How can I treat my vaginal dryness?
Obstetrician and gynecologist Jennifer Ashton, MD, discusses how a woman can treat her vaginal dryness.
Transcript
We have a saying in gynecology, like treats like. So if it's a hormonal cause, typically the treatment can be hormonal.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So in terms of treating vaginal dryness, I mean, ideally, you want to find out why the vagina is dry in the first place.
The number one reason is clearly hormonal. And this can be a woman who's perimenopausal or postmenopausal.
It could be a woman who's just had a baby and is breastfeeding. That's a very, very common time for lack of estrogen in the vagina and in the vaginal tissues which
results in dryness. Even some kind of hormonal therapies, even some birth control pills, ironically can give a woman a sensation
that the vagina is dry. So first you want to identify the cause. After you identify the cause, then there's
really an option that almost resembles a menu when you talk about treatment. We have a saying in gynecology, like treats like.
So if it's a hormonal cause, typically the treatment can be hormonal. And that's really easy to do with a very low dose
vaginal estrogen cream. There are natural or bioidentical formulations available. There are synthetic formulations available.
And it just works where you want it to work, which is right in the vagina. Can come in a cream form, it can come in a pill or tablet form.
And a lot of women like that because it's something that they can control. If they're talking about just an occasional dry vagina that's
bothering them, let's say, just when they have intercourse, then they have, again, a pretty big range of options when you talk about lubricants.
I always recommend the most natural lubricant first, which is saliva. It's cheap and it's effective.
There are, of course, a lot of over-the-counter lubricants which personally, in my practice, I don't usually recommend because in order
to keep them on the shelf, they have to have a lot of preservatives, a lot of other chemical ingredients in them that can actually worsen the dryness,
worsen vaginal irritation. So if I am going to recommend anything other than hormonal
or saliva, I tend to recommend a very pure either vegetable
oil, safflower oil-- believe it or not, even olive oil. You can get ones that don't have a smell, don't have a taste,
and they work really, really well. [AUDIO LOGO]
womens health
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