Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Menopause, Painful Intercourse, and Vaginal Dryness

by Dr. Margaret Aranda

Menopause causes the ovaries to decline in function.  Hormones diminish, and this includes estrogen, progestin, and testosterone.  Since a woman's body is complex, there are a multitude of symptoms that can result.

I have noticed, for example, that a postmenopausal woman can be talking to me at night, and indeed let's make that a ~ cool ~ night with a breeze.  Her upper lip and forehead are covered with sweat.  In fact, her upper eyebrows and neck glisten in the moonlight.  I ask (during our conversation on menopause), "Do you get hot flashes?"


She says with a frown, "Me?  No, I never get hot flashes."


So I ask, "Do you have pain with intercourse?"  Well, no big response there.  I persist, "Do you enjoy sex?"  She scoffs, "I could take it or leave it.  I just have sex to make my husband happy, but if it was up to me, I wouldn't even have sex.  And I would not miss it."  Her eyebrows frown ever so gently as her skin continue to glisten in the moonlight.  

So I back up again, "Well, why don't you enjoy it?"
She thinks.
She hesitates.
I wait, patiently.
"Well, I guess that it just doesn't feel good,"  she says.

Results are in from Menopause, The Blog, which you can Click Here to Read.  While millions of women in the USA may have vaginal atrophy from a decrease of estrogen production after menopause, only about an estimated 7% are getting treatment.  This is simply astounding to me!  

It could be that a woman does not realize that she has vaginal dryness.  The change could have happened so gradually that she does not realize that she actually has pain on intercourse, also known as dyspareunia.  Other women say without hesitation that "It feels like a knife blade", to have sex with their husbands.  So let's just step back a moment and realize that hot flashes, vaginal dryness, vaginal atrophy, and pain on intercourse ~ all these things can happen with menopause.  It's ok.  

We just need to realize, like the perspiring woman who says she does not get hot flashes, that our bodies are changing. We need to continue to be attuned to our bodies, as we can spend fully one-third of our lives in menopause.

So we'd better get 'good' at being IN menopause, yes?  
Let's do!




ORDER NOW! Dr. Aranda's books, please click here:

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Dr. Margaret Aranda's Books:

No More Tears en Espanol
Face Book Page: Stepping from the Edge
Little Missy Two-Shoes Likes to go to School
From Menarche to Menopause: A Journey through Time



To Order Dr. Aranda's books, please click here:
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Additional Free Articles by Dr. Margaret Aranda
Medical Disclaimer: Nothing on this website is meant to diagnose, treat, or practice medicine. You must be seen in person by a physician for appropriate and individual medical treatment. If you have an emergency, call 9-1-1 in the USA.

Link Disclaimer: We are not responsible for any links that go outside of this website.

Full Disclosure: Margaret A. Ferrante, M.D.  is an Institute Physician with Cenegenics Medical Institute.  She receives no monetary compensation for hosting this website you are on, which is independent and not affiliated with Cenegenics. The information presented is for education and awareness.  Dr. Ferrante currently sees patients out of the Cenegenics office in Beverly Hills, CA. 
To book an appointment for a free Consultation, please email her at: mferrante@cenegenics.com

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Age 26: Studying through My Tears


To view Article beginning on Age 1, please Click Here.
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by Dr. Margaret Aranda


Well, I was just in my second or third month of medical school, and my husband left me.  It was the first time that I was alone.  I didn't know how to act, who to be, or who I really was.

I came from a big family; there were 7 kids in the house.  Then I ran away when I was 16, and lived with my boyfriend until we got married on the day I turned 18.  We had been together now for 9 years, and now I was 25.  I don't think I had ever spent a day by myself in my whole entire life.  Honestly, I couldn't turn on the radio without wondering what kind of music "I" really liked.


Classical or Country?  70's or oldies?


I hated coming home to an empty apartment.  No people, no voices, no baby coo-coos.  My son was 6 and he was growing up without me.  There are things that I can never tell you, stories that are mine to keep in my soul.  All that I can tell you is that I wasn't going back to my husband.  I couldn't.

He took the money with him.  I was broke.  So I borrowed a car from the dorm manager, once a week to go get groceries.  I tagged along with my friends to church, and I walked to the swimming pool to do my 1500 meters.  I walked in the summer months of 1985, with the fireflies little butts' aglow in the track before me.  In the winter, the same road was aglow this time with ice and snow, and I walked the same walk.  I knew that the water would be waiting before me in the pool, and I could pull the water down and kick and flip at the end, and I could do it over and over again to burst my energy and soothe my being.


The lane stretched out before me, and the blueness matched my soul.


On the last day of school, I got my first "D" in my life.  Neuroanatomy.  All other medical students that failed Neuroanatomy during medical school got shipped to Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska to repeat the class.  Not me.  

My medical school decided that I would repeat the entire year.




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Dr. Margaret Aranda's Books:

No More Tears en Espanol
Face Book Page: Stepping from the Edge
Little Missy Two-Shoes Likes to go to School
From Menarche to Menopause: A Journey through Time



To Order Dr. Aranda's books, please click here:
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For Additional Memoirs by Dr. Margaret Aranda, Please Click Here:

Age 31: The Color Blue



__________________________
Additional Articles by Dr. Margaret Aranda

Medical Disclaimer: Nothing on this website is meant to diagnose, treat, or practice medicine. You must be seen in person by a physician for appropriate and individual medical treatment. If you have an emergency, call 9-1-1 in the USA.

Link Disclaimer: We are not responsible for any links that go outside of this website.

Full Disclosure: Margaret A. Ferrante, M.D.  is an Institute Physician with Cenegenics Medical Institute.  She receives no monetary compensation for hosting this website you are on, which is independent and not affiliated with Cenegenics. The information presented is for education and awareness.  Dr. Ferrante currently sees patients out of the Cenegenics office in Beverly Hills, CA. 
To book an appointment for a free Consultation, please email her at: mferrante@cenegenics.com

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