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Thank you for all of your helpful posts. I completely relate to the painful feeling of knives, or an open cut feeling. I am 67 and dread the intense pain that I feel when even having a papsmear. I have an awesome female OBGYN who couldn't be more understanding and gentle during my annual appointments. She had me try a conservative amount of estrogen cream two different times to help with my extreme dryness and pain. Only a minuscule amount every evening for the first week, then the same amount only twice per week. I was hopeful this would work, but after only 2 days of using it during my first week, the pain and intense pressure in my lower bladder forced me to stop taking it. It saddens me that this has happened since I was very optimistic that this would alleviate my pain.
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I feel that exact same way. I am 74 and have this vaginal dryness now for four or five years. I can tell that there is also atrophy there too. My GYN gave me the estrogen cream and it was helpful for several years but now I have noticed that the twice a week use doesn’t seem to be enough. I would be interested in trying the coconut oil. It sounds from the comments that it comes in a solid form. Can it go inside (where it is so, so dry!) or only on the outside. If used only on the outside, how does it help the dryness inside? You are so right in that it feels like open cuts! My GYN compared the feeling to tissue paper having little tears. I am glad to see this being discussed on this site. I think many post-menopausal women have this problem. Thanks to all for their input. MaryAnn from MA
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I understand! If I skip two days of applying coconut oil my discomfort starts to come back. When I tried the estrogen cream it worked, but only if I used it everyday. Anyway, about ten years of clear paps after I had my complete hysterectomy (I have no cervix, uterus or ovaries), I quit pap smears at the suggestion of my doctor (ask your doctor), but before I stopped I had my doctor use a child sized speculum because of the pain when he used an adult one. That helped.