Reasons for Your Dry Vagina
Many women experience vaginal dryness but they don’t treat it. They usually suffer in silence but they don’t realize that if the dryness is not treated, it only gets worse.
Your vagina is self-cleaning and self-lubricating. But if you feel that your dry vagina causes irritation and discomfort during sex then you should talk to your physician and partner about it.
Vaginal dryness happens when the tissues of the vagina are unable to lubricate. Dryness signifies that your vagina isn’t healthy.
Dryness in the vagina is possible at any age. But older women experience it more often than young and middle-aged women. Read along to know about the symptoms and conditions of a dry vagina.
Symptoms of a Dry Vagina
The symptoms of a dry vagina include:
- You feel soreness, itchiness and burning in your vagina
- Intercourse becomes discomforting and painful
- There can be bleeding after the intercourse
- There can also be mild vaginal discharge
Reasons for a Dry Vagina
To the first thing you need to know is why your vagina gets dry . Dryness in the vagina mostly occurs during and/or after the menopause. This is the reason why older women experience it more so than younger women.
Vaginal dryness occurs due to low level of estrogen, typically associated with menopause.
Estrogen is important for regulating menstrual cycles. It is also responsible for controlling the development of body characteristics such as the growth of breasts and body shape.
Estrogen also keeps your vaginal lining thick, healthy, and moisturized. Once a woman become menopausal the walls of her vagina becomes thinner, dryer, and less elastic.
40-50% of menopausal women experience vaginal dryness. Around 20% of the women during and after their menopause get treatment for the dryness in their vagina.
Women who smoke you are at high chances of having early menopause early. Therefore, smokers will also experience these symptoms at an early age as well.
Reasons Other than the Menopause
Although menopause is the most common reason for the dryness in the vagina, other factors can lead to a dry vagina as well. There is a decreased level of estrogen after childbirth that can prolong when a woman is breastfeeding. So many women after childbirth and during breastfeeding have dryness in their vagina as well.
Nowadays, it’s quite common to see women undergoing surgical menopause. Women who have their ovaries removed also experience surgical menopause. In these cases the estrogen levels drop naturally causing dryness in the vagina.
Medication such antiestrogen drugs that are used for the treatment of the condition like breast cancer and endometriosis can cause vaginal dryness. Chemotherapy and radiation for the treatment of cancer may cause the dryness in the vagina as well.
Taking anti-allergies and antihistamines can have a drying effect on your body and can cause vaginal dryness. Certain antidepressants can also reduce vaginal secretions leading to a dry vagina.
Sjögren’s syndrome is a rare autoimmune disease that swells up your glands. In this disease, your vaginal lining can get inflamed, resulting in dryness.
Bottomline
While menopause is the main reason for a dry vagina, other conditions such as the low estrogen level caused by other medical conditions or treatment can leave a dry vagina as well. Dryness in the vagina causes pain and can disrupt your sex life.
However you can get you sex life back by exploring some of the treatment options available on the market such as estrogen cream, vaginal moisturizers, and lubricants.
