@WootFatigue

When Lorraine Kelly shared her experience of menopause on her daytime TV show in 2017, she was her own last resort. Initially, she set out to interview a famous woman about her story, but everyone she approached refused.

"I thought, nobody else will talk about it so I'll do it. It was a breakthrough moment," said Kelly.

Seven years later, it often feels as though we have reached peak menopause. Michelle Obama, Salma Hayek and Gwyneth Paltrow have all been open about their experiences, encouraging women not to feel ashamed about a biological process an estimated 13 million people in the UK are now going through. And yet there's still one part of it that is barely spoken about.

Vaginal dryness.

As with so much in this realm, it took a celebrity – Davina McCall in this case – to shine a light on it. For those of us who'd assumed this symptom was a minor inconvenience, which only affected s*x and was easily remedied with the kinds of lubrication readily available from high street chemists, it was a brutal wake-up call.

"I had severe dryness, so severe that when I tried to wipe myself after going to the loo, it was so sore I was having to kind of dab," McCall said in her 2021 documentary, S*x, Myths and the Menopause. "I didn't know what it was, I had no idea that it was part of being perimenopausal."

Previously known as vulvovaginal atrophy, now rebranded as genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM), vaginal dryness will probably affect between 60% and 80% of women, according to various studies. It is caused by the drop in oestrogen levels, which happens as women go through menopause, causing vaginal tissue to become thinner and less elastic. Despite it being so common, one study has found that a third of female sufferers did not report it to their doctor.

This is partly because of embarrassment, says Haitham Hamoda, consultant gynaecologist and clinical lead of the menopause service at King's College Hospital. "Most GPs are well informed and offer a great service, but of course, there are variations of what you can access. Part of it is going to be what is available to you, what is offered to you, and what you feel comfortable talking about."

He continues: "You'd be surprised how many people would come and see you because they're talking about flushes and sweats and brain fog. And when you say, 'Do you have vaginal dryness?' they will say, 'Oh, yes, it's really uncomfortable'. But they never really think about bringing it up, unless you specifically ask."

Hamoda has seen women who are too sore to wear underwear. "You do find people who say clothes are uncomfortable because it's touching against the area … In extreme cases they find it uncomfortable sitting or walking."

GP and menopause expert Dr Renée Hoenderkamp has had cases like this too. "I've seen women who can't go about their daily life because of vaginal dryness. It's absolutely debilitating. They can't go to the gym any more, can't wear jeans, can't go for a bike ride, can't run up the stairs at the station. It's all just too painful."

Clare, 55, says GSM "consumed my whole life". "I used to sit in a shallow, cold bath, sobbing. It was agony, the burning never let up for one second of the day or night. Even walking was painful." It began when she was 47, but she never considered her symptoms could have anything to do with being perimenopausal because her periods were regular, and she was not having hot flushes.

But, as Hoenderkamp points out, every menopause is different: "For some women, vaginal dryness will be their first symptom, very early, even before their periods have changed. Other women won't get it until they've gone through it all. It's really individual."

She also believes that seeing dryness as just a symptom of menopause can be misleading. "Women who breastfeed for more than six months will suppress their oestrogen to a level where they may get vaginal dryness. The pill can cause it. Antidepressants. It's not just restricted to menopausal women."

The implications of vaginal dryness can go far beyond pain, says Hoenderkamp. "Once past menopause, when all of the tissue in and around the vagina and urethra dries and atrophies, women become much more susceptible to urine infections because bacteria are able to attach to the tissue."

Hamoda has also seen women avoiding or missing cervical screening due to GSM. "Sometimes you can't open the speculum because they're so dry and uncomfortable, even though, of course, you're using plenty of lubrication." In some cases, he has told patients to "take vaginal oestrogen for the next two months, then come back and we'll attempt this smear again. Sadly, this is not an uncommon scenario."

Not every doctor is aware of how to help women with GSM. Emily, 44, sought medical advice as soon as her vaginal dryness began four years ago. "It felt like there was a red hot poker inside of me," she says. She also suffered from urinary tract infections. Her GP found it so hard to reach a diagnosis that at one point he told her – on the phone – that she might simply have to prepare herself for a life of chronic pain.

As she was 40 when her symptoms began, her doctor didn't consider perimenopause. She was passed between different NHS services, given courses of antibiotics, a cystoscopy, referrals to urology, gynaecology and physiotherapy. She also paid to see a private vulval pain specialist. As all this was going on, no painkillers could make any difference, and she remained in agony.

"It's been catastrophic," she says. "The pain makes it very difficult to concentrate. I've had to give up four jobs in the space of four years. I've had to sell my house and move away from my friends because I need to have more savings in case I can't carry on working. It's had a massive effect on my mental health."

Out of desperation, Emily began to research her symptoms herself. She found out that one in 20 women go through perimenopause before they're 45, and, presuming this was what was happening to her, Emily wrote a detailed letter to her GP, asking for vaginal oestrogen. He agreed to put her on a low dose. "And within two days the burning stopped."

She is still, however, struggling with her UTI symptoms – which include needing to pee around four times an hour. While it's impossible to know what has caused this, she believes that because her infection was not treated for so long it has got worse. She is now being treated separately for her persistent UTI.

Misdiagnosis is a common thread through this condition. Dr Paula Briggs, a consultant in sexual and reproductive health at Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust, reports, "It depends who the patient presents to, how likely they are to get the right diagnosis. Loads of women will be told they've got thrush."

It's a perfect storm – women reluctant to seek medical help in the first place, then a delay in being diagnosed.

"Whereas other menopausal symptoms resolve – generally they get less severe, then they stop – GSM becomes progressively worse over time and is very difficult to reverse," says Briggs. She now thinks all women should be given vaginal oestrogen at around the age of 45 as a default.

However, as oestrogen pessaries fall under the HRT umbrella, some women remain nervous due to the small increased risk of breast cancer linked to progestogen-containing forms of HRT. Hoenderkamp says that vaginal oestrogen does not carry the same risk. "It is just about as safe as houses, and very easy. I often have women who say I can't have vaginal oestrogen because I've had breast cancer. Well, you can."

Hamoda is more cautious: "Generally speaking, with breast cancer patients you would try other non-hormonal options first. But on an individual basis."

However, it is not a problem that will disappear overnight. "In terms of the oestrogen, women are not going to do it for a year and then it will all be OK. It's probably a lifelong commitment to their vagina," says Hoenderkamp.

Vaginal oestrogen is available from chemists – although it's cheaper on prescription from your GP – and there are also moisturisers and lubricants women can buy over the counter as a possible first port of call.

The message overall is clear, though. If you are uncomfortably dry, you should never suffer in silence – it's not just a part of ageing that happens to everyone, which you have to grin and bear – it's something that can be treated and, in most cases, eased.

"Awareness is key," says Hamoda. So, while there has never been so much talk about menopause as there is now, there's still a lot that needs to be said.

Some names have been changed

Fascinating thread. Could actually be a , but you know what I mean.

"The attention market?! You mean people clicking on things? That will never go away!"

Ok so I know this sounds bonkers, but MARK MY WORDS:

• People will literally give up and stop clicking on things as much.

• The lack of supply will crash the attention market, influencers and ad firms will see stats go down

• the average person increasingly is aware of dead internet theory

• no phones youth movement is bigger than ever

• dumbphone edc people are increasingly seen as cool

• even 20 something trustafarian girls are tired of "GRWM" advertising slop disguised as content, and has begun making "um, im reducing my routine and unplugging bc all this shit is toxic fr..." type videos

• ^ (they probably won't but the meta is shifting)

• the basketball of pickleball will be invented (As grass touching behavior increases, someone will popularize a new sport played with basketballs)

• personal pages are making a comeback even faster all the sudden, after 5 years of steady rise in popularity. At this rate, there will be more personal pages than there was in 1999.

• The rage and indignation is building towards slop blasters. "We should do something about this." People who watch brainrot videos with the audio on will soon be as publicly shamed as an able bodied man draft dodging during WW2, and that is only the beginning

Top upmarseyd comment:

This admin will turn me into a west wing watching lib. wtf is this man.

An administration just made up of idiots and rage

AIO, my boyfriend is mad at me because, as a healthcare provider, I help women access abortions even though it's illegal here. I know I'm risking my license, jail time, and a huge mess, but I refuse to stand by while children suffer in a country with a homeless crisis. Society here is brutal to women who conceive out of wedlock. many are abandoned, left to raise a child alone, or even killed for having s*x outside marriage. I can't just watch and simply refuse to help a woman who comes to me asking for help, so I do all I can. From providing medications to assisting the process. And I don't take any money for it, so it's not about personal gain.

Literally Jesus Christ of the state.

Get him back to the table

!meowr

Satanic Panic 2.0 will be upon us faster than you think. pic.twitter.com/cujE1JZAmm

— Hypnotic (@RealHypnotic1) February 9, 2025

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/kingdom-come-deliverance.39433/page-250

No, we are all being played. I was there at GG1, I know how he did it. We have to stop. He’s using everyone. I said this to Endy too. Vavra is a two faced opportunist.

— Grummz (@Grummz) February 8, 2025

Interesting how videogames were super important to idiots like this until they got what THEY wanted. Now that their side is losing, they wheel out the old "Its just videogames. Why do you care so much?" argument. Every single time. https://t.co/gXbBwzbBPH

— The Critical Drinker (@TheCriticalDri2) February 9, 2025

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/kingdom-come-deliverance.39433/page-243

/u/Medium_Cupcake7602

Glocks don't have safeties. Safeties on carry guns are dumb and dangerous. And you see that black thing the gun's resting in? That's a holster. And harness? Wtf is this 1970? Who carries with a harness?

!dinochads

We've covered this in the past with:

• /r/starbucksbaristas: "we're so tired of homeless people overdosing in our stores". Also /r/starbucksbaristas "noo you can't ban homeless people from our stores, they're people too "

• /r/starbucksbaristas are still defending the homeless

They're still mad... OP has written an absolute wall of unhinged nonsense so let me pick out the key bits:

But this back to Starbucks stuff might have me at my breaking point. It all feels so illogical, it's not even smart capitalism the direction we are going. It's money-hungry greed packaged in between "we care" statements and vague community pledges.

"Back to Starbucks" = "you can't be in a Starbucks unless you're a paying customer", with the aim of returning Starbucks to the local coffee shop feel it once had, rather than a homeless daycare centre.

Anyway, since the reset, we have turned homeless people away from getting water, people who haven't purchased anything away from using the bathrooms, there was one woman holding her tooth asking for a cup of ice because she went to the dentist that we turned away because she didn't want to buy anything.

lmao you wouldn't give a woman holding her tooth some ice? YTA

One customer in the drive through wanted a cup of water and even offered to pay for it without any way for us to charge for just a single plain cup of water.

Who the frick goes to a drive thru for a cup of water?

What's stopping someone from buying a petite vanilla bean scone or avocado spread, using the restroom, then asking for a refund?

Nothing, but a homeless person won't do that.

I've seen SSV's be yelled at, baristas be heckled and given attitude

But I bet you haven't been assaulted by a homeless person or had to clean up the bathroom after an OD since the change.

If a human being is thirsty, I will give them water. If a human being is hungry and I can give them food, I will.

Work for UNICEF then.

Our CEO private jet commutes to work. He makes tens of thousands a second.

Calculator needed.

Dont believe it will evee be a coffee house. the way the company has gone downhill since howie left. we are far too gone to return back to pur roots. our roots are buried deep and new ceo is very focused on profits than experience

The new CEO is actually laser-focused on the coffee house experience, these baristas are deranged.

Someone tells OP they're wrong but they're buried at the bottom of the thread:

The bathroom policy has been good overall actually in my district. I'm in Manhattan. And while it is annoying sometimes to tell people they can't use the bathroom, and some people have an issue, it's MUCH better than dealing with: Guy who comes in weekly and takes all the napkins out of the dispensers and throws them all over the floor; the guy who would "take a shower" in the bathroom and leave the floor covered in water, and leave his loofah and soap behind; the guy who would come in and ask for a "sample coffee" 5x a day; the guy who would bring in multiple bags of cans and spread them out and organize them on the floor; the guy who would roll up his blunts and have loud explicit phone calls, and the NYPD said they couldn't do anything lol; the guy who would stay in our bathroom for 20 mins, and when we'd ask him to get out he'd sit at a table and put his needles on the table while he slept; the lady who would sit in the lobby all day and occasionally yell and insult customers

(I think paragraphs are banned on the subreddit, I wish I wasn't shadowbanned)

David Hogg is being a pig, according to Democratic National Committee insiders who are already slinging mud at the new party vice chairman.

Barely two weeks into his tenure, Hogg has been leveraging DNC contact lists to blast out messages soliciting donations to his own political action committee — from which he draws more than $100,000 in compensation a year, according to Federal Election Commission records.

...

Hogg co-founded "Leaders We Deserve" in August 2023 with the stated goal of electing young progressives to Congress and state legislatures across the country. It also provided him a six-figure income job right out of college.

Since the PAC was founded, Hogg has pocketed more than $175,000, records show, with more than $20,000 in salary payments coming in December alone, the most recent month for which public data is available.

BREAKING: Newly elected DNC Vice Chair David Hogg is using party resources to funnel donations into his own PAC—where he pays himself a six-figure salary. pic.twitter.com/2p1RY7PfGq

— Clown World ™ 🤡 (@ClownWorld_) February 15, 2025

Documents show that not only did the “Leaders we Deserve” PAC pay David Hogg $16,351.39 in May, he is also on the permanent payroll.

THIS MEANS HIS PAYMENT WAS NOT a donation. He represents the PAC with every single statement, post and speech he gives.

CALL OUT HIS LIE. pic.twitter.com/fRNDdMzkL8

— Sarah Fields (@SarahisCensored) August 9, 2024

DemocRATs learn the grift early

Upon reflection, February 24 SHOULD be a Holiday of sorts (even a Second Day for Love in addition to Valentine's Day), because the day, to me at least, just FEELS like a Holiday, in addition to it being my Birthday. I have looked it up before, and it is some sort of forgettable (Holi)day in Mexico or somewhere. February 24 Should have More Significance and Recognition like a Holiday.

!ranchers

OP

USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, "Internews Network" (IN), which has "worked with" 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and "training" over 9000 journ*lists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives.

The operation claims "offices" in over 30 countries, including main offices in US, London, Paris and regional HQs in Kiev, Bangkok and Nairobi. It is headed up by Jeanne Bourgault, who pays herself $451k a year. Bourgault worked out of the US embassy in Moscow during the early 1990s, where she was in charge of a $250m budget, and in other revolts or conflicts at critical times, before formally rotating out of six years at USAID to IN.

Bourgault's IN bio and those of its other key people and board members have been recently scrubbed from its website but remain accessible at . Records show the board being co-chaired by Democrat securocrat Richard J. Kessler and Simone Otus Coxe, wife of NVIDIA billionaire Trench Coxe, both major Democratic donors. In 2023, supported by Hillary Clinton, Bourgault launched a $10m IN fund at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). The IN page showing a picture of Bourgault at the CGI has also been deleted.

IN has at least six captive subsidiaries under unrelated names including one based out of the Cayman Islands. Since 2008, when electronic records begin, more than 95% of IN's budget has been supplied by the US government (thread follows)

USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, "Internews Network" (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and "training” over…

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 8, 2025

4,921 media outlets

You ever wonder why sometimes when you seach for things you get 75 small bull shit news articles making it impossible to find what you are looking for

That was a design, not a bug

"Internews launches new $10M fund supporting independent media at 2023 Clinton Global Initiative"

Removed Internews Network (IN) page of its chief executive Jeanne Bourgault at the Clinton Global Initiative (2023) pic.twitter.com/hKInv2i9m2

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 8, 2025

https://instagram.com/p/C6glYyqrWpl/

USAID-funded Internews went from funding media organizations with George Soros to overthrow governments in Eastern Europe to calling for advertising boycotts to censor free speech online.

This is a textbook example of U.S. regime change tactics being redirected against domestic populism and American citizens.

In the 1990s, Internews partnered with the Soros Foundation to fund media organizations in post-Soviet nations, playing a pivotal role in the color revolutions of the 2000s in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine.

During Georgia's Rose Revolution, Internews funded and trained journ*lists at Rustavi-2 TV, the leading channel driving the uprising.

"Media was very good at informing the public about what was going on, and it had a huge role in calling people onto the streets." – Marc Behrendt, former Internews director for Georgia

By 2003, in Ukraine, Internews had conducted 220 media training programs, trained over 2,800 journ*lists, and produced more than 220 television and 1,000 radio programs. It also funded Telekritika, an online outlet that played a central role in the 2004 Orange Revolution.

After Brexit and Donald Trump's election in 2016, Internews—now working with the USAID-funded World Economic Forum (WEF)—shifted its focus to pushing advertising boycotts to suppress online dissent.

What was once a U.S.-funded operation to overthrow foreign regimes is now being used to silence American citizens and dismantle Trump's populist MAGA movement.

The Price Tag?

USAID has funneled over $470 million in taxpayer dollars into Internews.

USAID-funded Internews went from funding media organizations with George Soros to overthrow governments in Eastern Europe to calling for advertising boycotts to censor free speech online.

This is a textbook example of U.S. regime change tactics being redirected against domestic… pic.twitter.com/JdNx1gb2FV

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) February 8, 2025

More connections coming from Mike Benz, previously on Joe Rogan Podcast

I can tell you where the bodies are buried here. Beyond funding a parallel Mockingbird Media propaganda army of US state-sponsored journ*lists and media outlets, USAGM plays a major role in the censorship industry through something called the OTF, the Open Technology Fund.

I can tell you where the bodies are buried here. Beyond funding a parallel Mockingbird Media propaganda army of US state-sponsored journ*lists and media outlets, USAGM plays a major role in the censorship industry through something called the OTF, the Open Technology Fund. https://t.co/evZ4SNvi4Y

— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) February 8, 2025

Connection to Reddit

Anna Soellner, a Director at Internews Network, also serves as the VP of Communications at Reddit

Anna Soellner, a Director at Internews Network, also serves as the VP of Communications at Reddit. cc: @reddit_lies pic.twitter.com/XMFe7sn0t0

— DataRepublican (small r) (@DataRepublican) February 8, 2025