61 – Living with untreated urinary symptoms
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What is genital urinary syndrome and why is it often overlooked?
So Penny, you're here in London. I've seen you in Amsterdam where you live, but I met you in London actually, didn't I? Because I was on my theatre tour, my last theatre tour, and you came up at the end and said, I want you to come and talk in Amsterdam.
One minute, yeah. I had one minute at the book signing and I saw my chance. Yeah, it was a little bit over a year ago and I feel like we've done so much. So we brought you over to Amsterdam for the Connected Health Weekend. Then I interviewed you for the article about long COVID and hormones and you were so kind to review it and we were in touch. And yeah, it's great to be here. I mean, you know, I called you already back in Amsterdam. I work in sports advertising, so I think now you know this term goat. Yeah. Which doesn't mean the animal, but it's the greatest of all time. Oh, you're so kind. So, and I think you are the goat of menopause. Oh.
So... You know, I was in Amsterdam. We had a great weekend. I gave a lot of presentations to women, men, healthcare professionals, and the healthcare professional section was really busy. I gave my presentation and then you gave yours. And I thought I knew you really well. I knew you'd had a story and I knew that your health had improved on hormones. but I didn't know how much you'd suffered. And you have kindly agreed to talk about your suffering because lots of women get symptoms. And when I read articles, it will say the majority of women have symptoms related to genital urinary syndrome of menopause, like 70%, and probably only about 8%, 10% of those women have treatment. When you read it on black and white, you think, oh, that's bad.
And you keep reading the article. But when you talk to women who have symptoms, it's not just words on a page. And when I first learned about genital urinary syndrome and menopause, it wasn't called that. It was called VVA, which was vulvovagina atrophy. The word atrophy, if you look it up in the dictionary, is withering and wasting away.
Thinning, yeah.
And actually, I don't want to think of my anatomy withering and wasting away. No. And then some people, even then VVA was a bit of a mouthful. So they'd just say any vaginal dryness. But as you're talking a bit, it's not just always dryness. We're trying to change the terminology actually with a group of people I know in America. to just genitourinary syndrome because it's not just menopause. My 23-year-old Jess was on the podcast recently talking about her use of vaginal hormones and she has PMDD. She's not menopausal. If I wasn't her mum and she didn't have access to a good menopause specialist, she would be having lots of symptoms. I think back in the past as a GP, I had lots of patients with, I thought, recurrent thrush, a lot of vaginal soreness, irritation, urinary tract symptoms.
Never once did I think about hormones in them. So I don't think it should be called GSM. I think the M is wrong. And for you, it certainly wasn't menopause where you started to experience symptoms, was it?
Yeah, in hindsight, it was perimenopause. Yeah. So it started definitely from my 40th, because I have letters from the gynecologist and I can see the year. But I think actually it probably started already late 30s. And it started just with first irritation after sex. And then it... It was a few days, then it turned into irritation just out of no reason. And then I noticed a pattern myself where I would have irritation just before I had my period. Because at the time, I still had my period every four weeks. So yeah, now I know it was perimenopause. And I went to the GP. Then I went to, after I think it took two years, then I went to see a gynecologist. And again, I mean, this was, we're talking 2012, 13.
So I'd like to think now that people know more about it. But it's quite sad. And I actually at some point I even I have the letter still at home back from 2013, where the gynecologist actually writes in her report saying, patient thinks it's also linked with hormones. Like you were crazy? No, not crazy, but she just put it there as a fact because I'd mentioned it.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is genital urinary syndrome and why is it often overlooked?
0:02–5:50
2
How did Penny's symptoms evolve over the years?
5:50–11:27
3
What challenges did Penny face in seeking treatment?
11:27–16:48
4
How can low-dose hormones change the lives of women with these symptoms?
16:48–22:18
5
Why is awareness about urinary symptoms crucial for women?
22:18–28:56
6
What misconceptions do healthcare professionals have about menopause symptoms?
28:56–31:38
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Dr Louise Newson Podcast
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