Urethral and vulval stinging after showers during menopause, anyone else?

[MissGorringe]

Hello

For a long while now one of my worst menopause symptoms has been stinging and pain in the urethral / vulval area after I have a shower. It fades after about an hour. Anyone else had this? How did you treat it and did it resolve?

I have been using a estriol cream externally for a little while now but it doesn't seem to be making any difference and in fact it seems worse. I do all the other recommended things like washing with emollient etc. been checked for lichen sclerosis and apparently not.

Id be interested to hear anyone else's experience to at least know I'm not a freak!
Xxx

I'm sorry but thinking about this there probably isn't a lot more to tell you, other than some mild irritation when first using the cream after many years of suffering with irritation and thinking it was perhaps thrush etc.

.All I'd say is that if you have only tried Blissel, it may be something in that product you are reacting to. There are other things to try- there is a cream that is half the strength of the usual estriol cream (in fact it's the same strength as Blissel) so that's worth trying. If you've not been tested to thrush, do that as you may need a combo of treatments. Hope you find something that works.

I had this. Made my life hell. Estriol cream has solved it.

I've had very mild symptoms of this after showering on a couple of occasions and it was certainly bloody annoying. I'm not on HRT and I have a medication induced neurological involuntary movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia so I'm very sensitive to medication side effects, especially ones that exacerbate my movement disorder symptoms. (Hence why I'm a bit scared to try HRT!)

I'm not sure what on earth I would use to relieve symptoms if they get worse, maybe Sudocrem as it's never given me a reaction. I do truly sympathise as I had one time after my youngest daughter was born in 2020 (when my perimenopause symptoms started I think), when I thought I had thrush, but it was just the huge drop im hormones made my vulva really sore. I literally went to bed with an ice pack between my legs to get relief! God only knows what I will do if I get to that stage again 😩😢😱

Thanks for your feedback @ForeverDelayedEpiphany . It is a really really annoying feeling isn't it?

I hope you find some treatment though I totally understand your hesitation. Might be better to get on top of it before it gets worse? Perhaps an appointment with a meno specialist might be money well spent?

I really hope you don't get to that stage again but I can recommend a very basic emollient ointment like Hydromol. It's just three basic ingredients and no water - because even that stings when you're very inflamed.

Using topical estrogen is not likely to affect you. It's only absorbed where it's put- not throughout your body and it's the same estrogen we have normally. It's incredibly weak- using it for a whole years at the prescribed dose is the same as ONE DAY of HRT.