis down there? I know someone who did and it was very painful.

I have a host of other fun peri symptoms which I won't bore you with!

I have had that itching for around 10 years now - definitely improved with no scented sanitary stuff and cotton pants. Also no pants at night, just baggy pj bottoms usually shorts. I don't use shower gel - use non scented bar soap - which has helped as has blotting and not wiping after using the toilet. Two things over the past couple of years that have really helped is 1. keep everything trimmed really short and shave the itchiest part. 2. use a hair dryer after showering especially on the itchiest bits. I never found creams did anything. I suspect my high sugar diet doesn't help but hey ho that's a work in progress.

With regards to the underarm smell, I def smell worse but use sure anti deodorant and it hasn't been an issue. I do sweat profusely when exercising and then I 'really' stink!

Actually I have noticed that pads make it worse.
Sometimes it goes away entirely for a few days which is why I thought it might be fluctuating hormones.
I never used perfumed pads.
But I have to use back up pads due to heavy periods.
Period pants aren't robust enough unfortunately!

@HowDoYouMakeAHormone you have my utmost sympathy - I had horrendously heavy periods until i had a coil fitted in 2017! Bizarrely during my period the itching reduced considerably. Now it only really gets bad during a shower - how weird is that! Different toilet paper may also be making it worse but haven't been able to narrow that down yet as my memory is so shocking I never remember that I'm trying to keep a record of it until hours later

I also got smelly armpits with the onset of peri menopause. Sounds odd, but mine actually improved when I stopped using any deodorant! I discovered this accidentally when I ran out and hadn't had time to go shopping. I now haven't worn deodorant for a couple of years, I don't smell, I also sweat in armpits considerably less - only when exercising. Perhaps the body was reacting to whatever is in deodorant?

That's interesting. Might experiment! To be honest the deodorant doesn't stop the sweat and the smell is the smell of the deodorant gone bad so nothing to lose!

@Alittlenonsensenowandthen Exactly, yes, my "smell" was of stale deodorant. Now I just wash with unperfumed soap in the shower every morning and that's it, I'm fine the rest of the day.
I also noticed I had skin discolouration in my armpits when using deodorant, that disappeared within weeks of stopping using it.