Vaginal Atrophy at 38
I’m 38 years old and started having perimenopause symptoms at 35 but my periods didn’t start to become irregular till I was 37. So for the past year and a half my peri symptoms have gotten worse I’ve experienced many things so far but it comes in waves. I don’t always feel like crap though. I notice my symptoms only get really bad whenever I skip a period and that’s when I’ll feel like death and mental for 2-3 weeks straight.
so about 3 weeks ago I noticed my vagina finally started to change, it started out at first I was kind of itchy on my inner labia for like 5 days then afterwards I woke up and noticed my inner lips looked flatter, thinner, Less plumped. Then I itched a little bit more for like another 4-5 days then it all stopped. My vagina literally changed overnight but it started with the itching and a dryness feeling as if I had a rug burn on my inner labia. my inner labia is on the bigger side so it did look like it shrunk because it lost volume but it’s still there. and it did get a little bit lighter in color too and also the area near my clit lost volume and my clit looks more exposed. The whole experience shocked me.
I‘m in a relationship so I’m sexually active, last time I had vaginal sex was a week ago and it felt normal, I’ve been using lube for years now even before perimenopause hit me just because I like the feeling more, But my clit ……well I lost sensation there, I have little to no feeling there since my vagina changed, so since I have very little feeling there I can’t orgasm anymore. Even if I get really into it at most it just feels like I’m edging. This whole experience honestly doesn’t bother me as much because I’m more into vaginal sex than oral or foreplay and I don’t masterbate. But I got very depressed since this change happened to me Because if I ever wanted to orgasm I know I can’t anymore, I feel like I have a useless vagina now lol . Plus just this whole perimenopause thing at 38 years old been too much, I know I’m not young but I am on the younger early side for peri and on top of all that I now lost my ability to orgasm at 38 years old. I sometimes feel bad about myself like I got cursed to be going through all this before even hitting 40.
Ive been raw dogging this whole peri thing because honestly I have really bad anxiety it’s been that way my whole life, I can’t even get on medication for my anxiety. I’m scared of side effects from HRT or estrogen creams etc.. Ive never even been on any type of hormonal birth control either.
Any women on here that just kept it natural how has your sex life been since your vagina changed, like do you still enjoy sex? Did you stop having sex? does it feel somewhat the same?