Skip to main content

Vaginal Health

There are things that don't get covered in the appointments about beginning menopause.  I think that the doctor leaves a lot of those things for the menopause support group.  Which is weird.  Like, shouldn't I get medical information from my medical provider?  Don't they continually ask that I not ask google  about what's happening to my body, and instead speak to the medical professionals?

Yet no one told me that my sweat would change. No one said that my migraines would be almost unidentifiable from my previous migraines. No one told me hot flashes happen more in cold weather. It's a million other things that were left unmentioned or unknown. Vaginal health is something not even doctors talk about as much as it's needed. 

In part this lack of communication is because of knowledge.  No one knew how my migraines would be impacted by my hysterectomy, or my depression and anxiety.  The other piece is that women's health is somehow taboo and left out of research, primary care conversations, and left to be passed through the internet like porn. Women tell women about their experiences, run support groups for women's illnesses where they share those things that may usually happen.

A great source of information is a book I received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, The Vagina Bible.

The Vagina Bible by Jennifer Gunter is an amazing read. I've gone through tons of medical reading, and have never found a better combination of scientific information and easy reading.  This is a wonderful combination of scientific fact and anecdotes.  I particularly love how Jennifer Gunter summarizes the important information from each chapter into a bullet point list.  I highly recommend this book for ANYONE with a vagina. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pile of dead kids

Yesterday, I said I was thankful for my therapist.  Honestly I am not sure that I am thankful.  EMDR therapy is the right kind for me, it is working in an expansion of what I believe.  Yet I don't want to deal with the past memories that we are going to be looking at.  They suck. I am unsure if it is me holding back or maybe she really sucks. I am so triggered being back in Spokane and in this house.  It feels like I am walking through memories sometimes.  Today I keep thinking about a bunch of dead kids.  They used to be my friends or clients I worked with, but at some point as I kept getting older and they didn't, those friends and clients became kids.  Worse than that, they became dead kids just chilling in my mind.  I say pile of dead kids because it is rare that only one comes up in my mind at a time.   If one starts coming into my memory (even a positive memory) another one comes,  Until I end up with all of these dead k...

Sitting down

I've started this blog entry four times this week. First, I was going to tell you about being shiny with my goals. I was all about tracking and support. Those tools are really helpful and I was doing quite well. I had the post all typed out, then I got fired.  In the rest of the week, things got a little off track. There are days this week where I didn't track my progress. I didn't eat according to the plan each day. I didn't complete my full workout each day.  There was even a day where I didn't take my medications.  Knowing that getting off my medications for a day usually leads to migraines, why would I do that?  Why would I ever skip my exercises when my knees hurt less if I do them?  Why wouldn't I move around every hour knowing that I'm at risk for blood clots and strokes? Why would I eat a tub of french fries to make me feel better? As I got stuck this week, I kept asking myself those whys.  It seems like a labyrinth I'll never escape someti...

Mother's Day

I've disappeared for a few weeks (again).  It's because I was dealing with the real world consequences of being chronically ill and chronically poor. These are two things I link together so tightly I almost didn't put "and" in that sentence. I was being kept at a friend's house for a little over a week because I live alone and they were afraid I was going to die.  No one actually says that,  but the simple reality is that no one is saying, "Geeze you are kinda sick and gonna totes get better so please sleep on my couch." There were other reasons too; the simple life goes on when you're sick, birthdays and funerals. I haven't had hours at work which I'm thankful for because I couldn't conceivably go to work. I had a regular-person doctor's visit which turned into several "lets check if you have cancer" visits.  I don't. Yay for that. I removed one medication and added another. I'm having one medication taken aw...